Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Colossians, chapter 1. You can find this on page 983 in your pew Bibles, if you're following along in those. Colossians, chapter 1, page 983. We were looking at verses 16 through 20. Now, since I haven't been doing a series with you, I'd like to just provide some background information concerning this letter to the Church of the Colossians. The Colossian Church was probably one that Paul personally did not know. The Church of Colossae was founded by An associate of Paul's by the name of Epaphras, who came into Paul's acquaintance, I believe, through the ministry that Paul had at Ephesus. But Paul did not personally know the Church of Colossae, but he did have some things he wanted to share with them. There were some issues in the Church of Colossae, which in a lot of Paul's letters, he has to address issues and problems. and Colossae was really no different. One concern in Colossae was there was a blending of some of the Old Testament Jewish rituals with sort of a pagan mysticism. And this led to things such as worshiping angels, believing that they were actually honoring Christ by doing this, feeling that Christ is so high and mighty that we can't just come to Him directly. We have to come through some kind of intermediary. And this is just absurd that they would think this. You know, God has given us the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit brings us to Christ, and so we don't need to approach God through any kind of intermediaries like praying to saints or angels or even relics. We have a direct line to God through the Holy Spirit, and so these intermediaries, all they really do is insult God. They don't actually bring any kind of honor to Him. And so that's some of the things that Paul is concerned about in this church. And so, but Paul, you know, earlier in this book, we want to go over some of the earlier stuff, but Paul does address the Colossians and he's telling them he's been praying for them. He has been praying that their knowledge of God and his will would increase. And why would he be praying this? And he says, because he wants their walk to be worthy of the Lord. One of the things that we understand about our God is that He wants us to understand Him. While God does not share everything in His mind with His children, there's a lot of stuff we will never know about God. He has chosen not to reveal those things. But what is in Scripture, what the apostles and prophets have delivered, these are the things that we can know about God. We can know a lot about Him, and God wants this for us, and so Paul is encouraging them that they are, that he's praying for them that they would gain this knowledge of God so they can worship Him correctly. And another issue that Paul deals with, and it seems like this was a problem in the early church as a whole. Who is Jesus Christ? What is his true identity? In the early church, it seems that the issue was proving that he was a true human. That would seem to be an issue for the early church, whereas in these days, we have to prove that Christ actually had a divine nature. So these are some of the issues that Paul had to deal with with the Colossian church, and we'll look at some of those in these four verses. So before we begin reading, let us turn to God in prayer. Almighty Father, we know that through your Holy Spirit, you are the one who has written these words and transferred them to us through your appointed leaders, your prophets and apostles. And we pray now that your spirit will guide us so that we may understand these words that you have spoken to us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Hear now the word of the Lord from Colossians chapter one, beginning in verse 16. This is God's holy and infallible word. 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. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. And so there are a couple things we will see about Jesus in this text. And the first thing that I want to draw your attention to is that Jesus Christ is the creator of heaven and earth. Jesus Christ is the creator of heaven and earth. Listen again to verse 16. 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. So we understand that God has created all things, all things in the universe were created by God, and so automatically our minds shift back to Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the Bible also indicates the foolishness of not believing this. There are two places, especially in the book of Psalms, Psalm 14, 1, and then 53, 1, where the psalmist calls somebody who denies God's creative work as a fool. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. based on what we see in creation and what we know in ourselves. As God's image bearers, we automatically know that God is the one who's created all things, including ourselves. So atheism is just absurd. And why did God create? It's not as if he was lacking in anything. It's not as if there was something he needed in addition to what he already had. As a triune God that he is, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, there was already perfect fellowship within the Godhead. There was no need for him to create. But yet God created and why did he create? Because he wanted to. He simply desired to do so. And so it's not like he needed us. God was desiring to create. And so this, in Colossians here, Christ is the one who's being attributed to being a creator. And this may bring up a controversy in the church. In the fourth century, there was the controversy that many of you may be familiar with, the Arian controversy. where there was the Presbyterian named Arius, and his claim was that, well, Christ did create all things, but only after he himself had been created himself. And so these beliefs are held even today by some one of them being the Jehovah's Witnesses, they would not deny Colossians 1.16. They'd say, well, of course Christ created, but only after he himself had been created. And the argument kind of goes like this. If God begets Christ, then at some point, that beginning had to happen. That had to take place at some point. And so, they would say he's not co-eternal with the Father. They'd say he's not co-equal with the Father either. And like I said, Jehovah's Witnesses have carried that teaching into the modern day. But is that really what the Bible teaches? Is that square with what Scripture tells us about Christ? I'm afraid that it doesn't, because when we look at Scripture, when we look at the texts that support our understanding that Christ is co-eternal with the Father, is the eternal Son of God from all creation, all we have to do is read John 1, 1. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And so there's no confusion as to who this word is. In verse 14 of John 1, it says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. So we know this word is Christ. And so in John 1, 1, we have both the distinction of the persons and the unity of the persons, where we have, where it says, the word was with God, that shows us a distinction. The son is not the father, and the father is not the son. But yet when he goes on to say the word was God, that clearly tells us that in his own person, the word is God. And so we would have to reject what these groups have been teaching, the Aryans in their day and Jehovah's Witnesses in our day, that at the very least the biblical writers believed Jesus was God incarnate. And if this were not so, if Jesus was not co-eternal with the Father, if He was not very God of very God, what do we do with Matthew 28, 17, where we see that Christ is being worshipped by His disciples? This would be blasphemy if Jesus is not God. And so when Jesus gives his high priestly prayer in John 17, he says that he possessed glory with the Father from the beginning. And Isaiah 42 tells us that the Father does not share his glory with anyone. And so if God's going to share his glory with Christ, he'd better be God himself as well. And so, again, we see the triune nature of God even in this book in Colossians. Now, we want to be clear that the New Testament really brings out the teaching of eternity probably better than anywhere else, but there is some hints of it in the Old. In Genesis 126, where it says, let us make man in our image, There are some who will say that here God is speaking figuratively. It's like the royal we. But it could also be indicating a plurality within the Godhead, even in the Hebrew Scriptures. in Psalm 110, verse 1. This is a very key text for understanding the divinity of Christ because here we have two Lords speaking with one another. The first Lord, if you look in the text, would be the four capital letters, L-O-R-D. whenever we find the word Lord in all capitals, it's always an indication of the covenantal name that God revealed to Moses in the burning bush. Some people, the pronunciation is somewhat Nobody's sure exactly how it was pronounced. Some will call it Yahweh or Yahuwah. And so, to avoid mispronouncing the name and offending God, ancient Hebrews would actually not say this name. They would just use the generic Adonai instead of Yahweh or Yahuwah. And so this first word is definitely the covenantal name for God, Yahweh or Yehovah. The second word, though, where it says, the Lord said to my Lord, the second word is actually Adonai. But the thing is that with both Yahweh and Adonai, these words are only ascribed to God. There's another word for Lord in Hebrew, but it's not as close to this pronunciation, but Adonai is used for God, and so we have one Lord, one Adonai, speaking to another Adonai. This would indicate to us that, again, a plurality within the Godhead. When we go back to Genesis 126, It would make sense that here we actually are seeing conversation within the members of the Trinity. Again, some of the things that Paul had to deal with in Colossae was the worshiping of angels. And it was believed that they could appease these special angelic beings by adhering to a very strict Old Testament-style worship. But Paul assures the readers, he assures the Colossians, that Christ disappeared all these other forces. And he even says earlier in this chapter that it was the Father who brought them to Christ. And so there's no need to go to another source to approach Christ, because God has done it himself. We don't need an extra help, as it were. The second thing we see from this text concerning Jesus Christ is that Jesus is the sustainer of heaven and earth. He's the sustainer of heaven and earth. Listen again to verse 17. And he is before all things, in him all things hold together. And so when we think about the human nature of Christ and His divine nature, when we read the New Testament, especially in the Gospels, we see a lot more of His human nature than His divine. It's not that there weren't any allusions to His divine nature, because after all, We do have the account of the Transfiguration where the three apostles, Peter, James, and John, are the privileged few to actually go onto this mountain and they see Christ in all His glory. And then we have a story with Peter, where he and his partners are fishing, and Jesus shows up, and he enables him to catch this big load of fish. And at that moment, Peter senses the holiness of Christ there and is terrified. He's like, go away from me, Lord. I'm a sinful man. And so we do see Christ's divinity come out in certain places, but we have to admit in the Gospels we see much more of his humanity. But of course, as we mentioned from John 1, 1, John really shows the divinity of Christ. He explains it very, very well. And so when we go through the Old Testament scriptures, and we hear and see how God the Father is the one who holds all things together, But now when we move into the New Testament, we see that Christ is the one that's holding all things together. Hebrews 1.3 says, He, Jesus, is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. And so when we read these texts, we have to ask ourselves exactly what Bible are some of these other groups reading? Because we can see from Hebrews and from this passage here in Colossians that Jesus does have full divinity, as the Father does, and I know that the Jehovah's Witnesses have their own translation, and they claim that this is the only translation that's valid. It's the New World Translation. Now, one of the things that we study in seminaries, we study the original languages. spent a lot of time dealing with the Hebrew and the Greek, and I haven't been studying it all that long yet, but I can tell you, even from the short time that I've been studying Hebrew and Greek, that there are more, there's more than one valid translation. There are a number of translations that are equally valid, and we look at the languages and we see Like the ESV or the New King James, these translations are adequate for us to understand Scripture. So to say there's only one translation that we can look to, that's just not being faithful to what we're seeing in the original languages. And so, if Jesus is the Son of God, if He is God incarnate, then when He says things, we can trust Him. When He says that heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall never go away, then we can trust Jesus with what He says. Another thing we see from this text is that Jesus Christ is the King of heaven and earth. He's the King of heaven and earth, verse 18, and He is the head of the body of the church. We'll stop there for a second. Talking about Christ as the head of the church. There's two ways we can think of him being the head of the church. One is that he does hold a position of authority over everybody who calls himself a Christian. We talk about who's really in charge of the church, it's Jesus Christ. And there's another way we can think of him as the head, and that he's the source of everything. Think of how the brain works, the brain functions. It powers the whole body, basically. And so when we think of Christ as the head of the church, we want to see him in those two ways, that yes, he is in charge, he's over us, but he's also the one who kind of the rest of the Church and how it's supposed to run. There's been some errors concerning headship in the Church. The Roman Catholic Church would say the Pope is the head of the Church. The Church of England would say, well, it's the monarch. And they even give the monarch the title of the Supreme Governor of the Church. But is this the model we see in Scripture? I'm afraid it's not. When we look at Scripture and how Christ established His church, clearly He's the head, clearly He's at the beginning, but then He appointed apostles, and then they appointed elders, and what we see is not one man holding a position over many others, but we see them conversing together, we see them voting, One place we see this is in the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. Now remember that in Acts 15 at this council there were both apostles present and there were what we would consider the ordinary offices of elder there as well. And the other men who weren't apostles, had the same voting rights as the apostles did. And the apostles were appointed by Christ himself. And so, again, we don't see one man taking over headship of the church. Christ is still head of the church, and he works out those things through his officers. The apostles were a special group, never to be repeated after their time, but we have elders and deacons, and this is the way Christ operates His church, with He, Christ, being the one in charge. And so when we move on, what we see in the rest of verse 18 is that he's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. So here we see what Christ has earned for us through his earthly ministry. Christ is the first fruits of the resurrection, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. And this is important for us to remember this. Think about what the cross would be symbolizing. it would actually be telling the whole world that Christ is cursed. It would be telling the whole world that Christ is one of the vilest criminals to ever walk the earth. Now, we have to remember that Isaiah 53 does tell us that when that suffering servant comes, and when he does suffer for, when he does suffer God's vengeance, it's not for his own sins, it's for the sins of his people. And so when Christ is raised from the dead, this vindicates His ministry at the cross. It proves that these sins were not His, that He was fulfilling the purpose that God had for Him to be the sin bearer of His people. And so because of Christ's work, God is pleased. The Father is pleased to bestow Him with many blessings. It says in verse 19, for in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. So the Father was pleased with Christ, with His Son. In Psalm 2, we have the Father promising to give His Son the nations. And then again in Psalm 110, the father promises to make Christ's enemies his footstool. And so, we do see Christ being exalted by His Father. In Hebrews, there's another verse that is actually interpreting a verse from the Psalms, Psalm 45, 6, where it's the Father saying to the Son, Your throne, O God, is forever. And so what can we take away from this? What does it matter to us that Christ is the one who's in charge, He's the one who's supreme? Well, if we are children of God, if you all are children of God, then you are joint heirs with Christ. Paul says this in Romans 8, 17, that we are joint heirs with Christ. And so we could break our backs trying to have the greatest things in this life. And I don't want to be misunderstood that I'm not saying that wealth is in and of itself an evil thing. If you are a diligent worker and you do the things your bosses are asking of you, you may earn a better living in this life. There's a difference, though, between having your boss as reward you for doing your job, and agonizing over the things that you want in this life. And when you think about that Christ is, he has supremacy and preeminence over all things, and we're joint heirs with him. There's a sense in which we already have all these things that we want, and above what we want, you know, Paul in Ephesians talks about that we're already, in a sense, seated with Christ in the heavenlies. So we ought not break our backs trying to get the best things in this life because, brethren, we already have the best. And what is the best is still yet to come. And so, one last thing we see about Christ is that Jesus Christ is the peacemaker of heaven and earth. Jesus Christ is the peacemaker of heaven and earth. Listen to verse 20 again, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And so it seems that Calvary really was sort of like a hinge in redemptive history. It really changed the way the whole world operates. When you think about the covenant community before the coming of Christ, most of it was comprised of those who were Jacob's physical descendants. It's not as if this was completely the way it was. There were some non-Hebrews in the group. the mixed multitude that leaves Egypt with the Israelites when they're leaving Egypt. Then we have stories of Rahab and Ruth. These women were not Hebrews by birth, but when they accepted the Lord and started following the God of Israel, they became Israelites. And so there's a sense in which being an Israelite was not necessarily a genetic thing. It was a matter of faith. But the truth is that in the Old Testament at times, most of these people did come from Jacob's physical family. And with the coming of Christ and the cross, that would be changing. It's not really until the New Testament where we see an influx of Gentiles into the church. And so, as Paul is talking here about that it's It's the blood of the cross that reconciles all things to Him, and so this definitely would show us how all the nations, regardless of ethnicity, it was part of the promise to Abraham that he would be a blessing to all nations. And so while we see only little bits of that in the Old Testament, we really see that come out in the New. And one of the things that would be changing with the New Covenant era would be the doing away with the ceremonial laws. The ceremonial laws were good, though. They taught us about holiness. They taught us about God's holiness and how unholy we actually are. But they also provided a real strong difference between Jews and Gentiles as well. it would be hard for the two to come together until these ceremonial laws were no longer in practice. And they didn't have to remain because they were only a shadow of the things to come. Christ was the substance of all the things that those ceremonial laws were pointing forward to. And so once we have the substance of Christ, those laws were no longer necessary. And that did lead to the inclusion of Gentiles into the New Testament church. And so again, some of the issues in the early church was over unity. How did Jews and Gentiles get along? And we're not without some of those same issues. We have equality issues in the 21st century. And there's two things we always want to remember concerning that. All people, all humans are made in God's image. We are all image bearers of God, which means every person has some dignity, whether they are young or old, whether they are from different ethnic groups. We want to recognize every person does have worth because he's made in God's image. But every person's also a sinner, and so we share both of those things. We're all made in God's image, we all have the dignity of that honor, but we're also possessing a wicked nature as well. And so that brings out hatred of God. We hate God, and so of course we're gonna hate those who are made in His image. And we see a lot of efforts for unity in our culture, and on the one hand I don't want to disparage all of them, because we should recognize the dignity of all people, we should want there to be a sense of unity, but we can't have that unity without Christ. We have to deal with the root cause of these problems and not just try and fix the aftermath of the problem. The problem is we're sinners. The problem is we need to be right with the Lord first. And so all reconciliation projects have to begin at the cross. What do we need to do first? We need to confess our sins. We need to recognize that we have sinned against God in so many ways, and that is not one particular group, that's everybody has done this. And so if there's ever going to be true unity in the world, it has to start at the cross. And if we love God as we're supposed to, we're going to love people. And so, you know, if we're joined to Christ, we're a new family. And so diversity really is not a big deal. Everyone is thrilled whenever something is diverse, and there's really nothing special in that. There is something special when there's diversity in the Church. Because when there's diversity in the Church, that is a fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant where all nations would be joined together in worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so, again, we become a new family together through Christ. And, you know, He has made peace through the blood of His cross. Let us pray. Oh, Father, we just want to once again come before you and thank you for Jesus. We thank you that he is your divine, eternal Son, and that you saw fit to send him into this world to bear our sins, to be raised from the dead, and now he is enthroned over the nations, and he is head of your church. He is the one who is controlling things, as you have appointed him to do. We pray now that you would help us to remember the things that we've studied here, that Christ has made peace through his cross. There is no difference that can't be fought through when we are seeking to love you with our whole hearts. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen.