Colossians: Part 2 - Jesus is Enough
Colossians 1:15-23
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
We are continuing our Colossians series today. Pastor Lauren kicked us off last week with week one in a sermon called "Life Worthy of the Lord." If you haven't listened to it yet, I would encourage you to go back. We're going to continue today. I want to start off with a question for you guys. How many of you like to cook? Raise your hand if you are okay. Now, I've asked this question. A lot of people have conversations about cooking and I find there's a spectrum, right? There's some of us that like to follow a recipe to the tee. You bring out your recipe. Maybe you have done what some professional chefs say is the most important thing, which is to read through all of it first, not as you go along, but to read through it all at the beginning. You're prepared. You're leveling off every tablespoon. It's very exact. Then maybe on the other side of the spectrum, for those who like to cook, are those who, shall we say, are more creative and just want to ad lib? The pan is your canvas and you're the artist and you're just grabbing whatever and you're like, "That looks good, sounds good." And maybe you're somewhere in between, wherever that is.
My dad was kind of more the latter. He was our pancake guy every weekend. He made pancakes and that's pretty straightforward. He just made great pancakes. But every once in a while, he'd make scrambled eggs. And when we came down for scrambled eggs, we knew that we would never get the same scrambled eggs ever. And they were good. I don't want to say like, they were good, but we knew that if we come down and he'd be making scrambled eggs and the spice drawer was open and we're like, "All right, we don't know what he's added." And he might not know what he's added because he just kind of was like, "Yeah, sure." And self-admitted, he would say this himself, there were a few times that there were more spice than eggs and you'd take a bite and maybe there was a crunch, a lot of crunching. And we're like, "Dad, what'd you add?" And he's like, "Yeah, I'm not sure." It's open and it's over there. "Oh, nutmeg, really, nutmeg." And just a little pizzazz.
But yeah, a few times, I don't know if you've had that experience where maybe you've had a dish, you've eaten something and there's a lot, maybe you ordered something and you're like, "Man, I really wanted this, but I'm getting all this other stuff. And I'm not even tasting what I really wanted to taste." Or maybe you did it to yourself or maybe you ordered something and they did it to you and you're like, "Man, that chef just got carried away." But this happens in other areas of life too besides food, right? Maybe technology, maybe some of us are like, "Man, I just wanted a TV and I just want to turn it on and I want to be able to hit channel and scroll. But now I have to go to this app, to this app, and that app, and I have to push in this." And it's too much. It's too much. It's a lot. It also happens maybe in social conversations where you are engaging with someone in conversation and they just seem to force, like you walk away from that conversation, you're like, "Man, that was a lot of heavy stuff. And I wasn't signed up for like a big heavy conversation right now and we just got forced into going deep." Or maybe it's the other way where you're like, "Hey, I did want to talk about some real stuff and all they seemed to talk about was lighthearted weather and we never got to talk about anything real.”
It can also happen in our spiritual lives where we can happen in our Christian faith where we're trying to add too much to our faith, our understanding of faith. We try to add too much to the gospel. We try to add too much on how to get to heaven, how to live out the Christian life. And we can run the risk of going off course in our beliefs and getting away from what's truly needed and what's true to the gospel. And so the point, to the point where we believe in like the gospel and, we believe in the gospel and this and that. Where our faith and our faith practices might have started with the Bible, but we've added a bunch around it and proclaimed that all these other things are just as essential, just as important as the gospel.
As Pastor Lorne mentioned last week, this is some of what's happening in the church, in the early church, especially in Coliseum, where Paul was in prison and he heard a report about false teaching from this city. And people were saying, "Hey, Jesus was good and the gospel that he taught was good, but that's just the start. We need to add some other things to it. It's not enough." And they were saying that basically Jesus isn't enough. And we have to understand at this time in ancient culture, it was a very polytheistic view, right? Polytheism, the worship of many gods. We are monotheistic, the worship of one god. But embracing polytheism is what helped the Roman Empire spread and to have such a strong empire. As they were conquered different nations, they didn't say, "Hey, you got to get rid of your religion." They would say, "Hey, you can keep your religion. You just got to add our Roman gods to who you worship, especially Caesar." And then people are like, "Okay, that's fine. Well, we've already got a bunch of gods. We'll add a few more. That's fantastic." And so it just helped them spread. So the culture at the time was very polytheistic.
And even in our modern world today, we have people with similar tendencies who just kind of gather everything that's out there and just accumulate different beliefs and worship practices and styles. I was having a conversation sometime last year at this point and met a guy and just kind of casually mentioned that I was a pastor. And he was like, "Oh, I believe in God." And things can get squirrely when you mention that you're a pastor. And when they say they believe in God, I'm always kind of like, "Okay, well, I don't know what God. And let's see what you're talking about." So there's some follow-up questions. And come to find out, he did believe in his words, "Some of the Bible." So I was like, "Oh, okay, some of the Bible. You're familiar with the Bible." But I'm also Wiccan. And I also have these, I really like these Buddhist practices. And I was like, "Okay, gotcha. Yeah, I'm starting to understand." And again, just like it's the gospel and, right, this and a bunch of other stuff. Maybe you know some people who claim to believe in God, but once you get below the surface and you see who they worship or how they worship, your mind is, the flags are going off of like, "This isn't exactly what the Bible says. It's not aligned with the gospel." And so this is the situation that Paul is hearing. He's in prison, but he's heard that this is happening. And even from the church leaders, it wasn't just in the city, it was the church leaders who were sharing this. And he's like, "We gotta address this. This has gotta stop." They were saying the person and work of Jesus isn't enough. And it was like they were in the kitchen and they're at church and they're just like, "Yeah, we'll start here, but we're gonna add this. We're gonna add this.”
And so let's read what Paul says in response to that. If you guys want to turn in your Bibles to Colossians 1, it'll be in verse 15. It'll be up on the screen. Chapter 1, verse 15 through 23. It reads, "The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you wholly in His sight without blemish and free from accusation. If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel, this is the gospel that you have heard that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.”
You guys pray with me one more time. God, thank You for Your Word. What a gift to know the truth. And God, I pray that You would speak to us this morning, God, that we would know You in a deeper way, come to understand You and who You are and what You do. And I pray that we would leave this morning with a deeper faith, a stronger faith, and a deeper appreciation for the work that You have done on the cross and that You are doing in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. And God, I pray for everyone in this room. And I just sense that there's a lot on people's hearts and minds, and we all come with a certain burden. And I pray that You would help us right now to lay that before You, to surrender that to You, God, to trust You with whatever it is that we're going through, and to recognize that You are God over all, and that Jesus, You are enough. So I pray this in Your holy name. Amen.
Paul's point is that Jesus is enough. Nothing needs to, and really nothing can be, added to the person and work of Christ. As the Lord over all creation, He is more than enough for every believer. And this morning, I want to go verse by verse and dive deeper into Paul's response to what is happening in the early church. And again, a theme, I can't, if you only take one thing away, Jesus is enough. And I love how it continues this thread that we've had in our church over the last several months and several series of having Sundays where we just focus in on who God is or who Christ is. We've done this in our Advent series and our Christian-ish series, and now in our Colossians series, where we just get to have a Sunday where we just get to better know who God is and come to a deeper appreciation and knowledge where we can give Him more of our lives and worship Him in a deeper way. So that's going to be our morning today. The first thing we see in our section here is Jesus' work as creator and sustainer. Jesus' work as creator and sustainer. In these verses, Paul begins addressing the polytheism at the time. And he tells us that God not only created what no other God could do, but He also sustains His work. It counters this thought that we, you might have heard today, where God, maybe people might say like God might have created the world, but then He just stepped away from it. He hasn't been in touch with it since. And this says, no, He created and He sustains. He holds it all together.
Verse 15, it says, "The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." That first phrase, "the image of the invisible God," this is garden language. What I mean by that is the Garden of Eden. The very beginning of the Bible, we hear that man was woman and man were created in God's image. And so this is again, bringing us back to tying this all in. Paul's trying to paint this whole picture in firstborn. It says, "the firstborn over all creation." This does not mean that Jesus was the first thing created. I think some people can read that and misinterpret that as like, "Oh, so God was there, then He created Jesus." No, not what he is saying. The firstborn in ancient culture was the one who had inherited the power and everything that the father had, the firstborn also had that privilege. And so that's the image that Paul is trying to convey here. It speaks to Jesus's sovereignty and supremacy over creation. He is the new and better Adam, the one with no sin, who has a perfect and harmonious relationship with God. And so he reigns over all creation.
Verse 16 says, "For in Him, all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through Him and for Him." So Paul is saying that Jesus was there at creation. He was there creating. And all of creation glorified Him because He created it all. The physical, the spiritual, the visible, the invisible, the natural and the supernatural, Jesus is over it all. Everything and everyone is subject to His authority and power. Now, this doesn't mean that we don't live in a world of sin. We do it. And it doesn't mean that Jesus is controlling everything like a puppeteer. That's not. We have free will in this world. People can and do deny God, reject God, rebel against God every moment of every day. But Paul is simply stating that Jesus reigns over it all and nothing and no one is outside His power and rule.
Verse 17 says, "He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together." This is, I think, one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible and my favorite verse in Colossians. "In Him, all things hold together." I just think of the news headlines that we hear so often. How often do we hear things like, "The rainforest is going to be gone in 15 years." Or, "The glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, ecosystems are collapsing, pollution is killing our oceans." It's very like the world is just falling apart. Now, don't get me wrong. All those are concerning and deeply like that's, I don't know how all that works. I just know that it's bad. And as Christians, I think we should care about the environment. We are partners with God to rule and reign over creation. We are partners with Him. So I do love hearing positive headlines about that where someone's created helpful ways to clean up the oceans or how deserts that have been expanding and the sands are just getting wider and wider and how people have started to be able to figure out how to plant things in the desert and reclaim. That's incredible. I love that. But whatever the headline, concern is a healthy response. But concern doesn't need to grow to hopelessness or doom and gloom demeanor because we believe that Jesus is holding all things together. That means He's actively, ongoingly, continuously holding our world together, working through humanity, but also supernaturally in ways that we cannot see. He is holding this world together. And that doesn't just mean the physical world, things that we, the world that we live in, but the world leaders and the powers that be, religious cults or terrorist groups that are hell-bent on hurting others for a better world, to the angry people in our neighborhoods who are so divisive on next door, you know, sometimes I wonder how this world hasn't fallen apart more and how there isn't more chaos and how people haven't succumbed more to the sin and selfishness that runs rampant in our society. And some people would say, well, it's because there's good people out there. It's the good in us that keeps this world together. And I, maybe there's some truth to that, but I know that we're all sinners, all of us, even the best of us are sinners. And so I attribute it to the goodness and grace of God, Christ's sovereignty over the entire world, humanity too. He is holding this world together.
So I want to pause right there after this first couple of verses, this section, and seeing Christ as our creator and sustainer, I want to ask us, who is holding your world together? Who is holding your life together? Is it Jesus or is it you? Are you trying to do it all? Are you trying to white knuckle your way through this life? Are you carrying everything that is going on in your life and saying, I will figure this out, I will do it. Or do you depend on and rely on and surrender to Jesus and let him sustain you? Who is more than capable, who loves you more than anyone else, who is holding the entire world together. And so certainly he can hold your life together. So who is holding your world together right now? So we continue the next section that Paul gets into, we see Jesus' work on the cross. In these verses, we see that Christ is the leader of the church and it is only in and through him that the body of Christ, the church, can mature and develop and grow.
Verse 18 says, "And he is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy." So it mentions the head of the church. This is an analogy that the Bible uses, Jesus taught on it, Paul teaches on it. We think of the church as a physical body. Some of us are an arm or a leg or a tendon, a ligament, an elbow, whatever it may be. Paul is saying Jesus is the head. He is the most important part. And he is affirming, and it says that he is also in the beginning and the firstborn of the dead. Paul is affirming here, sorry, the resurrection of Christ. Because some didn't think that he actually died, and so he's saying no, he did die. And he's affirming that Christ died and rose. And he's sharing the hope that we as Christians have in Christ's resurrection. As we share in Christ's death, he dies the death that we deserve. We will not be defeated by death at the end of our time here on earth. Our physical bodies will die, but we know that we will have eternal life with God in heaven. And Jesus is the first one to go through that and then ascend into heaven. And so that's the firstborn. He's the first one to do it. He paves the way, and we get to follow him.
Verse 19 says, "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him." God was fully present in Christ. Christ was fully God and fully man. And Paul helps connect in the people's minds the realization and fulfillment of what God had been doing with Israel for centuries upon centuries. I think this is so fascinating. In the Old Testament, God dwelled in the tabernacle. So Israel was in Egypt. God brought them out of Egypt and brings them to the wilderness. And in the ancient times, people thought that all deities lived in the high places. So mountaintops were often associated with like up on that mountain. That's where this God dwells. And so God, Yahweh, brings Israel out to the desert, into the wilderness, and gathers them. And then he's up on the mountain, Mount Sinai. And he talks with Moses for a bit. He met them on the mountain. But God didn't stay on the mountain. He goes down and he makes plans to dwell with his people. This is one of the biggest indicators to Israel at the time that this God is different. This God doesn't stay up on the mountain away from us. This God comes and dwells with us. So he instructed Israel to build a tabernacle, which is a tent temple. So eventually they were going to have the temple, but they were in the wilderness. They weren't in the promised land yet. So he's like, "Hey, until we get there, build a tent for me. I'll come down and I'll dwell in this tent." So God came down and filled the tabernacle with his glory as a sign of his presence among the people. And the prophet Isaiah interprets this cloud that fills the tent as the Holy Spirit. Now, does this sound familiar to our reality today? This act was God's gracious act of friendship to Israel. And it's the same gracious act of friendship to us today. Jesus is the fulfillment of what God had been doing for centuries, embodied in flesh, incarnate.As John chapter 1, verse 14 says, "The word became flesh and dwelt among us." So Jesus came down to dwell with humanity like never before. They had had a taste of it in the Old Testament with God in the tabernacle, but now Jesus had come down in person. And why? Why did he do this?
Verse 20, "So through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross." He did this to reconcile us to God, to offer opportunity for a restored relationship with God, to how it was before sin entered the world. Theologian John Barry says, "The purpose of Christ's death on the cross was to bring all things created by Christ and for Christ into harmonious relationship." I love that, harmonious relationship. Because the entire world was touched by sin, marred by sin, affected by sin, every part from us as humanity to the ground that we walk on. And Christ came to redeem and to restore. And it's only through Christ's sacrifice that there is hope. Only through his blood on the cross, like that hymn that maybe you're familiar with, only through the blood. It's only through Christ's sacrifice on the cross that we can have a relationship with God. Only through Christ and Christ alone that we can live a life to the fullest and have hope of eternal life. Christ died so that we can live in harmony with God.
So I just want to ask this question right now, as we reflect on these verses and why Christ came and the possible harmony that we can have with God. Are you, right now in life, as you reflect on where you're at, what's going on, are you living in harmony with God? Do you live realizing that Christ died on the cross for you? That you might have a harmonious relationship with God? That your only hope is in the work of the cross. Nothing else on this earth, as good as it sounds, as helpful as it may appear, nothing can save you but Christ. His death equals your salvation. It's the only way. It's the only way to live a harmonious life. And so are you living in harmony with God? Paul continues. In the last section of our passage this morning, we see Jesus' transformational work in us. So we've seen him as creator and sustainer. We've seen what he did on the cross. And now Paul goes into what he does in our lives. Paul addresses the past, present, and future for believers. Past is our former reality, our sinful life. He addresses our present, which is our ongoing rescue. And he addresses the future, our hope of heaven. All of creation, humanity included, awaits the consummation of Christ's work when there is no more sin in the world, when Christ returns again. But until then, we wait with hope and we live for him. If believers, if we are to be presented as holy and blameless and above reproach, then we must continue to be stable and steadfast in our faith.
So Paul says in verse 21, "Once you were alienated from God and you were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior." Right? This is everyone's reality. We are sinners. And just as Adam and Eve were cast out from the garden because of their sin, we are born into a reality without harmonious relationship with God. So how do we gain that necessary right standing with God again? Well, it's through Christ and only Christ, verse 22. "But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation." I keep saying this, but it's worth repeating. Christ's work on the cross has done it all. There is nothing else needed, nothing to be added to get us into heaven, to get us into have a relationship with God. Christ is sufficient. And I don't mean that in the, like, he's fine. Like, it's okay. It's just enough. Like that negative connotation of sufficient. I mean, he is supremely sufficient. Jesus is enough. He is more than enough. Paul mentions here Christ's physical body. And again, this is Paul's way of just addressing some rumors out there at the time that Jesus didn't have a physical body. So what he endured and what he did wasn't all that special. But we know that Christ was fully God, fully man, had a physical body. And so he endured the pain, the torture, the suffering, and he died a gruesome, cruel death. And he did this to present you holy in the sight of God without blemish and free from accusation. Jesus did this so that the reality mentioned in verse 21, us lacking a harmonious relationship with God, could be flipped, could be undone. And that way, we don't have to remain banished from God's presence, but we can enjoy intimacy and personal relationship with God, the Lord of all. And again, what Christ did on the cross is the only thing that can change that status, our status with God. That phrase, free from accusation, is because as sinners, when God looks at us, all he sees is our sin. As great of a life as you can live, all he sees when he looks at you is your sin. But once we are saved, that means that Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is now dwelling in us. And so when God looks at us, he sees the perfection of Christ, blameless, holy, free from accusation. And because of Christ, we are then able to be in his presence.
Verse 23 says, "If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel." Paul is addressing the crossroads that the church in Colossae is at. With what they're doing, the practices that they're involved with, he's charging them to continue to trust Christ and live out the gospel message. It's that live out the gospel message and how you live your life. Every part of it must honor and worship God. They have to stop observing and practicing the different rules and traditions which threaten to lead them away from Jesus. He's saying that Jesus, or he's saying that faith in Christ isn't simply a way of entering God's kingdom, it's the way of life within the kingdom. Let me repeat that. Paul is saying that faith in Christ isn't simply a way of entering God's kingdom, it's the way of life within the kingdom. This is so important. This means faith in Christ doesn't just change where we go after we die, it changes how we live now. The way we live our life today should be changed because of Christ dwelling in us.
So I want to ask this final question. What crossroads are you at in life? What is the spirit calling you away from in order to pursue God fully? I don't know what other spiritual practices and habits or religions that you may have come from or are with right now. We all had different upbringings and grew up in different scenarios and so I think at this point in life we've been in touch with several other faith traditions. I think Paul is asking us just to hold everything up to the gospel and say, "Does this, whatever you're doing in life, does it align with what the gospel says?" And if you haven't taken the time to kind of assess what you do and how you live out your faith, I would encourage you to do that this week. What does your faith practice look like? Yes, you go to church, maybe you pray, but maybe there's some other things that are woven in there, or maybe some thoughts of when things get tough or whatever it is, and I tend to think this, hold that all up to the gospel and say, "Is this what Christ demands of me and how I live my life?" The gospel tells us what it means to follow Jesus. The gospel tells us what it means to be saved. The gospel tells us who Jesus is and that he is enough. As we close, I just want to say that we pastors are here for you, and we want to walk alongside you as we all walk together towards God. And our prayer is that God is working in each and every one of you to grow in your knowledge and faith in him, that we know better through time how he is the creator and sustainer of this world, of the world that we live in, that we know better his work on the cross and all that truly happened from his death and resurrection, and we know better through his spirit, the transformational work that happens in our hearts, and that we would all come to a place where we know and believe and live out of faith where Christ is enough and that Christ is over everything. I pray that that would be true for us, that we would know that deeply this week.
Would you guys pray with me? God, pray that your word would be a swift word passing from our ears to our hearts and from our hearts to our words and our actions, that we may be transformed to be more like Christ inside and out. And so as the rains don't return empty but yield life, we pray that your word would do the same and not return empty, but do what it was given for, which is to produce Christ-like life within us and from us. God, I pray that you would this week reveal to us ways in which we are not living in step with you. And God, that you would give us the courage and the strength to repent of things we need to repent from, that you would give us insight and wisdom on how to chase you and pursue you with everything that we have. And God, I pray for those of us who are dealing with doubt, that we don't know for sure if you are enough, that you would reassure us, give us the faith to believe and live every day knowing that you are enough, you are more than enough. Strengthen us, God, through your Holy Spirit. Give us what we need, that we would depend on you daily. We love you, God. We pray this in your name. Amen.