The Supremacy of Jesus Christ

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Welcome to the Wrap Report with Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is a ministry of striving for eternity. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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Well, what we'd like to do today is deal with a text of scripture that is most important for every

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Christian to have a good handle on, especially if you ever come in contact with some of the cults,

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Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, whoever it may be. You will often find that this is a passage that is a go -to passage for you, but for the

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Christian, this is a wonderful passage for us to go to, and it is because what we are going to look at today is the preeminence and supremacy of Jesus Christ, that one that we love so much.

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So, we're going to look at Colossians chapter 1, verses 15 to 23. So, get your

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Bibles out, not if you're driving. If you're driving, keep your hands on the wheel.

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So, don't be taking your hands off the wheel, but I will read the text to you, but the point is it is good to read along in the scriptures and study this out on your own so you have a very good handle of this text.

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Let me read this, and then we're going to get started with looking at this passage. Colossians chapter 1, 15 to 23.

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This is what Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has written. Speaking of Jesus Christ, by the way, it says,

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And in him all things hold together, and he is the head of the body, the church.

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He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

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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.

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And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.

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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

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I, Paul, became a minister. Now, I am sorry, but I don't know how people can read that verse and not get excited if they are

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Christians. This is such a wonderful text of scripture. And like I said, it's one I go to very often when

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I deal with people that are Jehovah Witnesses or Mormons because there's a lot here they misunderstand.

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I've had the privilege of having some Mormon ladies coming over the house, meet with my wife and I, and we really love that because it gives us an opportunity to share with them from scripture what the

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Bible says. And this is a passage that we went over. Why? Well, one reason, as you see in this, is

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Christ is supreme. He is the preeminent one. He is above everything. And we're going to look at that in detail.

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But it's also because many people misunderstand this and come up with some crazy doctrines to try to get around what this clearly is saying.

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That's why we're going to deal with it. So, let's start in verse 15. He is the image of the invisible

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God. Once you see that, I hope you recognize that that is claiming that Jesus Christ is actually

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God. He is the image of the invisible God. In other words, Jesus Christ is

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God. That's what it is saying. Now you say, well, no, it says he's the image of God.

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The idea of image there is a likeness. It is something that we end up seeing is that it's not saying that he looks like God, the way we would think of image.

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You say a father looks like his father and a son looks like his father.

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It's not that way. What you end up seeing is the idea of image is the idea of the attributes, the essence.

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So, he has the attributes of the invisible God. Now, how is this different than man being made in the image of God?

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Well, we're made in the image of God, meaning that we have the attributes, some attributes that God communicates to us.

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In other words, God is a God of intellect and we have an intellect. God has an attribute of conscience and we have a conscience.

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But God has certain invisible attributes, certain things that are only true of deity, such as omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence.

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And Jesus has all of those as well, even though you and I can't possess those because those are attributes only true of deity.

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So, when we look at this, we see that he is the image of the invisible God. In other words, he's not the images of that which is communicated to you and I.

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What's communicated to him in this image is those things that are true only of God. And we're going to see that as we go through this because at this point, someone's a

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Jehovah Witness may go, yeah, that's not saying just exactly that. It could be the image of God the way it is in Genesis.

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You could argue that way, but always remember this. Whenever we look at scripture, we are looking at the whole thing of the context.

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Context is king. As we look at this passage, as we look at these different words that get used, and many times you end up seeing people who misuse words.

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They end up trying to say that something has a different meaning and the reason that's there is because they don't want to look at the full context.

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Now, right off the bat, what we're seeing is he is made in the image of the invisible God. I think that as we go through this more, we're going to see that laid out so that it's very clear what the image of the invisible

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God is, that he's deity. It's going to be made even clearer throughout. So, first thing we see is he is the image of the invisible

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God. This, I'm arguing, this is saying that Jesus Christ is God. Context will further bear that out.

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Now, first thing we see is he's described as the firstborn of all creation. Now, the way that, if you speak to a

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Jehovah Witness, the way they will argue is Jesus Christ was the first created being, they would say

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Michael the Archangel, that God, they would refer to him Jehovah, making a distinction between God in the

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Old Testament when it's used for Jehovah. That's why they're Jehovah Witnesses. So, they'll say Jehovah, and they'll say

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Jehovah created Michael the Archangel, and then through Michael, he created everything else.

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And Michael created everything else for Jehovah's pleasure. Now, we already saw this when we read through this, but I want to mention it now and as we go through this, it'll emphasize it even more.

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When we look at this passage, that can't be true. Why? Because what this passage says is that Jesus Christ created everything, and everything was created, and not only created by him, but it was created for him.

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In other words, it wasn't created by Michael the Archangel for God the Father or Jehovah.

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No, it was created for Jesus Christ. That's right. He not only created everything, but he did it by him and for him.

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So, right there is a problem with the Jehovah Witness stance. Now, they're going to say he was the firstborn of all creation, and we're going to look at this with the fact of who actually did the creating, and could it be an angel, or would it have to be specifically

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God? We're going to look at that in a moment. But, the thing that you first see when they try to argue this is that he created everything else.

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So, when they read this, they're going to read this and say, he's the firstborn of all creation, and then they're going to read the next one and say, for by him all other things were created.

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Now, all other things is mentioned four times here. Verse 16, you'll see it again in verse 19.

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So, in this passage, we look at four times that you end up seeing in their translation, they have to add the word other.

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So, you have it twice in verse 16, and then verse 17, verse 19. And they have to say all other things.

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Why do they have to add the word other? And that's a point you can always point out to them. The word other is not in the

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Greek, but they have to add that because of their doctrine, because the scriptures do not support what their doctrine says.

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Their doctrine says that Jesus Christ was created as Michael the archangel, therefore, he created everything other than himself.

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But they would say Jesus is a created being. So, when you look at that, they're adding into something that's not in the

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Greek, and by the way, just so you know, if you are dealing with a Jehovah Witness and you have their New World Translation, you have to have the right year.

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Why? When they first came out with the New World Translation, the word other was not in brackets, so they would argue that it was in the

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Greek. That was pointed out and they were so ashamed they had to add the brackets in. But in the recent times, most recent translation and update that they did, they got rid of the brackets again.

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And so, many people that are Jehovah Witnesses do not know that the word other is not there in the

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Greek all four times. Now, some of them will say that they've had to add this in for clarity in the translation.

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You don't need that for clarity. It's quite clear what it is. For by him all things were created.

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All things were created through him and for him. In him all things are held together.

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All things, whether on earth or in heaven, I mean, each time you end up seeing, it's very clear.

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You don't need the word other for a better understanding of the reading. The word other is there because of their doctrine.

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That's the problem. So, what you end up looking at is they have a doctrinal issue with what this text actually says.

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They can't accept what it actually says because it goes against their doctrine. So, what they should do is correct their doctrine, but hey, this is what cults do.

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They don't do that. So, that would be a good thing to point out if you're speaking with Jehovah Witness, that they have to add to scripture here.

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Now, if you're dealing with a Mormon, the Mormons will speak of Heavenly Father, just so you know, God the

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Father they'll refer to as Heavenly Father. And so, they'll say here that Jesus Christ created all things.

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They're going to look at this term firstborn where the Jehovah Witnesses say that he was an angel that was created and was the first creation, first of creation.

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The Mormons will say that he was the first spirit baby from Heavenly Father and his wife.

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That's right. They believe that God the Father, who we call God the Father, was a man on another planet. He was faithful to the

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God of that planet and became a God of this planet. So, he had a wife and he had, actually, by the way, they believe he was a sinful being on that other planet.

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He came to this planet and the first of his offspring was

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Jesus and then Lucifer, Jesus' brother. And we were all the offspring of this

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Heavenly Father and his wife. And so, this is what they would end up teaching. So, they would see firstborn as being firstborn in order.

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Now, there's some issues with this because what you end up seeing in this text quite clearly is that Jesus Christ is the creator of everything that was created and therefore he can't be the first thing created or the first thing born from Heavenly Father because that would violate the context of this text.

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As we look at this text, it is quite clear that he is the firstborn of all creation and then it goes into describing that he is the creator of everything.

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So, firstborn, yes, it does often refer to the order of children born.

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So, you can refer to a firstborn son or daughter as the first one numerically.

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If you have five children, you have a firstborn one, the one that's born first. But that's not always how this word is used.

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In fact, the word firstborn, it refers often, especially in the Old Testament, to the idea of preeminence, specifically when dealing with an inheritance.

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Now, we end up seeing that this specific Greek word is only used eight times in the

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New Testament, two of them right here in this text that we have, and there are times where it is used specifically of a firstborn, such as for Luke 2 .7

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where it speaks of Mary wrapping her firstborn son. Well, that's firstborn and the first one she had born because she had others.

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Shh! Don't tell the Catholics, they don't know that point. But yes, Mary had other children and they're even named in scripture.

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We have two of them are writers of the books of the Bible, like James and Jude. So, what you end up seeing here is the fact that firstborn is seen other places such as in Hebrews 1 .6

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when he brings the firstborn into all the world. That's speaking of Christ.

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Now, you could say, okay, well, that's still the same argument. All right. You end up seeing that in Hebrews 11,

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Hebrews 12, there's references to firstborn. In 12, he's the assembly of the firstborn.

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What's the assembly of the firstborn? Well, okay, they're going to say, well, that's still speaking of Christ. But in Revelation 1 .5,

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he's the firstborn of the dead. Huh. Now, if he's the firstborn of all creation, was

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Jesus Christ the first to die? No, he wasn't. Actually, many, many, many, many people died before Jesus died.

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We have it recorded in the Bible. And so, you end up seeing he cannot be the firstborn.

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So, there's something in the way firstborn is used in Christ that seems different. Well, you end up throughout the

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Old Testament, Isaac is Abraham's firstborn. No, he's not. Ishmael was. But Ishmael was not the one who inherited.

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And so, Isaac is the firstborn because he is the one who inherited. That is how you end up seeing firstborn used.

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So, when we look at firstborn of creation, we look at the context, and as we're going to see, this is not speaking of a birth order, but it talks about a preeminence over creation.

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That's what you're going to end up seeing in especially emphasized in verse 18. As we go through this,

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I want you to notice how much the preeminence of Christ is and the concept of Christ inheriting all of creation, because that gives us the context of how we should understand this passage.

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Is firstborn the creation order, or is it dealing with preeminence and inheritance?

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The context makes it very clear that this is speaking of his preeminence and inheritance.

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And we have a purpose clause now. He says that he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

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So, speaking of Jesus Christ, it first describes him as image of the invisible God. He is the firstborn of all creation, and then a purpose clause for by him all things were created.

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Now, we mentioned the Jehovah Witness model and Mormon model where they have this view of Jesus as the one who creates, but God exists outside of him, and therefore,

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God created him in those two instances, and so, how do you deal with this?

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Well, first thing we want to do as we examine this is this is making it very clear that Jesus Christ created everything that was created.

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I mean, there's very hard to understand this any other way. For by him all things were created.

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Now, Paul emphasizes what the all things are, and he does it in a way of argumentation to leave nothing out, whether it's visible or invisible.

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Now, that's a dichotomy. You have only two choices. It's either invisible or it's visible. There's nothing else.

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So, he's saying everything, everything that's visible and everything that's invisible, everything created by Christ, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

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Now, there's different views on what those are. Are they the thrones of men, the dominions?

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Are they dealing with demonic? A lot of people argue that what these things deal with is the human realm and the angelic realm.

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Basically, whether, and this again kind of goes back to visible and invisible, who's ever ruling, the emphasis here is whether it's in the visible or invisible, in humankind or angelic.

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He created all of that, and it says that all things were created through him and for him.

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So, not only does he create everything, but he didn't create, as the

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Jehovah Witnesses say, he didn't create everything for Jehovah. It says he created everything.

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Everything that was created was created through him. He is the operator of creation.

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He is the one that does the work of creation, and it's done for him, not for the

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Father, but for him. That is something that breaks down in both Jehovah Witness and Mormons and many other cults, by the way, as you look at them, is the fact that Jesus Christ not only is called

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God, but he does something only God can do, creation. Why do I say that? We need to go back to the

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Old Testament, Isaiah 44 .24, and this is a good verse to remember when dealing with Colossians and dealing with cults especially, because when they want to try to say that Jesus Christ is not

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God, but he created all things, God disagrees with that, because in Isaiah 44 .24,

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God said this through Isaiah, Thus says the Lord your Redeemer who formed you from the womb,

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I am the Lord who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.

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So, he's saying he is the Lord, by the way, for Jehovah Witnesses in that verse, I am the

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Lord, that is the word for Jehovah, who made all things. Boy, that all things, it sounds very familiar, doesn't it now?

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It sounds exactly like what Paul says in Colossians 1, that he created all things, and he emphasizes it,

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Isaiah emphasizes it by saying, who alone, notice the thing here, he created all things alone and by himself, who alone stretched out the heavens,

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I spread out the earth by myself. So, who is it that Isaiah says created all things?

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It's Jehovah, Jehovah God created all things, everything that was created was created by Jehovah, by God, and who is it created for?

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God. So, when they try to argue that here you have Jesus Christ creating everything, well, when you look at these two passages and we reconcile these two, it's very clear that Jesus must be

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God, because he is credited with the creation of everything that was created.

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If something was created, it was created by Jesus Christ, according to Colossians 1.

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If anything was created, it was created by Jehovah, according to Isaiah 44 .24.

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The only way to reconcile that is that Jesus Christ is Jehovah. That's the only way to reconcile these.

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So, when someone tries to argue that Jesus Christ is the creator, but he's not

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God, go to Isaiah 44 .24. If you remember that one, you'll be in good shape.

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And just want to emphasize if you're in that passage in Isaiah and you're dealing with some of these people and they want to try to say there's

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Jehovah God and then there's these lesser gods, well, just drop down a few verses to Isaiah 45 .5.

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Isaiah 45 .5 is another good one to go to. And if you're there, you're writing the same passage. So, you could drop right down and read that one.

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It says, I am the Lord and there is no other. Besides me, there is no

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God. I've equipped you, though you do not know me. So, what you have here is if God is omniscient, he knows everything, then what you end up seeing is he would know if there was any other

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God. And he says he doesn't know of any. He knows of no other God. So, what you end up doing is you can ask a

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Jehovah witness, that is Jehovah there, you could just ask before you get to 45 .5, ask them. So, let me ask you a question, is

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God omniscient? I did this with the Mormon ladies that came over. Before I went to Colossians, I first asked, is

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Heavenly Father omniscient? Does he know everything there is to know? And they said, yes. I like to ask those questions up front.

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And it's a good tactic to use because before they realize that they may get trapped, if you get answers to your questions up front, then you can go back to them later.

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Because sometimes when you're dealing with people, they start to get a little dishonest. And if they feel that they're getting trapped, they don't honestly answer your questions anymore.

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So, before they realize they're going to be trapped, ask them the question. So, I ask that up front and then I go to these passages and I say, well, if God, Heavenly Father or Jehovah, whichever you're dealing with, how they want to use that language, if he's omniscient and knows all things, how come he doesn't know there's other gods?

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How come he doesn't know that there was someone else who created? Because if he used

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Jesus Christ to create everything, which for Mormons is really strange because he would have had to create everything before he was a created being himself.

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Because Heavenly Father lived on a planet, but Jesus Christ is credited with creating the planet.

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You see the problems that they have. And so, when we look at this, it is very clear. Paul is making the argument in Colossians 1 that everything that was created was created by Christ, whether visible or invisible, whether it's an authority in angelic lands or in human lands.

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Whatever it is, Christ created it all. He is the source of creation.

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It was created through him and for him. So, he is not only the one that created, but he is the receiver of it.

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This is speaking of the inheritance, that he is the one who receives this. So, in verse 17 of Colossians 1, it says, and he is before all things, and in him all things are held together.

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So, what you end up seeing here is that he's before creation, which becomes a problem.

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That's for those who say he's a created being. It says he is before all things.

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What were the all things? Well, in this context, all things that were created. And again, Jehovah Witnesses have to say all other things. Why? Because if he's before all things, that well, things are created things in this context.

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And if he's before all things and he's created, that would be a problem. So, they have to, again, add the word other, because Christ is before creation.

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In other words, when there was nothing, God was there. Christ was there. That is who Christ is.

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He is eternal. In other words, he had no beginning. That's what this passage is saying. He has no beginning.

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He has no end. You and I, we had a beginning point. Angels had a beginning point. And we'll never die.

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We will go on for eternity. However, that's not so with Jesus Christ.

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That's not so with God. He had no beginning. He had no end. He was before all things.

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Not only that, he holds everything together. So, the idea that God created the universe like a watchmaker, wound it up and walked away, that is not what this text says.

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It says that Christ upholds everything together. It's an amazing thing when you study science, because when you study science, the scientists used to talk about this ether.

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They don't do that anymore because Einstein proved there is no ether. But the idea was that there was this ether, this invisible element that was between everything, holding everything together, holding everything in place.

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That is interesting, because now that we know there is no ether, you're stuck with the question, well, what holds everything together?

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Is it that keeps everything in place? Well, according to God, it is himself.

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It is Jesus Christ who holds all things together. So, looking at the context here, there's nothing that is in creation that Christ doesn't keep in place.

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In other words, there is not a single atom in the universe that is outside of God's control, outside of Jesus Christ's control.

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He holds it all together. That is the idea of sovereignty. That is the idea that God is in control.

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I mean, people who sit there and think like God somehow doesn't know what he is doing. Look at the universe that he created and he holds it all together.

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He created it by the power of his thought, really, of his voice. He just commands it and it comes into existence.

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That's powerful. He holds it all together by himself. How does this play out for you and I who are

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Christians, though? Well, Paul answers that in verse 18. Look at this. And he is the head of the body, the church.

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That is who is the head of the church. There is such problems we have in churches today. And a big reason why we have such a problem is because people don't understand this text.

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They don't look at what this text is saying. Christ, the creator of the universe, the one who not only created the entire universe through himself, but he did it for himself.

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He holds it all together. Guess what? He is the head of the church. He who is sovereign, who keeps the whole universe in place, he also is the head of the church.

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He knows what he's doing and he's in control. So many people lose that thought. They don't understand that.

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And in losing that, they don't realize it is Christ. Even those of us who would be pastors, we are accountable to Christ.

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So many pastors, so many churches lose focus on who is the real head of the church. And they think it's about building a church.

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They think it's about getting people in the pews and getting numbers, getting donations, building a bigger building, trying to have an influence in their culture, trying to make an impact in the world.

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Whatever the things are, this is what the church is about. Christ. And if you lose that focus, you've lost everything.

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Don't even call yourself a church. Because if the church that is not about Christ, it's not a church.

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Christ is the head of the church. And if we don't have Christ as head, then we do not have a church.

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When we violate what God has in his word and try to get churches to organize themselves in such a way where they're trying to do things that God forbids, it is not a church.

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Because a church has Christ as its head, not man.

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When you have a church that ends up idolizing a pastor, a man, where they have someone that they're not going to—I think of, and this may upset some people, and I'm sorry if it does.

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I'm not opposed to naming names. But I look at what happened with Charles Stanley. When he was divorced by his wife, his wife left him because of basically his ministry and putting all his time in his ministry and neglecting his family, what ended up happening, and maybe that's why

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Andy Stanley is the way he is because his doctrine is really whacked. And so, the thing that you end up seeing, if you don't believe that it's whacked,

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I mean, he just, we could spend a whole episode and we will eventually maybe on Andy. But here's the thing.

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I have dealt with Andy and some of the problems of his argumentations in previous episodes, but the thing is when

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Charles Stanley got divorced, many people felt he was disqualified from ministry. And I read this from his own leaders in his church, his deacons, who explained why.

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Charles Stanley actually came and said, I'm not qualified. I need to step down. And they said, no, no, no. This church wouldn't be able to function without you.

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You must stay. Well, that's a real problem because now Charles Stanley is the head of that church, not Jesus Christ.

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If I ever sin in such a way where I'm disqualified, I should step down.

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If not, then the ministry I'd be part of is not a ministry of God because Christ wouldn't be the head. I would hope that every man that stands at a pulpit would have that view, but unfortunately many do not.

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And so, when you have women who stand up as pastors and say, we're a pastor, when you do something that God forbids in 1

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Timothy 2, 12 and following, it's very clear that God forbids a woman to be in the role of a teacher of men and an authority of men.

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They're not qualified to be pastors. And when a woman takes on that role, it is no longer a church.

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The church is where Christ is head. And if Christ is not head, then it is not a church.

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I know so many people got upset with me with that quote that I had, that meme that literally went around the world because it originated in the

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Philippines, or I actually probably said it before then at times, but when

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I said that if a woman is the pastor of your church, she's not a pastor, it's not a church, this is why

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I said that. I mean, in a meme you can't explain the full meaning of things, but the reason is because any time that Christ is not the head of the church, it is not a church.

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When you have a church that does things that God forbids, then Christ is not the head of the church.

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And I'll tell you something, there are times in church, many of us wonder, what's going on? We don't know answers to things.

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We act as if God is not in control. But in this context, he is saying, Paul is emphasizing, this is

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God who created everything. Christ, everything that was created, was created by him and for him.

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He holds everything together, and guess what? He is the head of the church. He is the one running the church.

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He knows what he's doing. Even if you and I don't understand it, even if it doesn't make sense to you and I, he knows what he's doing.

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That's what Paul's emphasizing here. We can look to Christ and say, we're going to follow him, even if it doesn't make sense.

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But America is turning against Christianity. Shouldn't we try to get along with the world? Shouldn't we try to be accepting of homosexuality because it will make the world like us more?

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God knows what he's doing when he says that we should stand up and say, sin is sin, and trust

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Christ. But we might go to jail. We might. That just starts our prison ministry. The reality is,

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God is in control and he knows what he's doing. So, as we look at this, just rest on that.

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Jesus Christ knows what he's doing. He is the head of the church.

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And so, when we look at that, looking at verse 18, and he is the head of the body, the church.

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He is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead, and in everything he might be preeminent.

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Now, we looked at this in Revelation 1, but now we see it right in the same exact context.

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That's why I saved this one. In the same exact context of the firstborn of creation, the same exact word is now used as the firstborn from the dead.

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So, a simple rule of hermeneutics, when you see a word used in the same exact context, it's going to, unless there's something in the context that tells us it's going to be different, here he's using firstborn of all creation, firstborn from the dead.

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It's going to be used in the same way. So, if he is the physical first creation of all creation, then he must be the physical death of all death.

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Well, we know that's not true. I mean, we see in Genesis further on, a lot of people died, you know, so he couldn't be.

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So, right there you see that firstborn cannot mean the way that Jehovah Witnesses or Mormons and others try to use it.

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It has to do with exactly what it says right here in verse 18, preeminence. He is the beginning, getting back to the whole idea that before there was a time, there was

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Christ. He's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, meaning that his death was a different death than all the death that ever occurred.

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His death was different because his death was a different type of death in the sense that he was the preeminent, that in him he might be preeminent, the idea being first.

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This is what firstborn has to do with. It has to do with being first, and that's what this word means in this context.

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He is the first of those that would die the death that he died in the sense that he would be glorified.

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You end up seeing that it is in him that we could be redeemed, and we're going to see that throughout the rest of this text, that it's in him that we have redemption.

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That is what his death was the first of. It wasn't the death of we die physically.

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Yes, Christ died physically. Yes, you and I will die physically, but his death was the preeminent one because in his death we can have redemption, and that's what we're going to see in verses 19, starting in verse 19.

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It says, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and now let me stop, and before I get to the reconciliation, verse 20, but right there, let's go back to verse 15 because you see in this context again, all the fullness.

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Now, the idea of fullness there is this is a definite article, the fullness. This is all of the fullness of God.

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So there's the idea here is there's no attributes of God missing in this. So when it said that he is the image of the invisible

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God, well, just a few verses later in this verse 19, it's emphasizing that in Christ he has the full attributes of God.

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If you remember back, if you listen to my rap report daily, it's Andrew Rapport's daily rap report, some time ago

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I went through all the attributes of God, and I talked about three categories of attributes. Attributes of deity, which many theologians refer to as incommunicable, in other words, they aren't communicated to man, they're attributes only

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God would possess, and then I would define those communicable or those attributes communicated to men and even maybe to some to angels as attributes of personality, attributes of morality.

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And so I put those there, break those up that way. So what this is saying is that there's attributes that you and I can have as angels or men.

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We, those are communicated to other of God's creation, but those attributes of deity are not.

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But this text says that those attributes of deity that are communicated only to God, they're not communicated to us, we don't have those attributes,

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Christ has them. For in him, all the fullness, there's nothing missing.

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It's all the fullness, everything. And so what you end up seeing there is this is the idea that there is everything that God is,

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Christ is. In him, all the attributes of God are pleased to dwell.

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That'd be one way of explaining that, that Jesus Christ has all the attributes, even the attributes of deity.

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So that emphasizes in verse 15, when it talks about him being the image of the invisible

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God, the firstborn of all creation, that is emphasizing that he has the attributes that only

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God can have. Do you see why this is a great text when it comes to the deity of Christ, when it comes to the supremacy of Christ, the preeminence of Christ?

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This text, these short couple of verses lifts Christ on high.

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It is so beautiful. So let's continue in verse 20 and see the redemption, because now he's going to make this transition that he slowly made.

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He first raised Christ very high. He is the creator. Well, he's

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God. He's creator. Everything is created by him and through him. Everything that was created is being held together by him.

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He's the head of the church that starts the transition to you and I and how we relate to Christ.

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And then he goes back to him being the firstborn of the dead and the preeminence and that he has the fullness of God, that he has all the attributes of God.

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And now he's going to bring it back to how does this all apply to you and I now, those that are in the church, those who have been redeemed.

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Well, verse 20, and through him, who's him, all that we've just been talking about, this preeminent, superior, sovereign

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Christ, who is the creator, who's God, through him to reconcile to himself all things.

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What is he going to reconcile? Everything. You could look at Romans 8. Even creation, he's going to reconcile back to himself.

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Even creation is reconciled back to Christ. And through him to reconcile to himself, all things, the all things we've been talking about, what's the, and he qualifies it to make it clear whether on earth or in heaven, everything he's going to bring back into reconciliation, making peace.

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How? By the blood of his cross. So it is through the blood of Christ on the cross that we can have this reconciliation, both on earth, men and those in the universe, in heaven.

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So we have reconciliation only through Jesus Christ. This is the reason that we end up seeing that every man -made religion that you can see will always add human effort to the religion.

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And this is what separates Christianity from every single religion. It is that God did the work of redemption, all of it.

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And when you look at this text, how could there be any other? When you think about this text and you see how preeminent

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Jesus Christ is, how high and lifted up he is, and he died on a cross as a reconciliation, what can you and I ever, ever, ever add to that would be considered even close to value of God himself shedding his blood on a cross?

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There's nothing. There's absolutely nothing. There's nothing we would ever be able to say is worthy of being compared to what

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Jesus Christ did on that cross in his death when he shed his own blood and died a death of eternity because he's an eternal being.

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That's what you see in this text. He is an eternal being. His death counted for eternity. You and I can never pay such a thing, but he died in our place.

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That's how we have this reconciliation through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

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And you, I love that part, don't you? And you, you and I, how are we described?

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And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds.

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I mean, that describes us, doesn't it? Before Christ, we were evil.

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Everything we did was for self. Oh, we may do good things compared to other people, but it's always for self.

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So, we look good. So, we would feel good because we want something. Crazy thought. Do you know that even when people commit suicide, suicide is one of the most selfish acts people can commit.

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They want to take their own life either to avoid something they don't want to deal with that God has put aloud in their life.

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And that seems hard for many people to deal with. Why would God allow bad things to happen? I think of a time when

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I was evangelizing in New York City and I had this gentleman. He had certain disabilities. He just, by his own admission, he was a little bit mentally challenged.

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And because of that, he had to work harder in school than other people. He had to study harder.

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And when he was a child raised in a Christian home, he prayed that God would take away this problem that he had so that he would be like everyone else.

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He wanted an easy path. And God didn't answer that. And because God didn't answer that prayer the way he wanted, in other words, he was selfish and thought

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God needed to bow down to him. God didn't answer his prayer the way he wanted. And he told me,

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God doesn't exist. When I asked him why, he said, because I asked for a prayer and God never answered it.

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Now, think about that. Who really is he putting up as God? He puts himself up as God. But he's saying

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God doesn't exist because I wanted an easy road and God didn't give it to me. This guy was VP of his company.

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He was the vice president of his company. And I ended up asking him, I said, let me ask you a question. You said you had to study harder in school than anyone else?

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Yes. You had to work harder when you got your job than anybody else? Yes. Just to be able to do what others do, you had to work harder.

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He said, yes. I said, would you be the vice president of your company if you didn't work harder than everybody else? He said, no.

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And he thought about what he just said. That's right. God allowed you to go through that and have to work harder than everybody else.

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But you would not be where you are. You wouldn't be the vice president of your company if it wasn't for the fact that you had to work harder.

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If you just took the easy way, you wouldn't be the vice president of the company. But you worked harder and that hard work that you wouldn't have had any other way.

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Well, that's a benefit, isn't it? And suddenly he had a changed perspective. And often when people are suffering, they need that changed perspective.

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But a lot of people commit suicide as a final act of getting back at people. And that's why I say it's the most selfish thing you could do to to hurt those people you leave behind.

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And so this this describes you and I. We were alienated. We were hostile. We were enemies.

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We were doing evil deeds. Everything we did was for self. It wasn't for God.

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And you look at that. I mean, you think about people who want to harm you. Do you do you love them? Do you want to show kindness to them?

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Do you do you enjoy being around their company? Well, this is you and I. We were hostile.

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We were alienated. We were enemies. We were doing evil deeds to this great God that Paul has been describing here, this

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God who created everything for himself. And out of everything he created, he came to earth and died on a cross.

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And the very next thing to reconcile us. Look at that. You and I who were alienated, hostile, doing evil deeds, verse 22, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.

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Does that blow your mind? This is one of these passages I cannot help to read without getting excited.

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I hope it in Jesus Christ. This thrills your heart to think about that.

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Jesus Christ, the creator of everything, the king of kings and lord of lords, the one that spoke everything into existence, the head of the church, the one that is holding everything together.

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He came to earth to die on a cross for your sin, that you could be reconciled to him, that you'd be presented.

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That presentation is the idea of that marriage. When the son presents his bride to his father in this case, that's what we're looking at.

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Here is this inheritance. Here is Christ inheriting the church. And he's going to not only make peace through his blood, but he's going to reconcile so that we, you and I, who were described as alienated, hostile, doing evil deeds, you and I would be presented by Christ as being holy.

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In other words, holy is the idea set apart. We are going to be set apart for God. We will be without sin.

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We will be very different. We will be holy. We will be blameless.

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There will be nothing that anyone can nail to us. That's the idea of the word blameless here.

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It doesn't mean we're without sin. It means that we don't have anything that people can nail to us.

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There's no one that can hang something against us. And so we will be presented as set apart, holy.

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We'll be blameless. In other words, there's no one that's going to have anything that they can say against us because all of it was paid by Jesus Christ and above reproach before him.

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You and I will stand with Christ above reproach. And that is amazing because there are times, even as a believer, that I fail

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Christ. I fail him big time and often, and I hate it.

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I hate when I sin. I hate when I do things that Christ died on that cross for, he paid the punishment for, and I do things that would still be sinful in his sight.

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I hate that. But when I look at this passage, it tells me there is a time coming, a time that I strive for.

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I strive for eternity. I strive for that day that comes when I stand before Christ and he will present me.

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And if you are in Christ, he will present you holy, blameless, and above reproach to the father.

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That is wonderful. I mean, I cannot conceive of that, that one day I would be standing before God and be seen as holy and blameless and above reproach.

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We don't have time to do this, but read through 2 Corinthians 5. Look at that text. I mean,

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I love that text because it's all about looking forward to that day where we're done with this body of sin. We're done with this temporal body or tent, and we look forward to that glorified state that you and I could be in.

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I hope that that is something you look forward to. That's the concept we have at striving for eternity. It's not about earning our salvation.

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It is striving for that day that we stand before God and he presents us, like described here, as holy, as blameless, as above reproach, that we would be able to look forward to that.

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Because this is the exact meaning you see in the very next verse. When I say we're striving for eternity, we have this eternity in mind.

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When we're going to be presented holy, blameless, above reproach, then look at verse 23. 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

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I, Paul, became minister. So we need to strive to be steadfast, not shifting.

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Stable. That's how he describes this here. So what you end up seeing here is that you and I should be working toward this idea of having in our mind the day that we stand before God and he's going to present us holy, blameless, and above reproach.

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Now some people try to use this passage 23 to say, well, you can lose your salvation. He's saying, if indeed you continue.

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I don't think that's what he's saying very clearly. You could look at Romans chapter 8 and elsewhere and see that God will not take away his salvation that he gives to us.

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Because remember, when was the payment made for salvation? Back at the cross.

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This text says that. It was at the cross that we were reconciled. At the cross 2 ,000 years ago.

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So if every single sin you and I commit today, it's all future to the cross.

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So if we cannot be reconciled to God back at the cross and say that we were reconciled to God in time, but then we lose it somehow when all of it is future to the cross.

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See, it's back at the cross that we were reconciled. It was all back at that cross. And so there's no sin that was not future for us to the cross.

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So we can't be reconciled to God and then unreconciled to him. No, Paul doesn't know who's a believer and who isn't.

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He speaks to a church where there are those who are false converts, those who think they're saved and not.

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And to them, he would be saying, hey, if you continue in the faith, he doesn't know.

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You don't know if I'm saved. I don't know if you're saved. There's no way to know. We look at fruit.

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That's all we can look at. And I love what John MacArthur says. Time and truth go hand in hand.

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Given enough time, you'll see if someone really is faithful, if they're stable and steadfast.

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I remember in a church that I was in and we, in the leadership, and we had,

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I had a fellow elder who, you know, I would never have questioned his salvation. I mean, he was a guy who we always used to say wore his emotions on his sleeve.

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If there was anyone who was saved, it was John. I mean, he just seemed like he was, he was the epitome of what you'd think of a

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Christian. And today, he fails drug tests at work. He doesn't, hasn't gone to church in years, denies

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Christ, has liquid lunches, is, from what I've been told, drunk and most of the time.

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And you look at that and say, he was never a believer. He was faking it for over a decade.

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Faking it. But given enough time, the truth came out. And that's what Paul is saying here.

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Indeed, if you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the gospel.

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Well, my friend John shifted and it revealed he was never a believer. Because if he was, he would have been reconciled back at the cross.

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So, what you see here is we, you and I should have this in mind to be striving for that day where we stand in eternity.

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Everything we do, have this in mind. If this passage is something you should look at, keep in your mind, think about it.

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Because when times are tough, when things are rough in life, this is a passage you can go to and say, you know what?

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God created everything. Jesus Christ, every single thing that was created was created by him and through him.

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He did it. He holds it together. He's the head of the church. He knows what he's doing. I was once his enemy.

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I was someone who did evil. I was selfish. I was alienated by him. I was hostile.

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And he took me, who was alienated from him, who was hostile to him, and he made me holy and set apart unto him.

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He calls me blameless and above reproach. That's how Christ sees me.

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He knows what he's doing, no matter what trials we go through. And let me tell you something, brothers and sisters, those of us, especially here in America, we are going to go through trials.

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We are going to go through things that are just unfathomable for many Christian minds in America, because they want ease.

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They want comfort. And the reality is, we are going to be persecuted, I think, in a very short period of time.

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And many Christians aren't ready for it. But this is a passage that was in Paul's mind. This is a passage in the

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Colossians. This is the same concept you see in Philippians, as people were suffering for the cause of Christ.

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This is the thinking that you see in our brothers and sisters around the world that are being martyred for Christ, being tortured for Christ.

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It is the idea of they think of the preeminence of Jesus Christ. He is superior.

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He is the sovereign. You and I were his enemy, and he made us his children.

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You end up seeing that in John 1. This is something, again, I love to bring up Mormons because they think we're all

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God's children. No. John 1, verses 12 and 13. But to all who did receive him, who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the flesh, but of God.

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That is amazing that what we have is we go from being an enemy of God to being called a child of God.

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I hope that excites you. I hope that thrills you to think about the fact that God Almighty, the creator of everything,

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Jesus Christ, who died on a cross as a payment of sin for you and I, he is the head of the church.

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He will marry this church and present us as a bride. He will present those of us who are his enemies hostile and alienated to him.

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He will present us holy, blameless, and above reproach. Oh, I look forward to that day.

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Do you? Do you look forward to the day that you're going to stand before him? I hope that this text that we looked at,

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I hope this gets you excited about Christ, that this gets you thrilled with Christ.

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If you do not know Christ, then you need to turn from trusting the things I just mentioned in John, that it's not from your genealogy, it's not from works, and it's not from your desire.

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In other words, it's not this fact that we think we do good works, we're going to go to heaven, or that we just want to go to heaven, where we think we're a good person, we're just naturally good, or we're born a certain religion, we're going to go to heaven because of it.

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No. The reality is, it is only through the death on the cross of Jesus Christ that we can be reconciled, we can be made right with God.

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That's what it takes. It's a turning of ourself, because everything else, as we saw there, we're hostile, we're alienated, we do evil deeds, it's all selfishness, it's pride.

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We have to turn from that pride and turn to Jesus Christ. If you haven't done that, do that right now.

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But if you have done that, if you are reconciled with Christ, I hope that this text thrills your heart.

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Yes, it is one that we go to when we deal with Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and other cults because, A, it lifts

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Christ on high, it calls him and makes very clear he is the creator, he is deity, he is sovereign.

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So he is the God who created everything, who holds it all together, but more important, he is the one who died to reconcile you back to himself.

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That should blow your mind. And that's what we end up seeing in this text. So I wanted to break this down.

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I wanted to give you an understanding of this text because it is a text that is so valuable to understand in so many ways.

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One, as I've said, for dealing with people of different false religions who want to deny

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Jesus is God and things like that. This is a clear text that denies that. This is a text that, if you notice, it thrills my heart.

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I love this passage because it lifts Christ on high. And for that reason,

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I hope that you would be checking this out. Read this passion, study it out, look at this, meditate on this, and I would say keep doing it until your heart is thrilled with Jesus Christ.

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So that is what we had for you. I wanted to deliver to you guys today more of a Bible study.

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We've done a lot of interviews, just with my travel schedule and whatnot, and I wanted to be able to give you guys something from the scriptures, just really deal with a text of scripture, go into depth and be an encouragement to you guys.

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But I want to do that every once in a while, do some different things. So this one, we don't have some of the segments I was thinking of doing,

59:00

Fallacy of Equivocation, because we do see that fallacy in this text, actually.

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You see it at the end in the word firstborn. It's used as a fallacy by Jehovah's Witnesses.

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I could have gone into all that stuff, but I really wanted to just focus on the text. So I do want to give a shout out, though, because we do have a lot of things going on at Striving Fraternity and the mention that we have some new podcasts on the

59:29

Christian Podcast Community. Now, I don't know when the last time I gave an update to some of the different podcasts, because boy, has the

59:37

Christian Podcast Community been growing. The newest one that we added is Prescribed Truth by Jamal Bandy, and if you don't know of Prescribed Truth, you'd want to check this podcast out.

59:50

Jamal does some great stuff, especially in the area of social justice. He has been nailing the issue very well.

59:57

We added the Everyday Ministries podcast with James White. No, not

01:00:02

Dr. James White, the other James White, but this is a couple of guys that get together, and they're just discussing ministry.

01:00:11

That is a great podcast, very encouraged by there. We have

01:00:16

The Way Radio with Chad Pridmore. He is dropping some episodes, actually, as we speak,

01:00:22

I believe, as I'm recording. I think he's dropping three episodes. He told me he was going to do that today.

01:00:29

He's going to deal with a lot of things. He's a pastor. He deals with recovery, reformation, so he's going to deal a lot with how to recover from addictions, things like that.

01:00:40

I will be recording later today. It'll be later on their podcast, but what are we even doing here with the

01:00:46

Updikes? I will be able to record with them soon, and I'm looking forward to that.

01:00:52

We have Five Solas, which is a great podcast with James Watkins. He's been doing outstanding stuff with his podcast.

01:01:00

I've been really blessed by it. Those are some of the newer ones that we have. We have some Blue Stocking Baptist.

01:01:06

We have Are You Just Watching? If you like movies, if you want to check out Are You Just Watching? gives you some critical thinking in the area of Hollywood.

01:01:15

And I'm going to give a shout out to a specific podcast that we did. Colleen Sharp and I have a podcast called

01:01:22

So You Want to Be a Podcaster. We recently released an episode that I think every

01:01:27

Christian podcaster must listen to, but it's even good if you're not a podcaster to listen to, and it is one on ethics.

01:01:35

We did a podcast that we basically entitled it Podcast Ethics, but you end up seeing quite a bit online with people who are doing things that just, not so good.

01:01:48

And we think that there's, as Christians, standards we should hold to. And so,

01:01:54

I just want to give a thanks to all of you who listen. I've been thoroughly amazed. You in all 51 of the

01:02:03

United States, say, hey, wait, Andrew, there's only 50. That's right. But DC is considered in the list. We are listened to in 87 countries.

01:02:12

And give a shout out to those, my friends there in the Philippines, because they've moved up the list from being pretty low.

01:02:20

The Christian podcast community, every one of the podcasters told me after I was in the

01:02:25

Philippines speaking, all of them noticed a jump in listenership to their podcast from the

01:02:32

Philippines. And so, I know Colleen from Theology Gals had mentioned all of a sudden she got friend requests from the

01:02:39

Philippines, and that was really quite interesting. So, what we end up seeing is that there's been a lot of encouraging things going on in Striving Fraternity and the

01:02:52

Christian podcast community, and it's all because of you. You listen here, you share these things, you get encouraged.

01:02:59

If this podcast here encourages you, share it with a friend, get others to subscribe. It would be of great value.

01:03:05

If you really want to help us out, you could donate at strivingforeternity .org and from there you could donate and help us out on a monthly basis so that we understand what our monthly income is, we can deal with things on a monthly basis.

01:03:25

But that would be greatly encouraged. I hope that this episode encouraged you. I hope you go check out the other podcasts on the

01:03:32

Christian podcast community. I know I didn't play a bunch of commercials this time and different things, but I do want you to go check them out.

01:03:40

I don't know what I have on schedule for next week, but I will say this. We will be doing some bonus episodes.

01:03:46

We had the Equipped Jersey. Dr. Sylvester did an excellent job addressing the issue of social justice.

01:03:52

I dealt with basically dealing with marriage and priority in evangelism and whether you should or shouldn't be evangelizing and when things –

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I actually make a case that some people shouldn't be evangelizing, and so I'll put that out there.

01:04:07

And then Pastor Frank Mullis also dealt with – the whole theme was marriage is what we tried to deal with, and so Frank is going to provide a lot on that.

01:04:17

And so we're going to release those. We'll at least have those three messages. I don't know how the Q &A came out, so we'll see if that is something we can also give to you, but be looking forward to that.

01:04:26

And remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. Hey, Scott.

01:04:39

What brings you into the pharmacy? I'm thinking about getting one of the updated COVID -19 vaccines. Great. Do you know which type of vaccine you'd like?

01:04:48

There's more than one. Yep. There are different types of vaccines available. You can learn more about them at wedovaccines .com.

01:04:55

If you have questions or want to make an appointment, give me a call. What was that website again? Wedovaccines .com.

01:05:03

Thanks. I'll check it out. Thanks. ...website