We're going to read our scripture today. It's from Colossians 1, verses 15 through 20. Colossians 1, verses 15 through 20. This is on the preeminence of Christ. Christ having first place in our lives. Let me read this part of God's word for you. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of 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. 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. Amen. Let's bow and pray together. Father, now will you be with us as we study this part of scripture, as we look at it together, will your Holy Spirit be our teacher. Will you help us to read, to understand, and to be, Father, challenged about the way we live this week. We thank you that you have given us hope beyond our normal lives and that you've shown us that there is a way of joy and hope and peace in Christ and peace with you. And we make our prayer thanking you in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. When you study the Bible, you see that certain books have themes. I mean, we think about certain books that of the Bible that have a particular theme. And we remember that as we've studied them, like Hebrews, for instance, think of Hebrews is Jesus is greater than all. We think Jesus is greater than the angels. He says Jesus is greater than Moses, greater than the prophets. He's greater than the priesthood. Jesus is greater than everything. And then Jonah, the book of Jonah, tells us that God loves lost people, even Israel's hated enemies, that the people of Nineveh weren't to be despised, but that they, too, needed to hear about how to have a relationship with God. Genesis is the theme, more or less, of the book of beginnings. You know, we think of the beginning of marriage, the beginning of creation. The beginning of the families, the beginning of Israel through Abraham being called. Matthew shows us that Jesus was the Messiah and that he fulfilled the Old Testament scriptures that were all about the Messiah. So you see, when we look at different books in the Bible, we see how they have a theme. Now, when you come to Colossians, what do you find? When you come to Colossians, you see that Colossians tells us that Jesus must have first place in everything. That Jesus must have the first place in everything. Now, every one of us has something in life that is in first place, don't we? And I heard a fellow say, you can find out what the first thing in your life is. It's the first thing that you think about when your mind kind of comes out of neutral. You know, if you go, you're not thinking about anything, then all of a sudden, where does your mind go? He says, that's how you know what's in first in your life. Whether when we're rested or nervous or under pressure, what do we think about? Where do we go? Well, young people, we think about when they're, you know, what they think about first place in their life is often romance, girlfriend, boyfriend things. For adults that are working, we think many of them are, the first thing that they think about is work and success at work. Or maybe it's making money and improving their life circumstance. Or maybe it's eventually about having goals like a retirement place somewhere, a special place by the lake or a vacation home in the mountains. So oftentimes we come back to certain things, don't we? And oftentimes don't those things take on kind of a life of their own? They become, more or less, first place in our life. That's where we go. We keep thinking about, well, if I only had success in my job, or if I only made this amount of money, or if I only had a relationship with that person, we think about certain things. And those tend to be in first place. Now, most of us in this part of the world, we don't think of that as an idol. We think idolatry is the thing that The people, the Hindus, you know, they have all these idols and you look at a Hindu temple and you'll see all these carvings of all these gods and we'll say, well, those people have idols. But what about us? Have we put the wrong things as first place in our life and do those things become idols? Well, it seems like that is easy. Idolatry is not just. reserved for people in India or in the East. Our idols can be wealth or success or fame or beauty or even freedom. In our hearts, something has to be in first place. Something has to be there. In the letter that we're reading this morning in Colossians, This letter tells us the Apostle Paul is reminding us that Christ must be in first place in our hearts, in everything, that Christ must be first in everything, that he must have preeminence, that he must be at the first place. And that's where he must be always. Colossians chapter one, verse 15, let me read it for you again. Colossians 1 15 says this. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Christ must be in first place in our life because he is the image of the invisible God. In other words, God has explained himself to us. He has shown himself to us through sending his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not that Jesus looks like God. It didn't really matter what Jesus looked like, but Jesus demonstrated what God was like by His character. He showed us what God was like by the way He dealt with people. His compassion, Jesus reaches out to the leper, to the blind person, to the man with the crippled arm, to the widow of Nain's son who is dead and they're carrying him out of the city. Jesus showed compassion and grace. He showed judgment when he threw the money changers out of the temple. He showed the characteristics of God. Love, compassion, grace, mercy, prayerfulness. He showed characteristics of God by being with us. He is the image of the invisible God. Nobody has seen God. Remember that's what it says in the book of John? In John chapter 14 at verse 8, Philip said, Lord, will you show us the Father and it'll be enough for us? And Jesus said, have I been with you so long, Philip, that you've not come to know me yet? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? You see, God has shown us who He is. Jesus was saying, Philip, you've seen me. You've seen the Father. You've seen how I acted towards you. You've seen how I've acted towards the scribes and the Pharisees. You've seen how I've dealt with hypocrisy. You've seen how I've dealt with this, with the needy, with the poor, with the hurting, with the lame, the sick, the blind. You've seen what God is like. I've been with you all this time and you've missed it. Jesus is the earthly image of the invisible God. Now, we know the Father because we know the Son. We know the Father because we know the Son. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. And Jesus must be in first place in our life, too, because He is the firstborn of all creation. That's what verse 15 says. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Now, Jesus must be in first place in our life because He's the firstborn of creation. But let me tell you what that doesn't mean. A lot of times people say, oh, He's the firstborn of creation. And by that, so the Bible is just teaching us He's just a part of creation. Or He's just the first thing that God made. So He's not God. He's not equal with the Father. He's just the first thing the Father created when He created. Well, that's not true, is it? The Bible doesn't teach that at all. Look at the very next verse, Colossians 1 verse 16. The very next verse after what we've just read. Notice what it says. For by Him, by Jesus, by Christ, all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through Him and for Him. So Jesus is first born in creation in the fact that He is first in priority over all of creation. That He is first in priority because He is over all creation. He is the Lord of all creation. He is the one that created all things. How can you be the creator and something created at the same time? You can't be. And the Bible teaches us that Jesus is the agent of creation. He is the person of the Trinity that created the world. And therefore, as the creator of this world, He can't be part of the creation. So Jesus is not less than God the Father. He is equal with God the Father. He is not down here. He is up here. He is not a part of creation. He is the creator of creation. So when somebody comes up to you and says, Jesus never claimed to be God, you can say, oh, that's not true. Read the book of John. Before Abraham was, I am. He used the very name of God in reference to himself. All right. So when he is the firstborn of creation, that means he has first place in all of creation as the creator. He is first in priority of all things. We see that by him all things were created, things in heaven and things on the earth. In John chapter 1 verses 1 to 3, you remember what it says. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. See? He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. In him was life and the life was the light of the world. When you look at John chapter one, you see that Christ is. There he is called the word that he was there at creation with the father, God, the father, and all things came to being into being through him. All things came to pass through him. Without him, nothing came to pass. Not one thing came into being except through the creator. Through Jesus, God the Son, the Word, the agent of creation. He is never to be considered inferior as the Son. It's his role. The Father had a role to carry out, the Son has a role to carry out, the Holy Spirit has a role to carry out. Each of the persons of the Trinity are equal in power and glory. The same in substance, equal in power and glory is how our confession says it. And that's what Christians have believed since the very beginning. He created everything visible and invisible, mountains, seas, plains, he created the invisible world, the world we can't see yet, the world of heaven, the world of angels, the world of glorious creatures that are worshiping around the throne of God now. The things that we will one day see, that we can't see now, Jesus created. He created all things, visible and invisible. Now, I want you to think of the implications of that. If Jesus has created the world that we live in, and He created you, then you're not an accident. You are not a chance being. Your life has meaning and purpose because God has made you. He has designed you. He has designed you with purpose. Junior was telling me something right before the service began. He says there's two little tubes. that keep fluid in them. Now, when that fluid comes out, it's very acidic. When it comes out, if it comes out of the pancreas during surgery, that acid can come out and dissolve anything that it touches. But as long as it's in those tubes, as long as it's contained, it's harmless. But if it comes out of those tubes around the pancreas, then it does damage. Now, think about how God does that. The miracle of life, of design. Chance did not create you. Chance did not form you. You were created by the thoughtful, purposeful, sovereign Lord who made you. Your life has meaning because God made you after His image, after His likeness. You are a person. You have morals and you have thinking choices. You make choices. So your life is not an accident, but you were made on purpose because God loved you and made you like he wanted you to be made. Now, if you thought that you were just born and that one day you'll just die and that's the end, I mean, that's not Christian. And number two, it's not even true. Because we've been made for God, so we'll have a relationship with him. And when we die, if we know Christ, we're going to be with him forever. We are eternal. We're going to live forever somewhere. For those who know Christ, you live forever with him in eternity with joy and blessing. But for those who don't know Christ, we know that the Bible tells us they're away from him and will live eternally in pain and sorrow and anguish. We are eternal creatures who have been made by the Father. We're made by the Son. We're purposefully made. We have a reason to exist. We have a reason to live and we'll live as long as he wants us to live. And he'll take us when he's ready to take us. That's why human life is important. That's why we don't slaughter people when they get too old and we just throw them in the some container building and pull the plug on them and say, your time's up. We don't need you anymore. Every life is valuable. And therefore, every life must be cared for because that person is made in the image of God. You are not an accident, but God has made you for himself. Jesus must have first place in your life because he is your maker. He has made you and designed you and has a purpose for your life. And he must be in first place in your life because he is the one who made you and designed you for this. And Jesus must have first place in your life because he holds all things together. Doesn't it make sense that if Jesus made everything, If He made the universe, if He made everything that we see, then He can hold it together? Why is it that our planet hadn't been destroyed? I mean, the other day we had in the news, you remember there was a meteor that came sailing into Russia, comes all the way through the atmosphere, is not burned up, it comes in, it hits the sound barrier, and it breaks thousands of windows in this one community in Russia. And all that glass was broken and was flying around and a lot of people, a thousand people were injured, mostly by flying glass. Now if this is a chance universe, how come some huge meteor hadn't smacked earth and just burned us up and destroyed us? You see, the reason that we're here is because God has kept us here. Because God holds this universe together. Because God is the one who holds this planet together. It doesn't explode. We don't get too close to the sun and burn up. We don't get too far away from the sun and freeze to death. We don't have our oxygen all evaporate and we can't breathe and we instantly die. God is the one who holds this together. He keeps us here. He ought to be first place in your life because He keeps us. He holds us. He holds everything together. If this is a chance universe and there's no God, then our planet could be destroyed at any time. But if God is God, If Jesus is holding all things together, if he's the one that sovereignly made us, if he spoke the word and we came into existence, then when he's ready for us, we'll be done. But not until then. Now, I want you to look at verse 19 of Colossians, chapter one, verse 19, it says this, for it was the father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him. Jesus must have first place in your life because all the fullness of the Godhead lives in Jesus. How can we understand this miracle that took place when Christ came to earth? Christ was a hundred percent God and he was a hundred percent man. He was the God-man. He was fully human. He was fully divine. He had the fullness of deity in Him. That's a mystery. We can't explain that. But it's true. We know it's true because here it says, the fullness of deity, the fullness of the Godhead was in Him. The fullness of deity in Christ. You know, I always laugh, don't you, when those guys think they're going to get Jesus? The scribes and the Pharisees, you know, they're going to get Him. They're going to pull this question on Him. They're going to do this to Him. They've got the woman taken in adultery and they're going to bring her right there to Him and say, now what should we do? She was taken in the very act of adultery. What are you going to do with her? You know, and Jesus says, is there any of you that are without sin? Those of you that are without sin, you pick up the rock and you throw the first stone and stone this woman. You have a perfect right to do that. Go ahead. And not one of them could do it. Because none of them were without sin. You don't take on God. When they tried, every time they tried, they lost. Every time they tried to win an argument, they lost. Because he's 100% God and 100% man. Jesus must have first place in our life because he was fully divine. And God has earned all of our devotion, our worship, every bit of our good intentions of our life, we must put at his disposal because he is God. When you think about all the reasons that Jesus should have first place in your life, don't miss the one in verse 20. Look at verse 20. And through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, through him I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. Back in verse 18, he's called firstborn of the dead. Jesus must have first place in your life because he did He died on the cross for you. Jesus must have first place in your life because he's the one that died for you. Because he took your place, because he went to the cross and took the penalty for sin, which was death for you. God the Father poured out the wrath of judgment on Christ. He took that for you. He ought to have first place in your life because he took that for you. He drank the cup of God's wrath for you. He took your sins on his cross. He went and did that for you, and he did it freely because he loved you. His blood was the sin offering that satisfied the justice of God. He did that for you. That's why Christ ought to have first place in your life. It says he reconciled all things to himself. You know, we were unreconciled to God, weren't we? We weren't reconciled to God. Our minds, we were the. We were on the outside. And you know, when you're on the outside, it's, you know, like Adam and Eve when they sinned, what happens? Well, they hide and they try to cover themselves because all of a sudden the guilt and the shame of what they've done has overpowered them. And they know that they're sinners now and that they know that they don't deserve to have any relationship with this pure and holy God. So they run and go hide. They're out of fellowship with God. They're unreconciled to God. They're going to hide from him. They're going to ignore him. They're going to try to get away from him because they're afraid of him. They were never afraid before. And you see people today, we we today. Are afraid of God, aren't we? Many people are afraid to die and they're afraid to die because they're afraid that God's going to hold them accountable for their sins. We don't have it. Nobody has to tell me I'm a sinner. I know it. You know it. And we're oftentimes afraid to die because we're afraid that God's going to call us to account for those things when we stand before Him. And we're afraid to die because we know if I have to stand and pay for anything that I've done, it's over for me. And you know what God says? God says to us, I've already paid that bill. You're reconciled with me. There's peace with God. There's therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. We don't have to be afraid anymore. You don't have to be afraid of death. Oh, death, where's your sting? Oh, great, where's your victory? Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. He ought to be number one in your life because he's taken the judgment for you. He died and took it. Let's say, let's just talk about, let's give an illustration. Let's think about what would happen if you're a soldier in Afghanistan and you're in a convoy and that convoy is going along and all of a sudden you start to get some fire from the rocks above you as you go through a pass. And while you're in that, one of your buddies gets out of the Humvee and he runs over to the rocks on the side and he starts making his way up the side of the mountain because he's going to get the snipers that are firing at you and your buddies in the convoy. And while he's out there, he fires and then he says to you, go on, go on, get the convoy out of here. I will take the snipers. And you drive your convoy out of that pass, out of that close enclosure where the snipers are firing on you, to get away from that deadly fire. And your buddy's back there in the rocks, turning his firepower on the snipers. But all of a sudden, the snipers turn all of their attention not to the convoy anymore, but they turn the attention to that one guy that's over there in the rocks, your buddy. And all of a sudden, he catches it. And he gets hit and he dies. Now, when you come home from Afghanistan, what do you do? Well, you probably are going to go see that wife. The wife of your buddy who died protecting you. And you're going to think about the fact that you owe that man your life. That you owe that man everything. That the reason that you're here today is because that man died in the past for you. It's the same thing in Christianity, isn't it? It's the same obligation that we have because somebody else died for us. Because somebody else stood in the gap for us. Because somebody else went to the cross for us. Because somebody else took the judgment for us. There's no sacrifice that's too great to make for that one. If Jesus is first place in your life, If Jesus is first place for all of these reasons, then there is no sacrifice that we can make that is too great for the Lord Jesus. Is there? If he's done all of that for us, is there any sacrifice that's too great? Our life is not our own. We've been bought with a price. That's what the scripture says. So we can give up our plans for our life. The plans that we had, we can give them up if God says something different. You have to forgive those who He tells you to forgive because He tells you to forgive them. You have to love those that He tells you to love. You have to give your life to Him. You have to give your children to Him. You have to give up your control to Him. You have to give up your comforts for Him. You have to give up control over your money for Him. There's a whole list, isn't there, of things that we do because we owe Him everything. Is anything too great to give Him? Jesus must have first place in your life because He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. He is the one that reconciles you to the Father. Are you trusting in that today? Are you trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you know that He is your Lord and Savior? Do you know that you've put all your hope in Him, that you're not counting on anything in your life to get you to Heaven, but that you're trusting in this One who did everything for you? Do you know that? If you don't, may I say to you, please trust in Him today. He is life, and He's done this for you, so that you might know Him and know what life everlasting is. Let's bow and pray. Father, I thank You that we can just realize that You've done everything for us, and since You've done everything, we owe You our lives, we owe You everything that we are, everything that we have, everything that we'll ever have. And we owe these things to You, Father. We know that You've loved us and given Yourself. Jesus gave Himself for us. We thank You that, Father, You sent Your Son for our behalf, on our behalf, to have life and to have life in Him. Help us this week not to retain control and to give up those things that You tell us to give up and to do what You tell us to do. We make our prayers in the mighty name, the name above every other, the name of Jesus. Amen.