Colossians 1:15-24 Christ is supreme

Colossians 1:15-24

Colossians. What a book! Christ is supreme. What a joy to be focussed on him, our Creator, our head, our saviour, our joy, our life.

So far in chapter 1 we’ve been reminded that the gospel is a GIFT from God, and our lives are lived in gratitude. 6 This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about GOD’s wonderful grace.

Our lives change as we hear and understand the truth. V9 and 10 make the same point: We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 Then the way you live will always honour and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit.

So, you want live a life pleasing to God, producing good fruit? You need to KNOW and UNDERSTAND the truth. If this is new to you, grab the MP3 of the sermon online!

Last week we saw how Paul launches into his hymn of praise about our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God… 18… He is first in everything. 19 For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ,

We were reminded of the truths that Christ is our all in all, because he is God; and Christ is our all in all, because he is human.

Jesus is the visible image of God, and indeed the fullness of God.
And therefore we need nothing else. In Christ we become who we are born to be. He is the image of God, like we are meant to be – and in Him we too can reflect the glory of God.

Christ is our all in all, because he is God; and Christ is our all in all, because he is human. Again, if you missed last week – well, you missed out! Download the talk, listen to it, and spend time as we did in adoration and admiration of our Saviour!

Now on to this week. More fuel for our adoration! We’ll spend some time thinking about how Christ is our Creator (v15-16), Christ is our destiny (we are made to glorify Christ) (v16-17), Christ is our head, and we are his body (v18-19), Christ has made peace (v20-22), and, finally, our response is to not be moved from Christ (v23).

1. Christ is our Creator (V15-16)

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, 16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.

Christ is God, and part of being God is being the Creator.

Christ is not part of creation. God did not create him first, then everything else. v15 says “he existed before anything as created” and v17 says again, for those who are a bit slow: He existed before anything else. If he is pre-existent then he must be God for only God existed before anything else was created.

Everything is created through him, including angels, demons and all other things in the heavens and upon the earth. Many false teachers claim Jesus is just an angel – another spiritual being. Even the Pharisees in their desperation accused Jesus of being the devil. But what does the Bible say? 16 He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.

Christ is as superior to the spirit world of angels and demons as a painter is to his painting. That is why 2:18–19 says Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, 19 and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body.

Why worship angels instead of the one who made the angels? That’s like trying to talking to this book instead of my Dad. The book is far inferior to knowing the author! Why would you worship what is made (the book) rather than the Maker (my Dad)?

What does this mean for us? Only Christ is worthy of our worship. All other things are idols – mere things made by God. Even great things, powerful things, even angels – these are made by Christ, and he is therefore superior to them. Do not be tempted to worship them, to follow them. Fallen angels, demons, the Devil: they may promise easy power, or a form of religion where you are in control, or a more tame “God” to worship, or a pick-your-own morality. Don’t fall for the lie. Next to Christ they are nothing, a clanging gong, an empty ringing bell, without rhyme or reason. He is the symphony of our soul, the rumbling glorious song of praise throughout the universe.

He is our Creator.

He is our Creator, and he made us for his good pleasure.

2. Christ is our destiny (I am here to glorify Christ)

Ever ask the question “why am I here?” “What is my purpose in life?” “Why was I born?”

My sister did. She asked my Dad: “Daddy, why am I me?”
“Ummm. Well, you see, um, when a man loves a woman, um. Er.... ”
“Daddy, if I wasn’t me, would I be somebody else?”
“Errr. Well, um. You see”
Now he always ends this story by saying “go and ask your mother” – but I think that’s for laughs rather than what he said!
But it’s a good question, isn’t it? “Why am I me?”

And the answer is at the end of v16. See it there? Everything was created through him and...for him.

You were made for Christ. You were made for his good pleasure. You were made to be part of his body, the church over which he is head. You were made to be blameless and holy, without fault, standing in his own presence without a single fault. 2:7 Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. In fact, in chapter 3 Paul goes so far as to say that Christ is our life. Look at 3:2-4  Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.

We were made for him. We are his body. Our lives are built on him. Indeed he is our real life. We live for Christ, and him alone.

And he is the one who holds all things together. Look at v17 He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.
Every breath we take is a gift from him. We are totally dependent on him. We remind ourselves of that every time we pray. That’s why prayer is so important – it is a declaration of dependence on Him who holds all things together. We are his.

How often do we forget that? We pursue our own goals, our own desires, our own pleasures, without ever stopping to think: is this what Christ wants? We need to live intentionally – that is, live thinking about how we are living. We do not just let life happen to us, but we challenge ourselves, bringing our lives under the lordship of Christ. How am I serving Christ in my work? How am I serving Christ with my wife? With my kids? How am I serving Christ in my free time, in my holidays, with my friends, in my church?

A little example from my work: why did I think that a job as a Chartered Accountant was more or less secure than, say, starting a church? Why am I tempted to trust in my own abilities rather than the grace of God? As if he does not know what I need, and is unable to provide it. He provides each breath, and I worry and fret about my salary? Foolish boy!

Why am I me? I am me to give glory to Christ.

We were made for him. And one of the ways we show this, is through church. How we care for each other, relate to each other, and reach the lost, reveals what we truly think about Christ. For

3. Christ is our head, and we are his body (v18-19)

Look at v18 Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. He is the head of the church. He is supreme over all who rise from the dead – that’s us by the way! Those who rise from the dead. We have been called to life by Christ.

The word translated supreme is the word “firstborn”. This both means first (as in supreme) but also has the idea of the firstborn son in mind: the one who will inherit the family fortune. Christ is not only supreme in the church, but also the inheritor, the owner, of all those raised to life. We belong to him.

He is our Head, our Leader, our Master.

Church is, therefore, not primarily about us, about meeting our needs (even our spiritual needs). Church is about Christ. We are here to honour him, to praise him, to obey him – together.

He is our head, and we are his body. We are joined to each other. There are not many heads, but one head, and every Christian is joined together in one worldwide, universal body. And we here are a reflection of that. We are joined together, united, one body, under one head: Christ. And we are incomplete without each other. Just like a hand cannot be by itself – it must be joined to the rest of the body – so we cannot survive without our Christian brothers and sisters. The church is our lifeline, our connection to each other and to our head.

Further, because we are his body, we are the way Christ works in the world. He works through the church.

It’s not surprising then that the next verse then says: For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him reconcile everything to himself. That is our job as his body: to reveal the fullness of God that is found in Christ, and to proclaim to the world the reconciliation achieved by Christ. As it says in 3:16 Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. 17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

Let this rich message about Christ fill our lives, so whatever we do, we do it as representatives of Christ. That is our job, that is who we are.

Because he, Christ, is our head. We are twice his: we are his because he created us, and we are his because he has called us to new life. Creation and salvation. We are his.

How foolish we are when we talk about “my life” “my job” “my family” “my house” “my car” – all that am is Christ’s. All that I have he has given me. How does that change the way that I live?
I need to see all things, all relationships, as coming from his hands.

We will live forever. This life will be gone in a moment. He is our head. He is our Creator. He is our destiny (we are made for him). Let us live like it.

4. Christ has made peace (v20-22)

Now by this stage some of us might be getting frustrated. It’s been very much about “theology” and about attitudes and ways of thinking. Where’s the “ten steps to a better life” or “How to get God to do what you want” sorry, I mean “5 Power-packed principles to unleash God’s blessing”.
But seriously, these verses are frustrating, though, aren’t they? They are Christ-focussed almost to the exclusion of everything else. They are not about us, but about him. The glory goes to him, not to us. Him, him him. First in everything. First in creation. First in the church.

And we think: but what about me?

Ugh. What an ego we have. What delusions of grandeur that we should share the stage with He who called light into being in the darkness, He who placed the stars in the sky, He who says to the waves “no further” – He who rules all things, sustains all things. And we want to push ourselves forward in front of Him and say “me, meeee, meeeeeeee!”.

20 through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. 21 This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.

Evil thoughts and actions. Selfishness. Self-obsession. Wanting our own glory. My life. My decisions. All that. Because theology IS important. It uncovers our motivations, uncovers our heart. Why do we do the things we do? It’s quite possible to go to church, be a nice person, even lead people to Christ – without knowing Christ. All done to our praise and glory.

Oh, how I hate that part of me! The self-obsessed ego, purring over his own performance, influence, power. It infects everything, from my relationship with my wife and children, to my view of God. Festering, rotten, self-obsession. Praise God, then, for v22 Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault

Oh, what relief! He knows my ego. He knows my hatred of him. He knows that I am far from him with my evil thoughts and actions. He knows I want to take his place, take the glory that it is. He knows I keep forgetting that my life belongs to him. And yet he does not simply wipe me out with a word. Instead, He has reconciled me to himself. This is his action, not mine. He has declared me holy, blameless, without a single fault. And if you are his, He has declared you holy, blameless, without a single fault.

Christ has made peace. Praise him!

5. Do not move from Christ (v23)

This then is what we must do. This is our performance, our response: 23 But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News.

Grasp hold of Christ like a drowning man on to the lifeguard and DON’T LET GO! Only a fool dives off the rescue boat to get some trinket – but that’s what we are like when we are tempted to abandon Christ for ANYTHING ELSE, however shiny and attractive it may seem.

Christ is our Creator (v15-16), Christ is our destiny (we are made for him, to glorify him) (v16-17), Christ is our head, and we are his body (v18-19) – and if after that we are filled with shame because our lives do not ring out “I belong to Christ!” in every moment – praise him, for Christ has made peace (v20-22), and our response is to grasp hold of that peace, our Saviour’s outstretched hand, and hang on for dear live. Brothers, sisters, do not be moved from Christ (v23).