Greatness — Colossians 1:15-20
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Introduction
Introduction
For my money, Tiger Woods, at his peak, was the most dominant athlete of all time. And, since it’s Masters Sunday, there’s no better time to talk about the greatest shot of his life. It was the 2005 Masters, and Tiger is battling Chris DeMarco to win his fourth Green Jacket, which is the most prestigious title in golf. And, hope is fading away for Tiger. On the 16th, Tiger needs a birdie in the worst kind of way to stay in contention for the title, but he misses the green with his approach shot, leaving him a downhill chip with almost no green to work with and the ball pinned against the rough. It’s a virtually impossible golf shot on the biggest stage, and the tournament is hanging in the balance. Then, this happened. (Show 35 second clip of chip on 16.) Tiger went on to win the Masters after that shot, which was voted the greatest shot in Master’s history. But, there’s really one word I would use to describe it: It was ‘greatness.’
We love greatness, don’t we? And, we’re drawn to greatness because God has created us that way. God has so designed you and I that we would be left in awe when we see something that is far greater than anything we could do ourselves. And, God has created us to love and look for greatness so that we might ultimately love and look for his greatness.
God’s Word
God’s Word
The reason that Paul is writing to the Church at Colossae is that false teaching had broken out within the church. False teachers were adding requirements to the gospel — you had to keep this law, observe this feast, deprive yourself of this pleasure PLUS have faith in Jesus. They believed that Jesus saved you, but then your law-keeping kept you saved. In other words, they were saying that Christ alone was insufficient to both save and keep those He saved. So, Paul wants them to see that the issue at the center of this teaching was that they just didn’t realize how great Jesus really is.
So, Paul writes what many scholars believe to be a first century hymn to prove his point. It’s like he can’t even talk about how great Jesus is without singing. What I think we’ll see is that there are two stanzas in this hymn with parallel verses in each stanza, and both stanzas flat-out hum with his greatness.
In the first stanza, you’ll see that…
Jesus is the great “Creator.”
Jesus is the great “Creator.”
Colossians 1:15–17 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 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 were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Psalm 89:27 “And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.”
As I mentioned earlier, at the heart of the Colossian heresy was the belief that Jesus was sufficient to cleanse you of your sin, but that He was insufficient for you to remain reconciled to God. For that, you must keep up certain festivals and ascetic requirements. And to dismantle that, Paul reminds them of something they likely already believed: This is God that we’re talking about! Jesus is not just some dude. Jesus is the ‘image of the invisible God.’ Jesus is God’s very essence, his character, nature and attributes, perfectly manifested in every way. He is, as Hebrews 1:3 says, the ‘exact imprint of God.’ In John 14, when Phillip tells him that if they can just see the Father it will be enough for them, Jesus responds by saying, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” In ALL of his ways and in ALL of his attributes and in ALL of his being, Jesus isn’t LIKE God. Jesus isn’t God CLOSE TO God. Jesus IS God! There is nothing that you can say about God that you cannot say about Jesus. He is “Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father,” the Nicene Creed says.
And so, Paul testifies to the power and sufficiency of Jesus’ deity in at least three descriptions.
He is the “eternal Source.”
Verse 16 says that all of the Creation is ‘by him, through him, and for him.’ Let’s think about those phrases. If it is ‘by him’, then that means that all of creation is his idea. The sun has a diameter of 864,000 miles. That means that you could hold the equivalent to 1.3 million earths inside of the sun, and it was his idea. The moon is in the perfect proximity to earth to keep us all from being flooded from out of control tides, and it was his idea. The very oxygen that you breathe is produced by plants which breath in the carbon dioxide that you breathe out, and it was his idea. There are a creatures surrounding the throne of God that are indescribable with human words, and they were his idea. From the immense solar system that orbits the sun to the miniscule electron that orbits the nucleus of the smallest atom, all that has been made, all that can be seen, all that is beyond our sight serve to show the depth, creativity, and brilliance of the mind of Christ. “For by him all things were created.”
And, creation is not just by him, it is ‘through him.’ That is, it is by Jesus’ power and with Jesus’ material that everything is made. In other words, Jesus is the source. You see, source is the great question of the universe. What is eternal? What is the source of all that was? A formula of nothing X nothing = everything is senseless. It defies the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. The Big Bang Theory is the consensus view of the scientific community for the start of the universe. And, if you were to believe in the Big Bang theory which suggests that everything came to be as a result of a cataclysmic implosion, then logic demands we ask: what was the source of that implosion? What was the source of the energy that led to such a thing? If we all originated through billions of mutations that began in a puddle and ended up as humans that can build skyscrapers and 747’s, how did the puddle get there to begin with? What is the source? There must be a source. Nothing X Nothing can’t equal Everything. Zero times zero always equals zero. Well, Paul tells us the answer. Jesus is the Big Bang! Jesus is the source! There was a time in which we weren’t, and there was a time in which earth wasn’t, and there was even a time in which there was no time, but there has never been a time in which Jesus wasn’t! He is the eternal God, the Beginning and the End, and ‘through him’ all things that are have come to be. He is the great source of all energy, all material, and all creation.
And, creation is not just by him and through him; it is ‘for him!’ That is, there is an end to which all of creation, visible and invisible is aimed. And, that aim is Christ! That means nothing is random. Nothing. It’s all created with a purpose. Lady bugs and stink bugs have a purpose. Every galaxy and Caribbean beach have a purpose. Dogwoods and azaleas have a purpose. The person you love most has a purpose. The person you dislike most has a purpose. YOU have a purpose. There’s nothing random. There’s nothing without purpose. And, the purpose of every cockroach and every dogwood, every galaxy and every infant, every molecule of water and everyone of you exists is to make the greatness of Jesus more fully known! Man, isn’t that Good News? You aren’t a cosmic accident. You aren’t an unplanned pregnancy. You aren’t just an arrangement of DNA . You were created by Someone for something, and the Someone loves you so that the something matters.
Well, he’s not just the eternal Source, He’s the…
He is the “ruling King.”
You’ll notice in verse 15 that Paul calls Jesus “the firstborn of all creation.” And, one day somebody’s probably going to knock on your door to talk about it. Both Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons want to make it out as though this shows that Jesus is, in fact, a creature and not created. They point to ‘firstborn’ as evidence that Jesus is not eternal, believing that it speaks to chronology, meaning Jesus was created; He was just the first one created. Let’s talk about it. If you read it quickly without knowing what Paul means, you can see how they can get there. “Firstborn” seems to imply that he was the first man ever born, making him the first creature ever created. But, this is where our interpretive principles help us. We don’t just approach the Bible all Willy Nilly. Because you can make the Bible say whatever you want it to say. We need to know what it means. And, one of the first questions we need to always ask when understanding a passage is: What is the context? What did Paul mean by that word when he said it? First of all, Paul has literally just said that Jesus is the eternal Creator of all things. It’s hard to believe Paul would immediately contradict himself that way. Secondly, Paul is writing this is as a Jewish Scholar, and in the Jewish scriptures, the Old Testament, ’firstborn’ is not used as a term typically referring to chronology, but to rank and position. It doesn’t speak of the time in which something existed so much as it refers to the position and rank it held. It means greatest, preeminent, superior. Let’s look at a couple of examples. Both the Torah and the nation of Israel were often referred to as God’s ‘firstborn’. And, it’s not because the Torah is the oldest book or Israel is the oldest nation, but because of the position which they hold, because of their status as God’s Law and God’s people. Psalm 89:27 helps us even more, I think. It speaks of the king sitting upon Davids throne as being the ‘firstborn’ and being the greatest king in all of the world. That’s what we’re talking about here. The point isn’t that Jesus was the first man created and born. That’s literally blasphemy based on what Paul just wrote. The point is that Jesus is the ruling the King!
I want you to especially note the terms “heaven and earth.” Paul is speaking here to the incomprehensible scope of Jesus' reign. On the earth are those things that are seen by us and known by us. Our earthly context. And, yet even here, as limited as you are, you will only behold even the smallest fraction of what is to be known and seen. (show picture of snow lotus) Think of the snow lotus. The snow lotus is one of the rarest flowers on earth. Only a handful of people see any of them in a given year, and most of them are completely inaccessible to people. They only grows above 13,000 feet in the crags of the Himalayas. So, what’s their purpose? Why would God put flowers in places where no one will ever see them? Because He sees them! Because He spreads his beauty from one end of his world to the other. Every, single white lotus SINGS of the glory of Christ who knows every single one and who has ensured his glory and greatness are proclaimed in the remotest areas on earth. And, the remote snow lotus reminds us that not a bird falls to the ground apart from the sovereignty of our king, and that means that not a single one of our sufferings will go unnoticed either — no matter how obscure or overlooked we may feel. Jesus is ruling over the earth.
And, the heavens represent everything that was created beyond our view. Our heavenly context. It represents worlds and creatures that are just as real as ours yet invisible to our eyes. It represents the myriads and myriads of creatures that John could hardly describe in human words that are surrounding the throne of God. It represents the powers of darkness and demonic influence with which we war in our flesh. And yet, every single atom, every single idea, every single thing that is or could be are beneath the rulership and dominion of Christ. Every universe, seen and unseen, known and unknown, are within Christ's dominion. NOTHING escapes the greatness of his reign! YOUR king is in charge. Do you feel the security of that? YOUR king is ruling everything and making sure the end of the book happens as it should.
And, Paul closes out the first stanza by showing that Jesus is the…
He is the Sovereign Sustainer.
And, Paul says that “in him all things hold together!” He is not only the Source of All or the King of All, but He is the Sustainer of All. Without a drip of sweat on his brow, without so much as standing from his throne, He holds our solar system and billions of others just like it perfectly in orbit. He is the glue that holds together every atom that makes up every material thing in the universe. In perfect control and without a shred of chaos, nothing is overlooked — not a lily in the field, not a bird falling from the air, not an orphan in the third world, not you on an awful Monday — NOTHING loses its place, NOTHING falls through the cracks.
Brothers and sisters, you can rest in the greatness of Jesus this morning. I know you’re worried about the possibility of a recession. I know that you’re worried about the stock market and your retirement. But, not a bird falls from the sky without him knowing? He’s got you! I know you’re worried about whether or not the job will come through, and I know that you’re so scared to lose another baby that you can hardly enjoy your pregnancy. But, He’s got you. He’s great, and He’s got you! Jesus isn’t pacing the streets over the scan you have coming up. He isn’t frantic about how your job situation is going to work out. You can sleep at night knowing that He never sleeps. He’s ALWAYS reigning, ALWAYS ruling, and ALWAYS sustaining his people by his greatness for his glory. That’s the chorus of this hymn.
And, as beautiful a picture of Jesus as that is, the Good News is that it is incomplete. It’s not even the best part. Jesus the Great Creator is also Jesus the Great Redeemer. Jesus is not only Lord over this creation, but He is Lord over the New Creation. That’s what’s held in the lyrics of the second stanza.
Jesus is the great “Redeemer.”
Jesus is the great “Redeemer.”
Colossians 1:18–20 “And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”
In this hymn, every verse of the first stanza has a parallel verse in the second stanza. The song is meant to build upon itself in such a way that builds up your awe at Jesus’ greatness.
He heads an everlasting “Church.”
Jesus is not only the the eternal source; Jesus is the head of an everlasting Church! “He is the head of the body, the church,” Paul says. Remember what Jesus did when humbled himself and became a man. He made the invisible God visible. He, as the exact imprint of God, enabled man to be able behold God in a way that they could survive. And, what does the Church do? The Church exists to make the resurrected Christ visible to world. Jesus lives out the essence of God's character and nature, and the Church lives out the essence of Jesus' Gospel and mission. When we look to Christ, we are to see the greatness of God. And, in the same way, when the world looks at us, they are to see the greatness of Christ. We are the body that is meant to put on display the thoughts and desires of our “Head.”
Don’t miss the beauty of the parallel that Paul is making between the two stanzas. He’s saying that Just like Jesus, as Creator, arranged the universe perfectly, so Jesus, as Redeemer, has arranged his church perfectly. All of the attention to detail at work in the oxygen cycle and the balancing of the ecosystems is at work in the formation of the local church. No detail is spared. No person is accidental. No gift is overlooked. Just as Jesus reigns over the universe with sovereign power and wisdom so He reigns over his church. The One who flung the solar systems into the sky and told the oceans where to stop and holds the dirt of the Himalayas in his hand is the One guiding his Church by his wisdom through his Spirit. So, when He says that the “gates of Hell” will not prevail against us, we can rest assured that our King does not make empty promises. He creates galaxies with a Word! This is nothing, man! Y’all, WE are the body of Christ. WE are his everlasting church. WE are his “beloved.” And, we ought to ask ourselves: Do we look like it? Do we live like it? Do we rest like it? Do we sing like it? Do our children and our neighbors and our coworkers see the greatness of Jesus in us?
Look at the next parallel.
He is the risen “King.”
Brothers and sisters, Jesus is not only the ruling King; He is the risen King! You’’ll notice that in our second stanza that the word ‘firstborn’ pops up again. Paul isn’t finished singing yet about the Kingship of Christ. But, this time, he brings our eyes not to his rule over the creation, but to Jesus’ rule over death. He says that He is the ‘firstborn from the dead!’ In other words, his resurrection assures our redemption. In fact, it assures the truth of the New Covenant and the re-creation of the world. The resurrection proves Jesus as Creator by exalting him as King in a new Jerusalem over a New Creation. The resurrection is the exclamation point on Jesus’ greatness!
And, Jesus' resurrection is the firstfruits of our resurrection. It assures us final victory. This morning, there may be someone here who is skeptical about Jesus. You’re unsure what to make of all of these things that we’re talking about, and you’re wondering, “How can they be so sure? How can they be so sure that Jesus is all of these things?” Well, Our confidence is found in the resurrection. We are confident that Jesus is the ruling King because He is the Risen King. The resurrection is the lynchpin of our faith. It’s the reason we live in ways that don’t make sense to you. It’s because we believe this isn’t all there is. We believe Jesus was raised from the dead, and through our faith in him, that we’re going to be raised from the dead. So, we’re living this life in light of a life to come. This morning, if you find yourself doubting the truth about Jesus, then I’d ask you: What are you going to do with the resurrection? Investigate it for yourself — with an open mine and without bias. Where did everything come from? What is the source behind the world? What is the purpose of your life? Do you have a better answer than the one given by the man whom history testifies was raised from the dead?
And, in the third parallel, you’ll…
He is the sovereign “Savior.”
Jesus is not only the sovereign Sustainer, but He is the sovereign Savior! Verses 19 and 20 are together in a way that is supposed to jar your mind. It's supposed to rock your soul. It shouldn't make sense. It shouldn't be as it is. These two verses, these two phrases should never compliment one another. How can it be that the One in whom” the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” would actually pour out “his blood” on the cross? You see, this hymn of Paul’s is a hymn of Amazing Grace. This is a hymn about how our sin is great but his mercy is more. This is a hymn about how Jesus paid it all. In his deity, He forfeited his dignity that we might be made righteous. You'll notice that Paul calls it “his” cross. Think of it. The Creator and Owner of universe, the One who owns every mountain peak and every ocean view and every starry throne also own a cross. It was supposed to be my cross and your cross, but He bought it so that it became “his” cross.
And, Jesus bought your cross at the price of his blood because that’s what redemption requires. That’s what’s required for you to be reconciled to God and for the creation to be reconciled to its Creator. Jesus is reconciling “to himself all things.” “All” that was created and broken, will be recreated and made new. By Jesus and through Jesus and for Jesus everything was made, and by Jesus and through Jesus and for Jesus everything will be made new! Jesus has come to put “all things” back in order again. He will wipe away our tears, and He will bring us home at last. Isaiah 11 says that the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard will lie down with goat. Lions will be led by children, and babies will play with cobras. Jesus is reconciling it all! He’s ALWAYS reigning, ALWAYS ruling, ALWAYS sustaining — AND ALWAYS REDEEMING — his people by his greatness for his glory. That’s the great chorus of this hymn.
Isn’t He great? Isn’t He greater than all of the trinkets and fleeting pleasures and false promises that you find in this world? Isn’t He greater than all of the fears you have and the tears you cry and the future you dread? Isn’t He great? Oh, his greatness is the Good News you need and our community needs. We were built to love greatness because we need Jesus’ greatness. Won’t you look at his greatness this morning, and let your heart be filled with a song to sing?
