Please turn to Colossians chapter 1. Colossians 1. Our text will be Colossians 1, verses 15-20, which is the passage that focuses on Christ and who exactly Christ is. But I'll be reading Colossians 1, verses 1-20. And this is the Word of the Lord. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy, our brother. To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace and peace to you from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you. Because we've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love you have for all the saints. the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you've already heard about in the Word of Truth, the Gospel that has come to you. All over the world, this Gospel is bearing fruit and growing just that it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace and all its truth. You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who's a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf and who also told us of your love in the Spirit. For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience and joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves in whom we have redemption, The forgiveness of sins. And now the text. He is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created. Things in heaven and on earth. Visible and invisible. Whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things were created by 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. Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, the words we have just read contain some of the most awesome thoughts in all of Scripture. There's a depth here that no mere human being can fathom. If we would do nothing but meditate on these verses, verses 15-20, for the rest of our lives, if that were possible. I don't think we would come close to seeing the depths and the height and the width of the glory of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And think carefully about what we're considering because it's easy for us as Christians to become completely desensitized to these kinds of texts. If you grew up in the church, and if you've heard this kind of message a thousand times, listen again. And listen all the more carefully because I would wager that you still do not realize the fullness of the glory of Christ and what He is for you. Or perhaps you're a new Christian. Perhaps you're fairly excited and you think you're bursting with enthusiasm and that you get it maybe. But I would wager that you too have not fully grasped who Jesus Christ is in all His glory. The fact is, brothers and sisters, we're quite distracted from Christ. in this life. We're quite enamored with a lot of other things besides Christ, and that suggests that we don't grasp His glory. And while we would never say it, because we know in our hearts that our hope is in Christ Jesus, that's our only hope, and we would never deny that, yet in reality, our contentment is wrapped up in all sorts of other things. I know that because that's the case for me. I'm often tempted to think that if I'm going to have a truly full life, there are all sorts of little things I have to have in addition to Christ. Well, Paul's goal in the letter of Colossians as a whole, but in these verses 15-20, is to completely shatter the illusion that you should look anywhere but Christ. That there's anything anywhere for you except in Christ. And his primary way of doing that, his primary way of getting you to see Christ is simply to meditate again on who Christ is. Who Jesus is, even though the Colossians already believe. It is my prayer that this morning we who've believed would get another glimpse, perhaps a greater glimpse of the glory of Christ. That if there are any here who have not believed, that you would see how glorious is our Christ. And that all of us would find all our fullness in Him. Now before I get into the text, I need to explain to you that Colossians 1 verses 15 to 20 forms what is called a chiasm. And that might be scary, it might seem odd, but it's actually a very simple kind of poem. We're used to the main point being at the beginning or at the end of a passage. But in a chiasm, the most important point, the central point, is in the middle. And everything in that passage leads up to that point and is meant to highlight that point. And everything following that point looks back on that point. So it's as if the text is two mirrors looking at this central point and that is what you are supposed to see. And in Colossians 1, verses 15-20, the focus of the text is in verse 17 where it says, in Him all things hold together. Or in Him all things exist. Everything before that is talking about how Jesus is Lord of creation. And everything after that talks about He's the Lord of redemption or of the new creation. But the point and the thing that we have to see is that Jesus is so glorious that all things in heaven and on earth exist in Him. So I'm going to go through the text roughly in two parts. First, Jesus being Lord of creation. And second, Jesus being Lord of the new creation. Now as we do this, I want you to remember very carefully and consciously the whole time that we are talking about a man. A human being like us here in this room. There are two evidences of that. The first one is that if you look back for context at verse 14 leading into our text, we're speaking of the One in whom we have redemption. The forgiveness of sins. In other words, the One who died on the cross. And it's a man who died on the cross. It's not the pre-incarnate Christ. It's a man, Jesus, who died on the cross. He is the One of whom we speak. But in addition to that, verse 15 says He is the image of the invisible God. In other words, He's the visible picture of the invisible God. So it's a man. The man, Jesus, of whom we're thinking. That means he was a baby. That means he was a toddler. He probably fell and hurt himself. He got hungry. He got thirsty. He got sick. He died. He is the One. And He's the only One of whom Paul's speaking in these verses. He was not a Superman. He was a man. And that man, Paul says, is the image of the invisible God. Do you realize what He is saying? Even though you've heard it a thousand times, do you realize what He's saying? In Deuteronomy 4, verses 12-15, we read that when the Israelites came near Sinai, the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form. There was only a voice. Therefore, watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves. The God of whom Jesus is the image is the God of whom the Israelites were told you can't make an image of Him. He's not a creature. He's the Creator. He's the God of whom the Israelites said, we can't go near Him, Moses. You go near Him. We don't want to hear His words. And you tell us what He says. Paul's saying, Jesus, the man who walked on this earth, He's the image of that invisible God. In other words, in seeing Jesus, we are seeing the Creator of the heavens and the earth. We are seeing the One who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. We're seeing the One who destroyed Egypt. We are seeing the God that made Isaiah cry out, Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. And the miracle on which Paul's reflecting in these verses is that Jesus, this human being, is God. That in Him, God came and became incarnate. And we can look at Him. And we can talk with Him. Philip said to Jesus in John 14, Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us. And Jesus says to Philip, Have I been with you so long and you still do not know Me, Philip? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me. But Paul adds that Jesus is also the firstborn of all creation. Now going all the way back to one of the most famous ancient Christian heretics, Arius, people have argued that this means that Jesus must be part of the creation because He's the firstborn of the creation. That means He was born. That means He's just the first among all things that were created. But if you look through your New Testaments, the word firstborn almost never is used to emphasize a time of birth. But rather, it emphasizes the idea of status. Generally, when we see the idea of firstborn, what's really important is the idea that this person is the heir of the inheritance. And so, in Psalm 89, the words that we just sang, we read about one who was not born first. He shall cry to me, You are my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. And I will make Him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. Hebrews 1 says that though in the past God spoke to us by prophets, in these last days He's spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things. So the man Jesus is not simply the image of that God at Sinai, the Creator of heavens and the earth. He's also the One who's the King of all the earth. The One for whom all the earth and all the heavens were made. Now that's the claim of v. 15 that that's who the man Jesus is. And then in v. 16, Paul goes on to defend that. He uses this word for. He says for because... Why is Jesus the image of the invisible God? Why is He the Heir of all things? Because in Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him. Often our translations put that by Him all things were created, but it literally has the phrase, in Him. And it's the same in Him that Paul uses constantly to say that believers are in Christ. In other words, All creation, everything that was created, wherever it is, was created in Christ. Nothing was created apart from Christ. The man, Jesus. John 1 says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. And the Apostle, as if he wants to make it absolutely clear, just in case someone like Arius would come along, or like the Jehovah's Witnesses would come along, he lays out what he means by all things. He says, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things. And brothers and sisters, I ask you, if Paul wanted to make it absolutely clear that Jesus created all things, how else could he put it? How much stronger does he have to put it before we see that Jesus is not creator, but that he created all things? I mean, that he's not created, but that he created all things. Jesus is not simply the greatest among creatures. He's not simply the greatest throne or power. Paul explicitly says he made the greatest thrones and powers. He made the greatest invisible beings as well as visible beings. And the only way He could have done that is if He Himself is God. And so when Genesis 1, verse 1 says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, it's talking about the man Jesus before He was man. When it says that God said, let there be light and there was light, it's talking about Jesus. When it says that God determines the number of the stars and gives them their names. That He gives rain for the earth and gives grass for the hills. That He gives beasts their food and holds all life in the palm of His hand. It's talking about the man Jesus before He was a man. Psalm 104, verse 29 says He simply has to take away our breath and we die and return to the dust. All things were created by Jesus. But Paul doesn't simply say that all things were created by Him, by this One who died for us. He says all things were created for Him. All things were created through Him and for Him at the end of verse 16. And that means that it was all created for His delight and for His glory. So that means that the farthest away galaxy that we have no idea even exists, that no person can enjoy, yet the man, Jesus, enjoys them because they were created for Him. The creatures so deep in the ocean that it's so black that we can't even get down there. We don't even know they exist. He delights in them because they were created for Him. Everyone here in this room, everyone here in Escondido, everyone in the United States, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in every country we can think of, all were created for the man Jesus who walked this earth 2,000 years ago. Now think about what that must have been like for Him. I've often wondered what it took when God became Jesus and He walked on this earth knowing that He was the Creator, knowing that He was the Judge, and yet to see what had happened to His creation. To see the sin and the suffering and the fact that we all just go about our business and we completely ignore Him, we do not give Him thanks. What did it take for Him not to judge us right then and there. He knew that He was the consuming fire. He knew that He was the one whose eyes cannot look on evil. You know, sometimes we watch the news or we read newspapers and we hear of horrible things. We hear perhaps of a rape. Something that makes us very angry or parents who abuse their children. Or some war in which thousands of innocent people are killed. And we get angry. And we say, why does that have to happen? If I could do something about that, that would not happen. But if we as sinful human beings see that when we see sin and misery in this world, how much more Jesus, who not only was perfect, but was God, who created all those people doing all those sins, for whom they were all created. But even more than that, when we spat in His face, when we said to Him, Hail, King of the Jews, And He was God, the Creator. Why did not heaven just destroy us right then and there? Have we come to grips with the fact that the man Jesus who walked this earth was that God? The demons generally got it if people didn't. So in Mark 5, they come up to Jesus and they say, do not torment us before it's time. They know who He is. And should we not all have had that response when God walked on this earth. Fear that God, the Lord of creation, is a man and He's dwelling with us. And yet what happened instead was that He served us. We spat in God's face and He washed our feet. We nailed His hands and He died for us on a cross. And He let us even come up to Him and cry out, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us. Just letting us cry out that way was mercy. Unbelievable mercy. And the reason is because Jesus is not just glorious because He's the Lord of creation, brothers and sisters. If that were all, we would be in fear. But that same Lord of creation, that same One who created all things, the same One who was at Sinai, He came to be Lord of your redemption. And He came with all the glory of a God rich in love and mercy and to be on your side. And is that not glorious? That's the second part of our text. That Jesus is Lord also of the new creation. Paul says in verse 18, and He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning. He is the firstborn from the dead that in everything He might be preeminent or He might have supremacy. Now, I hope you see or can see immediately that we have creation language again here. He's saying again, strangely in the new creation, that He's the beginning. He's using language similar to what He used in the first half of the text because He's saying He's the firstborn. And He's speaking again of all things being in Him. Now, why is Paul doing this in the language of creation? Well, to answer that question, we have to go back and think again on some things that Pastor Voss spoke about this morning. And that's that our sin as human beings was such that God had to punish it with death. We hear that many times in this church, but we must hear it again. We must never forget that. In Genesis 2, verse 17, God made it absolutely clear that on the day that you sin, you will die. And God could not change that. We had to die. And the principle is that as with man, the ruler of the creation, the one who has dominion over the creation, so goes the creation. And that meant that God also cursed the creation. The creation too had to die. And so in Genesis 3, God curses it because of man. Now the fact that we in creation had to die, that means that it would not have been enough at this point for God to give us His law. It would not have been enough for us to start obeying at this point because we had to die. It wouldn't have even been enough if He had given us His Spirit and enabled us to obey His law perfectly from that point on because we had to die. So where does that leave us? Well, God could have just wiped out creation. He could have just destroyed us all. And would that not have been easier for this man of whom we are thinking tonight, Jesus, if God had simply destroyed the whole thing and started over. But instead, our God, the Lord of heaven and earth, becomes part of this creation, becomes part of man and He takes our spit and He takes our nails and He dies. And when He dies, what God said had to happen in Genesis 2 verse 17 happened. And the old creation was dead. That means that from that point on, Jesus is not just the glorious God of creation. He's now the glorious God of mercy. And He fulfilled the obedience that we were supposed to fulfill. And He earned the life that we were supposed to fulfill. And He did all these things that we know so well. And He died. And then, He was raised from the dead again as we saw this morning. And when He was raised at that point, brothers and sisters, was the new creation. Now, we know this, but perhaps we're still thinking, if Jesus did that, why does that bring about a new creation? It's just Jesus. But the glorious thing is that God says at this point now, if you believe in My Son, if you believe in Him, I will give you My Spirit, and you too I will see as having died. And you too I will see as being alive. And when I look at you, I will say that you fulfilled what I said had to happen in Genesis 2. The old creation is dead. You are the new creation. And that's why Paul says, He is the firstborn from among the dead. Because Jesus is just the first of all of us two who are in Him and who are now alive as the new creation. Paul puts all this very clearly in Colossians 2. He says, In Him you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised Him from the dead. And you who were dead in your trespasses in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him having forgiven us all our trespasses. And then in Colossians 3, he says, you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. You have been raised with Christ. And 2 Corinthians 5 and Galatians 6 both say you are a new creation. So Jesus is said by Paul to be the beginning of a whole new order. A whole new creation. Not just glorious because of the first creation, but glorious because now He's the first among all of us. The first among a whole new race and a whole new creation. But His glory, it's not just as if the old creation was going down. It had to die. Thank goodness Jesus came and saved it. It's better than that, brothers and sisters. He made it better. The new creation is better than the old creation. So Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, he says, So is it with the resurrection from the dead. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. The old creation could die and it had to die. The new creation can never die. And that means that if we are in Christ, we have a new beginning, brothers and sisters. We are a new race of people. We have followed the firstborn from the dead in all His glory. What's amazing about all of this, as Paul says, is that we had nothing to do with it. We couldn't have done anything about it. And Jesus, by not just being Lord of creation, but by coming and being a man and suffering for us and doing all this for us, He gets all the glory. He has all the glory of both creation and the new creation. And so, when we have longings in us, when we long for the new heavens and the new earth, when we long to see death go away, when we long to see sickness go away, we need look nowhere else than Jesus in whom it all happens. He is preeminent in all things. He is first in all things. And so don't look anywhere else. If you are a believer, continue to look in Christ. If you have not yet put your faith in Christ and you long for life, don't look anywhere else. Put your faith in Him. You will then be united with Him. You will be raised with Him. And you will be a new creation. Now this all seems like astounding claims. But Paul gives the logic again for what he's saying. Just as in the first half, he defends it. In the second half, he does the same. He says, for, in verse 19, In Him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. In other words, this could not have happened if God had not dwelled with all His deity in Jesus. It couldn't have. If God had just been the God of creation, brothers and sisters, we were dead. And that's why it's absolutely crucial that we don't try to seek God apart from Jesus Christ. That's why Philip had it so wrong when He said, Lord, show us the Father. It is only through Jesus Christ, the One who died, the One who suffered, the One in whom is the new creation that we can know God. Now, some don't like that. Some find that too exclusive. And they want to be able to go straight to God apart from Jesus. They want people from all religions to be able to go to God. But brothers and sisters, it's not exclusive. It's awesome mercy for God to say, I will come and I will take on your flesh and I will die for you so that if you believe, you can be raised in new life. That is not stinginess. That is awesome mercy. For God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. So it's only because God came in human weakness. That's the only reason we can cry out to anyone, as Isaiah says, Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. We could not have proclaimed that had Jesus not suffered for us. And that's why Paul says that He reconciled to Himself all things making peace by the blood of His cross. And that means that the kind of glory that our God has, the kind of glory that Jesus has is the kind of glory that He could only have had by suffering for us and by dying on that cross. And do you see now why that glory, the glory of dying, of being a man who died and then was raised, is even greater than the glory of being the Creator. For us, it's far more glorious. For Him who loved us, it's far more glorious. And this was God, your Creator, who did this for you. I ask you again, do you realize the magnitude of what God has done for you in Jesus? Now, we might be tempted to think, especially as we're here in this earth, that, well, it's nice what Jesus did and He made for Himself a people, but that seems a pale shadow of what the creation once was. Is the church so great and so glorious? Wasn't creation far more glorious before it ever fell into sin? But Paul makes it clear that Christ isn't just redeeming the church. It's not just the church that is reconciled. He says, For in Him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven. Now that's the same earth and heaven, and it's the same all things that He created in the first place. And if you want to think of the all things that He created in earth and in heaven as being all things, then this too must be all things that He is reconciling. But then that concerns us because that seems like too much, doesn't that smack of universalism? Has Paul made an overstatement here? Well, it's clear that Paul did not believe all people would be saved. That's why in Romans 9, he says that he has unceasing anguish for the Jews. because they have not accepted and believed in Christ. I think two passages help us think this through. The first one's in Colossians as well. Colossians 2, verses 14 and 15. If you look there, Paul's speaking of how Christ's work on the cross canceled the record of debt that stood against us because of the law, and he nailed that law to the cross. And now listen to what happened. We're thinking of what happened on the cross here. And Paul says, He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Him. And the imagery that we have here is like a triumphal victory when by hanging on that cross, what's really happening is Christ is taking the devil and all His enemies and putting them on a public parade like when people would throw tomatoes. He's made a public spectacle of them. Now you say, well, how does the cross make a public spectacle of Satan? How does Christ triumph over them on the cross? Well, if you go back again to the garden, Satan's whole purpose was to remove us from God's authority by tempting us and making us follow Him instead. And as long as we were sinners and not reconciled to God, Satan was the victor. But when Christ dies, when we are reconciled, Satan is defeated. He no longer has his people. And so even though he bruises Christ's heel, His head is crushed. But again, if the cross is a victory over evil, how is that a reconciliation? That still leaves us with the question of how all things are reconciled. Well, in Philippians 2, verse 10 and 11, we read that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. In other words, every single thing the all things of Colossians 1, whether it wants to or whether it doesn't, will be brought in subjection to Christ because of what He did on the cross. Now, that's not the kind of reconciliation that those bent on hating Christ would like, perhaps. But it is the kind of reconciliation that puts everything right where it belongs. Everything is subject to Christ. And evil will be put right where it goes in hell, receiving all God's wrath. And that will be a good thing. And everyone will praise God for that justice. And all His people will be brought to be with Him in the new heavens and the new earth. And everything will be right. All things. The creation as a whole completely reconciled to God. But that doesn't answer all our questions. Because it seems like on the cross, Christ just redeemed for Himself a people. So, even if we understand all these other things as being reconciled by being defeated by Christ, what about the creation? What about animals and plants and this earth that are going to be destroyed by fire? Well, in Romans 8, verse 19, Paul says, for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. And if you recall, as I said back in the garden, As goes man who had dominion over the creation, so goes the creation. Because God had to curse man, He had to curse the creation. But when man is redeemed, when the sons of God are revealed, when a new creation of people comes forth, then all creation is also reconciled. And Paul goes on to explain in Romans 8 that the creation has been groaning with the pains of childbirth for the very reason that it's waiting to bring forth the people of God. And so, when Christ dies on the cross and He reconciles us, not only is He also subjecting the devil, He's also reconciling the entire creation so that all things, that farthest away galaxy of which we don't know, that creature in the deepest sea, all of it made right and made perfect. Is that not a glorious God that we serve? And think back to what I said that He is that same God at Sinai and yet He does all this for us. And He says, now you come and be part of My glory. Just put your faith in Me and all of this is yours as well. Again, do you see the magnitude of the glory of Christ? And now perhaps we see why the heart of the passage is in verse 17, that in Him all things hold together. We've seen three in him's in this passage. The first one, in him, God created all things. Then in him, God reconciles all things. In him, all things hold together. And this all things literally means all things. There are many temptations in the Christian life. And as the letter from Colossians shows, and as we all know from our own experience, we're constantly tempted to add something to our Christian life. We're constantly tempted to find glory, to find contentment somewhere else. And whether it's we think that we need our family to be a certain way, whether it's that we think the world needs to be a certain way to feel like God's truly in control and doing all things right, perhaps it's that we think that we need to add something to our worship to give it glory, or to add to God's law to give our life a feeling of religion, When we seek glory in these things, brothers and sisters, it's a denial that all our glory is in Christ Jesus. Paul says of Him, in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And then in Colossians 2, verse 8, not long after our text, he says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily and you have been filled within him who is the head of all rule and all authority and so Paul says to the Colossians don't let people judge you don't let them judge you in terms of what you eat or drink don't let them force you into ascetic lifestyles don't let them make you look anywhere but Christ don't let them take your freedom from Christ into you that means don't look anywhere but Christ if in Him is all your glory. But instead, be able to look to Him and say, whatever gain I have in this world, I count as loss for the sake of knowing Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. As Paul said, I am willing to suffer the loss of all things and count them as dung, Manure for the sake of knowing Christ. Does not Jesus, does He not have all the glory that we could ever imagine anyone having? And do we not have such a great inheritance when we look to Him? And should this not fill us with such joy that we can say with the song, I will not boast in anything. No gifts, no power, no wisdom. But I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection. To Jesus be all glory, praise, and adoration. Amen.