The proclamation of God's word is coming from Colossians 1 verses 15-23. 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. 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. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body a flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless, and above reproach before him. If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. The first time I ever heard of this verse was as a high school student, senior in high school, applying for colleges. And I applied to Covenant College, and I found out that their motto was, in all things, Christ preeminent. And at the time, I remember thinking, oh, that's kind of a cool statement. That's kind of neat to hear. And yeah, that's kind of cool. And that was as much as my little 18-year-old brain gave thought to that. And so then I prepare, and I go to college, and I get to college, and the first, I felt like two weeks of classes, it did not matter what class I walked into, one of our professors, my professor was talking about this idea of in all things Christ preeminent, and what that meant for a worldview, and what that meant for us to have a Christian worldview, and what a Christian worldview was, and they just hammered on that. Over and over and over and it didn't matter if I was in Bible class if I was in youth ministry class if I was in history class English class later on when I took science classes. I Avoided all math classes in college But all of my math my friends who took math classes it came up in there as well It didn't matter what subject you went into the professors were talking about this idea that in all things Christ is is preeminent, that we are to look at the world as Christians in a different, in a unique way than a non-Christian would look at the world. And so as you think about this idea that in all things Christ is preeminent, that we are to look at the world through a Christian worldview, what kind of thoughts come to your heart and mind? Perhaps you first and foremost might say, Matt, would you please stop talking about Covenant College? We get it that you really liked it there. But after you get past that thought, what is your thought, what thoughts come to your mind of like, man, that's really cool. Perhaps that's a statement that you've never really thought about before, and you're not really sure what it means, or maybe you have heard it. And you're sitting back going, I don't fully know that I understand what a Christian worldview is, or what it means, or what that word preeminent even means. Not a common word in normal everyday language. Or perhaps you sit there and go, of course! Of course I look at the world through a Christian worldview. Of course Jesus is preeminent in everything. But examine your own heart this morning. Is He really preeminent in everything? Do you really look at the world through a Christian worldview? Or perhaps you go, of course Jesus is preeminent. Yes, I am all in. I completely buy it. but yet you recognize how much you and I struggle day in and day out to really live in this kind of a mindset, with this kind of a perspective, with this kind of a lens on life. In Colossians, so Colossians is one of Paul's epistles, and this passage here, talking about Christ as preeminent, and this passage here is kind of the heart and the theme of Paul's book of the Colossians. So as I just said, Colossians is an epistle of the Apostle Paul, which just simply means it's a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at at Colossae, in the city of Colossae. And so Paul became a believer through a vision, and as a result of that, God called him to be a great church planner throughout the ancient world, and he wrote 13 letters. And each one of those 13 letters follows a very similar pattern, that if we can get this simple pattern in our minds, it might be helpful to us as we think about as we think about this study or any of other of Paul's letters. And if this sounds familiar and you've heard this before, I stole it from somebody else. But so here's the basic outline of every one of Paul's epistles. Grace to you. There's this great greeting that he starts every epistle off with. Then he says, I thank my God for you, and I pray for you. And then he moves into this section talking about holding fast to the gospel. That's the section that we are entering into this morning is this idea of holding fast to the gospel. And then he moves every one of his epistles into, and he says something along the lines of, For the love of all things holy, stop being stupid." Or stop being foolish is maybe a little bit more appropriate way to say that, but the perfunctory of the first way is a very impactful way that helps us remember what he's saying there. And then the fifth one is Timothy says hi. And that's basically the outline of every one of Paul's epistles. He runs through all five of those elements. And so if we can hold that in our minds, it helps us flow through it. Dave gave a great sermon last week talking about the grace and peace to you and the thanksgiving and prayer that God had for the Colossians. And now we move into the heart of what Paul wants to get across to the Colossians. And what we begin to see in this passage is that Jesus is supreme, and Jesus is sufficient. Jesus is supreme, and because he is supreme, Jesus is sufficient for everything that we could possibly need. And so this church at Colossae, we don't know exactly what the challenge is that they're facing. It's not really spelled out for us real clearly. As we look at this letter to this church, what we can presume is that there's some other outside voice or some other false teacher that's trying to convince the Colossians that there's either something in addition to Jesus or that you need to have in order to have the gospel, or that Jesus is somehow something lesser than God, but there's some sort of influence that's trying to convince them that tradition, or another religion, or other teachings, or something else is just as important, or perhaps even more important than Jesus. And Paul goes back to the Colossians and says, no, no, no, I want you to remember, First and foremost, Jesus is supreme. And what do we mean by that? And he begins in these first few verses to explain what it means that Jesus is supreme. First and foremost, it says Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Now think about that statement versus the statement that is made in Genesis about all of us. We are made in the image of God. Colossians 1.15 says Jesus is the image of God. To see Jesus is to see God. And every one of the commentaries that I read related to this passage all pointed out that this is written slightly more than 30 years after Jesus was crucified. So the audience that Paul is talking to, if this is a little bit more than 30 years after Jesus has been crucified, that means that the audience that's receiving this letter were either eyewitnesses to Jesus' death and crucifixion, they saw it happen, they were in Jerusalem on that day, or maybe their parents were, or maybe there was a friend there. But nonetheless, they have eyewitnesses accounts of Jesus' death and crucifixion. And 30 years later, Paul is making this bold, strong, emphatic statement that Jesus is the image of God. Jesus spent his entire earthly ministry trying to convince everyone that the kingdom of God had come and that he was the Son of Man, he was the Son of God, he was the Messiah, trying to convince everyone that he was God. And when he was crucified, there was not a single soul on the planet that we are aware of that got that or understood it. Nobody understood that Jesus really was God. Or they had straight up disbelieved it and rejected it. When you look at the apostles and the disciples who followed Jesus, their response to the resurrection was that of disbelief. They didn't fully get it and understand it. And now, just 30 years later, Paul, in great boldness and beauty and poetry in here, says Jesus is the image of God. To see Jesus is to see God. And then he goes on and he said, not only is Jesus the image of the invisible God, Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. Now, firstborn in this context does not mean the first who was born, like the oldest child in your family. That's not what this means. Firstborn means something greater, something bigger, something higher than that. It springboards off and uses the language here of Psalm 89 verse 27. that says, and I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of all the earth. So often, there's religions like Jehovah's Witness and others that would say, well, Jesus is the son of God, of course, he was born to God, because, and they will point to this passage, and they will say, well, see, it says right there, he was the firstborn. But when you look back at the context in the Old Testament, you see that firstborn means that he is the king, that he is the highest, that he is the greatest of all who were born. And to make the point even further, Paul continues on and say, he is not just the firstborn, he is the firstborn of all of creation. Look at verse 16, for by him, by Jesus, 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. So if Jesus is the creator of all things, How is he the first one who was born? How is he one of the creatures? It says, no, Paul is making the emphasis, Jesus is supreme. He is the image of God. He is the firstborn. He is the creator. He is the creator of heaven and earth and all things were made by him, through him and for him. He is a creator of all things. And if you don't think that word all is all that important, Paul uses it seven times in five verses and throws it in everything as well. So eight different times, Paul is making this superlative statement. No, no, no, not some things, not kind of things, not some things here and there, and not this over there. No, no, no, no. All things are made by God. by Him. God, Jesus is an agent at creation. He is a part of which God is creating the universe through. They are made by Him and they are made through Him. He is, I said that wrong, they are made through Him, meaning that they are made in Jesus's, I'm sorry, they are made by Him, meaning that they are within Jesus's sphere of influence. All things are made by Him. Jesus was in God's sphere of influence in the creation. All things are made through Him. He is God's agent. And all things are made to Him. They are made for His glory and praise. All things on heaven All things in heaven, heaven itself is made in, I'm sorry, is made by, through, and for Jesus. And all things on earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the oceans, the forests, the animals, the insects, the fish of the sea, the birds in the air, the billions of people that have ever existed, those people who are in big, huge, massive cities, and those people who are in little, itty-bitty, tiny villages, those animals that have been created in forests, that have been made, that no human eye has ever seen or touched or been a part of, Jesus made all of it. All of creation is made by, through, and for Jesus. And to emphasize it even more, He says that which is visible, and that which is invisible. He says that which are thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities, all things were created by Him, and through Him, and for Him, And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. And then verse 18, and he is the head of the body, the church. So Jesus is the image of God. Jesus is supreme. He is the image of God. He is the firstborn. He is the creator. And then Paul takes it from this macro, massive, huge level and brings it down to a super small micro level really fast. And he says he is the head of the church. He is the head of his body. He is the head of his church who he died and rose again for. It says that he is the firstborn of the dead. And Paul brings it down and says on a macro level, Jesus is supreme in all of creation. But Jesus is also supreme in His church, which He has made for His glory, for His honor, for His praise. He is the one who has brought all things under His power. And as such, in verse 18, it concludes with that idea that in everything, Christ, Jesus, is preeminent. He is first. He is the lens by which we are to view all of creation, everything that takes place, all that goes on in the world. He is that lens. Jesus is the image of God. Jesus is the firstborn. Jesus is the creator. Jesus is the head of the church. And Jesus is preeminent. There is no division between sacred and secular. That idea of the separation of church and state that exists in our country is a false dichotomy and a dualism that does not exist in life. There is no separation between the sacred and the secular. If Jesus is supreme over everything, if Jesus is the one who rules and reigns over everything in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, powers, authorities, if he is the one who rules over it all, there is no difference between sacred and secular. They are all one. Jesus is preeminent. Jesus is the ruler. Jesus is the King. Let that sink in for a minute for the beauty and the wonder and the awe of that. Think about that for a moment, that He is the one in which we can look at the entire world through. And when we look at the world through Jesus, all of life begins to make sense. All of life becomes clear. All of our hurts, our pains, our sorrows, the difficulties, the sufferings that we face, they don't become easier. but they do begin to make sense to us. They begin to become clear when we look at the world through the lens of Jesus. When we look at the world through the fact that he is the preeminent one, he is the firstborn, he is God, and he is the one who rules and reigns over everything, and he is good, and he can be trusted. When we look at life through that lens, all of life begins to make sense. It begins to become clear. Several years ago while we were in college, Michelle and I were doing one of our many north to south or south to north trips that we took, because my parents were in Michigan at the time and her parents were in Wisconsin and we were in Chattanooga. And we're driving across the country on one of these trips. And we had gotten up early in the morning and she did not bother to put in her contacts that day. Now, Michelle is legally blind without her contacts in. And I'm not joking. I'm actually serious. She's very legally blind. It's kind of funny actually. But we're driving down the interstate. She's gonna kill me later, but we'll deal with that then. We're driving down the interstate and she's wearing her glasses and she takes her glasses off and she goes, I think I could drive without my glasses on. I'm like, yeah, right. And so I was like, okay, what does that sign say? And she's looking at it. and looking at it, all of a sudden, boom! And she goes, that was the speed limit sign. I was like, okay, what did it say? 70 miles an hour. It's like, lucky guess. And she does it like two or three more times and she nails it every single time. And all of a sudden I look at her and I went, are you guessing what the signs say based on like its shape or something? And she goes, no, I can't even tell the shape of it. All I can see is the color. I'm just guessing from there. But when she puts her contacts in, when she has her contacts in, her vision is better than mine without any correction at all. Her vision is such that everything becomes clear. She can function and operate in life. She can, everything begins to make sense, signs, and the ability to drive becomes safe. But in that, how illustrative of that is us in our lives? When we don't have our Jesus glasses on, something bad is going to happen. When we do not recognize that Jesus is supreme, that He is the King, that He is the ruler, that He is the image of God, the firstborn of God, that all of creation was made through Him, that He is the head of the church, that He is the one who is preeminent, and which makes all of life make sense and line up. When we see that, all of a sudden, everything that we face in life, becomes clear, and we begin to understand who Jesus is as our Savior and as our Lord, as the King who is supreme. And if Jesus is the King who is supreme, Jesus is also the King who is sufficient. If He is the One who is supreme, and He is good and holy and righteous, if He is loving and faithful, If He is the One who sacrificed Himself, is He of the firstborn among the dead, then Jesus is sufficient. Take a look at verse 19. 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. For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. In Jesus, God completely dwells. And as God completely dwells within Jesus, if Jesus is God, then Jesus can be our righteous, perfect, holy sacrifice to reconcile us to God, to renew that relationship, to reconcile all things, as this passage says, all things in heaven. Have you ever thought about that before? There's something in heaven that has to be reconciled by the blood of Jesus. There is something in heaven that needs to be reconciled to God because of the blood of Jesus. And what needs to be reconciled to God is the fact that we are sinners, broken, lost, rebellious. We are sinful and therefore heaven has been affected by that. But not only has heaven been affected by that, the earth has been affected by our sin. Animal kingdom and the stars in the sky and the natural disasters that occur from hurricanes, to tornadoes, to earthquakes, to wildfires, to floods. None of that works right in this world. Our world is broken and needs to be reconciled, and it's broken because of yours and my sin. Because of our sinful rebellion against God, the heavens need to be reconciled, the earth needs to be reconciled, other people need to be reconciled in relationship with us and in relationship with one another. And we need to be reconciled. We need to be reconciled to our Heavenly Father. Why? He goes on to say it at the beginning of the following verse. In verse 21, it says that we are three things. And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death. It says we are alienated. We are in separated relationship from God. We are not welcome in His presence without the reconciliation of Jesus. We are born in sin. As David says, from the moment we were conceived, we were sinful. At birth, we are sinful. We are not sinners because we sin. We sinned because we are sinners. We are born alienated from God. We have inherited our sinful nature from Adam who rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden. We are alienated and in broken relationship with God. And if that's hard to believe, He continues on and says, not only are you alienated in relationship with God from birth, you've added your own sin to it. It says we are hostile in minds to God. In other words, we rebel against God in our heart and our mind. We think evil, wicked, terrible thoughts. We reject God's authority. We try to live our own way. We try to figure it out on our own. We think that we can do better than God. We are hostile to God. And if you don't think, if you sit there and you might think, well, actually, you know what? I really don't care about God at all. I'm completely apathetic in my attitude and perspective of God. I don't think He has any forbearance on anything that takes place in my life. That, in and of itself, apathy, is hostility towards God. Apathy is hostility towards God just as much as active rebellion is hostility towards God. And he doesn't just say it's in your heart and in your mind. He says that our deeds are evil. Our deeds are not okay, do not just need to be fixed a little bit, do not need just some tweaking. No. Paul looks at us and says we need to be reconciled to God because our deeds are evil, wicked, sinful, rebellious, rejecting of our God. We worship other gods and other idols, idols and gods of money and of power and of accomplishment, of making great names for ourselves, of seeking pleasure. We use the Lord's name in vain. We reject Him and we live the way we want to on the Sabbath. We disobey our parents. We murder, but perhaps not in the physical sense, but in a sense of hatred of our brother and sister. We commit adultery, some physically, some in their hearts and minds, some through pornography, some through lust. We steal. We steal physically from one another. We steal mentally from one another. We steal emotionally from one another, using them to prop up ourselves. We bear false witness, and we deceive, and we tweak, and we tell white lies, and we tell bold-faced lies, and we make the truth look more favorable to us. We bear false witness, and we covet. We long for that which is not ours, and we'll manipulate, and we'll twist things, and we'll try to arrange things so that we can get it for ourselves. We are hostile in mind to God. We are doers of evil deeds. But Jesus, by His death, by His resurrection, through His perfect, righteous, holy life, through being arrested, betrayed, hung on a cross, through His death and burial, He became our perfect sacrifice so that we could have life, so that we could have freedom, so that we could have hope, so that we could be reconciled in our relationship with God and brought back together with Him. and listen to the second half of that verse 21. I'm sorry, the second half of verse 22. We were reconciled in the body of flesh by his death in order to present you. You and I are made holy and blameless and above reproach before him. In Christ, we are made holy, we are made blameless, we are made above reproach. This is a description of justification, that Jesus died to forgive us of our sins, and He imputed upon us His righteousness, and you and I, if we are in Christ, we are reconciled with God. We are one with Him. We are with Him now and forevermore. And nothing will ever change that. Nothing can ever change that. Because He is the One who came. He is the One who is supreme. He is the One who is sufficient. He is the One who has made us holy, who has made us blameless, who has reconciled us, who has made us above reproach. You and I are made holy. How amazing is that? And it is done by the blood of His death. Because He was perfect and righteous, He is raised from the dead. And He, as He raises from the dead, you and I are set free. Jesus is sufficient. We have been made new. We have been made right by our Maker and Creator. Jesus is supreme. He rules and reigns over everything. So therefore, He is the one who is sufficient and He is the only one who can make us new and make us right once again. About a year ago, we were ready to get rid of our 2004 Toyota Sequoia that had about 250,000 miles on it. We were having some power steering issues with it. And we had spent thousands of dollars to get it repaired. And then it was still broken. And we went back and we had more work done. And we went back and they said it was going to be thousands of more dollars to get it repaired and to make it work right again. And I had reached the end of myself. And I was like, I am done with this car. But my wife and daughter both love this car dearly. And if we get rid of this car, then I got to figure out something else for my now 18 year old daughter to begin to drive, who when she drives the Sequoia, one of the first times she drove it, she gets home and she goes, dad, I love that car. I feel like a boss driving that car. Michelle's been driving that car for years and years. It's been an amazing car for our family. And so I'm like, you know what? I'm kind of done with this. I can't spend that much more money on it. It's getting close to what it's worth to even do that. And so I was like, you know what, I'm going to give it one more shot, and I'm going to take it to the Toyota dealership, and I'm going to see what they can do. So I take it into the Toyota dealership, and they look at me and they go, hey, you had some work done at a local shop, didn't you? I was like, yeah. They're like, well, they put the wrong power steering hoses on it. If you just put Toyota parts back on it once again, and you put Toyota parts back into the power steering system once again, it will begin to work correctly again. The hoses that they put on it would collapse and not allow the fluid to go through, and that's why it wouldn't steer correctly. It just needed to be remade back to what it was originally designed to be. We had to take it to its maker in order for it to get repaired. You and I can look at anything else in this world and we can think that all of these other things are gonna repair us and heal us and fix us. And these will answer all of our questions in life. These will heal my sin. This will soothe my soul. This will make me so that I'm not tired and weary all of the time anymore. And none of them work. Jesus is the one who is supreme. And as such, Jesus is the one who is sufficient. And He is the only one that can reconcile us. He is the only one who can make us new. He is the only one who can draw us back to our Heavenly Father and repair that relationship so that we can dwell with Him now and forevermore. And so what is our response to this? But take a look at verse 23. Our response, first and foremost, is, Indeed, you continue in the faith. There is a call here to respond. This is not an earning of our salvation. This is not an earning of our favor with God. This is not an earning of our reconciliation with God. This is God saying, I have reconciled you now. Here is your response. Continue in the faith. So often I hear people say, hey, you know, I'm like, you could ask them, how do you know that you're a Christian? Well, when I was 10 years old, five years old, 25 years old, I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior. And I, if I was being bold in the moment, I would look at them and go, that means absolutely nothing. Because if you look at this passage, that might be the first time that you confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior. But look at this passage. It doesn't say your hope in the supremacy of Jesus is based on what you did when you were five or 10 or 12 years old. It says continue on in the faith now. Our hope in Jesus does not come from a profession of faith we made five to 25 years ago. Our hope in Jesus comes as we continue in the faith now, here, because He has made us new, because He has made us righteous, because He has made us holy and blameless and above reproach. By the blood of His cross, we are called to continue on in the faith, stable and steadfast, professing Him as Lord and Savior every single day. We wake up and we say, Lord, You are the one who is supreme. You are the one who is sufficient. Forgive me for my sin. And as we wake up each day and say that and believe it and live it, it shapes our lives and we begin to look at all of life through the lens of Jesus and all of life begins to come into focus more and more. So how is it that we continue in our faith, but we spend time with God's people and we spend time in God's word? So at the first of the year, we started off a five by five by five Bible reading, five minutes of Bible reading, five minutes of journaling, five minutes of prayer plan. And there are many of you in here I've heard have continued on and who have stayed faithful and steadfast in that reading up until this point. And I hope by the grace and mercy of Jesus, it has produced great fruit in your lives. Then there are those who started off at the beginning of the year and it's faded off and you've kind of lost that and you've become distant. My encouragement to you this morning is either go back to where you stopped or take a look at where we are right now and start back up again and just dive right in. We started the book of Luke this week. In the next week or so, we're going to be starting transitioning from Exodus into Leviticus, but I encourage you to dive into it. or perhaps you're one that didn't know about it, you've come into the church since then, or you're one that just didn't start at the beginning of the year, then I would encourage you, just dive in with us here and now. And as we begin to spend time in God's Word, it shapes our hearts and our minds. It helps us to see life through the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus. It changes us and transforms us now and forevermore. But also we spend time with God's people. So one of the things that occurred this week is I had two different leaders in our church independently and unknowingly of one another look at me and go, you know, it's interesting. I don't feel quite as connected with the people at New City as I once did. And I kind of got thinking about it, and I was looking at some information and statistics and stuff that we have as a church, and all of a sudden it hit me. If I was to ask everybody who ever attended a worship service in Royal Oak Middle School to stand, my suspicion is less than half of the people in this room would actually stand up. Meaning more than half of the people who are worshiping here at New City and becoming a part of New City today have joined us since COVID started. You've joined us since within the last three years. Many of those have joined within the last year in and of itself. And so if you are somebody who is new and trying to look at what does it look like to get connected here to the life and ministry of New City, odds are the people around you are in the exact same position you are, either because they're new too, or because we've been, or yeah, because everybody, got myself tangled up there. Because everyone at some level is forming new relationships and new connections here at New City because of just God's work, God's providence, and change that has taken place. And so my encouragement with that is not only do we want to spend time in God's Word and in prayer and journaling five minutes in each of those every day, but spend time with God's people, pursue them, invite them to your homes, invite them to go out for a meal, invite them to meet up at a park, hang out, spend time with God's people. And it's amazing how much that begins to connect us. to grow us, to deepen us. It is one of God's key things that he uses to help us to continue in faith stable and steadfast. And then the final phrase here, Jesus is supreme, and Jesus is sufficient. So we are called to keep our hope in the gospel. Paul says it this way in verse 23. If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, this next key phrase, not shifting from the hope of the gospel, you heard which has been proclaimed in all creation and under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. We proclaim all of it throughout all of creation as we keep our hope in the gospel. And what is one of the key ways in which we can help keep our hope in the gospel, in addition to spending time in God's Word and in God's prayer, but we look at all of life and we ask this simple question, where do I see Jesus? What is truth that I see in this situation, this media, this book, this story, this relationship? And what is falsehood that exists there? What is true and what is false? What is good and what is evil? Because anything that is not scripture, I promise you has both, good and falsehood. There is God's truth in it. And as we begin to look at the world and ask that question, where and how do I see Jesus working and alive in this situation? It begins to help us to keep steady, to continue to walk in the faith, to hold fast to the gospel that God has given to us. Jesus is supreme. Jesus is sufficient. Let's pray.