The Supremacy of Christ Colossians 1:15-20

Faith Bible Church

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Okay, well welcome to Faith Bible Church. Those that are here today and those that are listening in on video, we thank you.

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We're blessed that you're with us. And this is the Lord's Church, and He's doing the work here amongst us.

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And we're just seeing just a lot of energy and a lot of special things going on in the church.

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And we have Pastor Ilgen and Lauren here with us to be a part of our family. And boy, what a blessing that's been.

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Just every week it's been amazing. But announcement -wise, and we have a couple, have a special visitor here today, a missionary.

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And I'm not going to try to explain it at all because I'll totally mess it up. But Victor's going to come up and introduce her today.

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We're going to, as we shared before, Communion's going to be on the first of next month. So, you know, we get to share

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Communion together again, and I'm looking forward to that. And I'm sure many of you are.

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Amen. We had a board meeting this week with the elders, and another great meeting.

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And so we have a few additions to what we're doing here at Faith. The men's

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Bible study's going to start up again. We didn't put a start date on it, start time, but men begin to be thinking about that.

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Pastor Ilgen would like to go through a book. It's called What is the Gospel by Greg Gilbert. And if you want more information about that, you can get a head start on it if you talk to him about that.

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So praise God for that. Sunday school, we're going to have a Sunday school, kind of an adult

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Sunday school, before the morning service, probably about 9 .30 to 10 .30. And that's going to begin

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August 8th. And again, Pastor Ilgen is going to lead that, and it's going to be from the

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Book of Psalms. I think that'll be amazing. So thank you, Pastor Ilgen, for leading that as well.

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And then corporate prayer meeting. We're going to start a corporate prayer meeting Sunday evenings at 6 o 'clock, possibly 5 .30,

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depends on if we have a conflict with the Church of Praise that meets here in the afternoons on Sunday. So really,

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I mean, having a prayer meeting together again is what a special time that is for those that can make it. So we'll be talking about that's going to begin

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August 1st. So don't come this evening. August 1st, Communion Day, is the day that we'll begin that as well.

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Okay, I'd like to ask Victor if he would come. One of the missionaries that we support is

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Darcy Berglin. And then some of you who have been here a while have met her and know her before. And Barb and I met her when she was just out of Bible school a day or two ago, right?

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And we were, I think, a year together in Baker, Oregon, or close to that, and got to know her there.

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And she called us mom and dad because her parents were on the field. So Darcy Berglin, as a missionary to Indonesia, has spent most of her life over there, translating the

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Bible into a particular people group language, the Samandong.

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I'll let her pronounce it correctly. And we've often prayed for her, and we as a church have prayed for her.

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And we're glad to have her with us. Her parents are back there with Barb. That's Ron and Nita Berglin.

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They were missionaries 45 years in Indonesia. And he was the field chairman in Indonesia for most of those years,

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I believe. Did you open up the field in Indonesia? Yes. Yeah, they opened up the field. They were with, back then we called it

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New Tribes Mission. And now it's called, they've got a new name, which will confuse you to pieces, but it's

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Ethnos 360. And Ethnos is a word that means people groups.

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And 360 is supposed to be around the world. And so I'm going to ask

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Darcy to come up and spend a little bit of time and tell you what she's been up to.

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Because we've been kind of lax of letting you know what all of our missionaries are doing. But you as a church have been supporting her along with us.

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So glad to have her with us. Thank you, Victor and dad.

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I call him strange to use his name. And that's typical for Asian people to call somebody by a term of endearment rather than their name.

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But it's good to be here with you. Can everybody hear me okay? So I've been back in the

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States for two and a half years, since April 2019 now. The first year

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I was on a furlough. And you might remember in 2017 we had our

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Bible dedication. We had finished 25 years of translating the

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New Testament and Old Testament scripture portions. About maybe 8 to 10 % of Old Testament.

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And we had a big party. We killed 800 kilos of pork.

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About 19 palm trees to eat palm heart. And it was really all the villages got together.

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And it was an amazing time of praising the Lord for that. We are still working on translating parts of the

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Old Testament. Mainly I'm doing some like psalms and proverbs right now.

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My main co -translator in Samandang, a single gal named Moke. She's translating more narrative passages.

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She's translating the life of Samson. She's translating Gideon. She's translating a lot of the story of David.

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Some of these wonderful Old Testament stories that we grew up with that the Samandang people have never had as a part of their lives.

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And we just think it would really give life to the church to have little stories like that in addition to the

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New Testament. And that's what she wants to do. So that's a little part of what we're doing.

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The big part of what I'm doing right now. So in the middle of COVID or right at the beginning of COVID we had a big fire in one of our villages.

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And not a Samandang village but an Mbalo village. Mbalo being way up on the northern.

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You see Borneo Island is really three countries because the southern part belongs to Indonesia but the northern part belongs to Malaysia and Brunei.

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And so this little village up by the border of Malaysia. They live in longhouses way up off the ground.

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And when they have a fire in the longhouse it destroys half of the village. In half an hour it was totally gone.

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And so with that their Bible was gone. Their Bible had been in print for 25 years so it was already needing some revisions.

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And it wasn't digitalized because it was printed so long ago. And so I have spent the last year really

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I started a few years back. But really focusing this last year on getting that Bible reprinted for the

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Mbalo people. I don't speak their language. The typesetter is in Florida.

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There's two ladies at my church in Sheridan, Wyoming where I live now with my parents who are helping me proof check.

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And then the church in Mbalo we have a WhatsApp chat that we check in several times a week and go over spelling things.

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And they tell me how to spell things. The right wording and that kind of thing.

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Of course our day time is their night time so it's mostly at night. But it's been wonderful.

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Our mission has allowed me to give up, in fact they encouraged me to give up my full time permanent visa to Indonesia.

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So that one of the new full time families on the field, one of the new young families could have my spot.

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And then I could be closer to my parents. And still serving eight hours a day, many times way more than that at night with my team over there.

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On the phone for hours trying to get wording right and stuff. Because the

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Bible was 25 years in print it needs a lot of revision. So we're going through that now.

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They're ready to start. They have six people from the church there that have signed up to do a final read through.

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And each book will be read by two people. And so hopefully the next couple of months we'll be pulling that.

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So this past year we didn't have much lockdown in Sheridan.

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But I was pretty much locked down in my office. Just putting in cross references, making sure all the paragraph markers were there.

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All the verse and chapter numbers were there. Getting it all into the computer so that it can be typeset.

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And just getting all the footnotes in. It's just a lot of work.

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Especially in a language that you don't understand. You have to read everything and be very, very careful. But the

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Mbalo church is really excited about this. They're really excited to have their new

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Bible. Hopefully by this fall sometime we'll be ready to print it.

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So a lot of decisions. A lot of wisdom needed. And a lot of prayer needed.

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I just really thank this church for standing behind me all these years. And allowing me to be able to be free to do that for the church in Indonesia.

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You probably heard on the news this week that COVID -19 is really hitting

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Indonesia very hard. We've got dear friends that have just passed away. That are waiting in line for the hospital for oxygen.

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And the Delta variant has just really spread through Indonesia as a result of the recent

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Muslim holidays. And everyone went home to their villages. Still in the village setting it's still pretty good.

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But in the cities and especially on Java right now. It's really horrible what is happening.

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And I just plead for you to continue praying for the people of Indonesia. That this wave of COVID, the hardest one so far.

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That it will really draw people to the Lord. And help them see their need for him.

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And search for him. And just pray for our team.

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We're all spread out. The original translator of this Bible is retired. And they live in Pennsylvania.

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Moving to Florida this month. So we're kind of all spread out around.

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And it's a big job of coordinating everything. And we just couldn't do it all at all without your prayers.

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So we really appreciate your prayers. We count on your prayers. And we count on our working partnership together.

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To continue doing what the Lord has us to do as long as we can. So that's all from me.

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If you have any questions later, I'll be around. And anxious to talk with any of you that want to ask questions.

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Thank you. Thank you so much.

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When you say translations, the word that comes to my mind is perseverance. I mean, just the slogging through.

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Word after word after word. Day after day. Year after year. Decade after decade. And so we commend you and thank you for your perseverance.

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And your commitment and your faithfulness to serve the Lord. And to your parents as well. Thank you that you could be here today as well.

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Thank you for your love and care for the church. For the Lord's church, really.

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Reading from Psalms just briefly. Psalm 33. Our soul waits for the

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Lord. He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in him.

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Because we have trusted in his holy name. Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us.

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Just as we hope in you. May our hope be in the Lord today.

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Let's pray together. Lord God, we thank you, Father, that you have brought us together. That you have shown us your goodness and your grace in so many ways,

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Father. And the Burglars and the commitment of their lives to serve you for a lifetime.

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And we thank you for that. We pray that the ministry would go forth. That there would be much fruit in the land in Indonesia.

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And everywhere in between, Father. As they go and are a witness of you,

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Father. Ambassadors for Christ. And Lord, may we have the same fervency in our own lives. That we would go forth into our own local community,

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Father. To touch the people that live around us and the places we work. So, Father, thank you for that.

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We thank you that we can gather again. We pray that our words and our voices would be edifying.

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Would be pleasing to you, Father. Because you are a great and mighty God. You are so worthy of our praise. And may you be glorified today in all that we do,

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Father. And may you go before us and continue to do a great work in our church. In the

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Burglars' lives, Father. And in your church at large, Father. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

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Please turn to Colossians 1. Verses 15 -20.

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Colossians 1. Verses 15 -20. He is the image of the invisible

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God. The firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth.

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Visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.

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All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things.

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And in him all things consist. And he is the head of the body. The church.

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Who is the beginning. The firstborn from the dead. And in all things he may have the preeminence.

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For it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell. And by him to reconcile all things to himself.

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By him. Whether things on earth or things in heaven. Having made peace through the blood of his cross.

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This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Father, we thank you so much.

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We thank you for the missionaries that this church has been faithfully supporting.

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And God, what an opportunity and a privilege. To be a part of sending out people who are translating your word.

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To be more accessible to people in Indonesia. So that your son may be glorified in that language.

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That they may hear your word. And God, as today we listen to your word.

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We pray that your spirit would work in all of our hearts. To help us to see

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Jesus more clearly than before. And to be in awe of him. We pray that our fear of the

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Lord and our love for him will only grow. In Jesus' name. Amen.

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I did not plan this. But I'm starting out with the story of a missionary.

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It just all worked out. This guy's name is Charles Woodbridge.

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He was a pastor and a missionary. And he asked

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Professor Von Harnick. A famous German theologian of the 20th century.

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Who is Jesus? And just to clarify what kind of theologian he was.

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He was a German liberal theologian. Which means he believed only of the natural things in the

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Bible. He didn't believe in the supernatural. Yet he was highly acclaimed and talented in the 20th century.

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People would do standing ovation after his lectures. How talented was he?

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He had the whole New Testament in Greek memorized. I don't have a single book in the

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Bible in English memorized. This question, who was

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Jesus Christ? Was particularly challenging for him. Because he believed

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Jesus was human and not God. Yet he looked up to him as a great teacher.

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The only thing he could say about Jesus. Was that he was the greatest man who's ever lived.

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When Mr. Woodbridge pushed Ward to get an answer from him.

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To admit that Jesus is God. The professor could not go further than.

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Jesus was the greatest man who's ever lived. To Von Harnick, Jesus was not

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God. But only a human. Even if he was the greatest human who's ever lived.

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However when Charles Woodbridge went to Africa. As a missionary. He found a little girl.

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Young, uneducated, poor. He asked the same question to this little girl.

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Who was Jesus Christ? Without any hesitation she answered. Jesus Christ is my

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Lord and Savior. Isn't it ironic that a poor, uneducated girl in Africa.

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Could more quickly and correctly. Answer a question, who was

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Jesus? Than one of the most educated man. Who had all the theological resources.

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In the world. Today's text is called the

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Christ hymn. Because of it's poetic structure. And it answers the question.

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Who is Jesus Christ? Which is the most crucial answer in Christianity.

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And the world today. If Adolf Von Harnick was correct. No one is saved from his or her sin.

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A mere human cannot take away another person's sin. Or even clear his own.

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A mere human. Is just like any other human.

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Even if he's the greatest man who's ever lived. We would all be heading towards the unavoidable.

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Great judgment for our sins. We would be still living in the dark ages.

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Waiting for a Savior. However if Jesus is God. Our only option.

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Is to submit to him in full gratitude. For what he has done for us.

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Today the word of God tells us. Jesus wasn't just a good man. But God of creation and redemption.

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In this text. Paul describes Jesus in. Two most important events of history.

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Creation and redemption. From verses 15 through 17. Paul tells us

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Christ's role in creation. And from 18 through 20. Paul tells us

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Christ's role in redemption. The new creation. This is important because it shows us.

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Christ's supremacy over all things. He's not just a great person.

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Or one of the gods. But the only God. Which leads to my main point.

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Jesus Christ the creator. Reconciles all things. Jesus Christ the creator.

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Reconciles all things. Now to my first sub point. As the creator

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Jesus is supreme over all creation. As the creator Jesus is supreme over all creation.

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The following verses. 15 through 20. Elaborate on who the son is.

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Mentioned in verses 13 through 14. The son of his love.

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Whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins. Verse 15 starts with Christ's titles.

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First we need to unpack the titles. In order to accurately understand who Christ is.

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And what he has done. And how he is supreme. Look at verse 15.

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He is the image of the invisible God. The first born of all creation. In our modern context.

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When we think of the word the image. We may think of something of lesser value.

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For example would you receive an image. Of the San Francisco giants. The whole team is there.

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Or would you like to meet the San Francisco giants. With that interpretation.

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You may think that Christ is. Maybe a lesser God. A lesser form of God even.

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However. Image could also mean. A revelation of something.

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Unseen and unknown before. For example. When Rosalind Franklin X -rayed the

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DNA strand. It was a giant revelation of something we had no idea.

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In the scientific community. We learned how human genes are encoded from that image.

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Similarly. Paul's use of the image. Is not to say Jesus is lesser version of God.

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But rather Jesus fully reveals the invisible God. For example in John 14.

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Philip one of his disciples. Boldly asked Jesus. Lord show us the father.

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And that is enough for us. What did Jesus say to Philip. Hold on let me ask him.

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No. He said have I been with you so long. And you still do not know me

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Philip. Whoever has seen me has seen the father. How can you say show us the father.

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Jesus claims that if anyone has seen him. He has seen the father.

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Jesus is the full revelation of God. He reflects God fully.

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He's not lacking in divinity. But rather he is the complete.

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Revelation of the divine. Who was invisible until Christ came. To claim that Jesus is the image of God.

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God shows that God. Who has been unknown to us. Revealed himself to the world fully.

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By entering into the world. It's as if Walt Disney drew himself into Cinderella.

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So that she could meet him. Another error in reading the phrase.

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The image of God. Is to think of Jesus as someone like us. We refer back to Genesis one.

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The creation story. How humans were made in the image of God. Paul does not mean that Jesus was created.

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Just how we were created. After all the next verse would totally contradict this view.

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Verse 16 for by him all things were created. He was not the created one.

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But the creator of all things. So when we speak

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Jesus as the image of God. Here is the difference. We are created in the image of God.

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But Jesus is the image of God. Thus he was not made in the image of God.

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But Adam the first man. Was made to resemble the image of God.

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Christ Jesus was the original. In which the humanity is made to resemble.

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He is the perfect standard of humanity. And he is uncreated. Add to the second title.

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The first born of all creation. Shows his rank. It is the most supreme rank.

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Christ out ranks all creation. However this too can be interpreted incorrectly.

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If we try to force our modern meaning. Of first born into it.

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On Christmas Eve a few years ago. Lauren and I talked to some Jehovah's witnesses at an airport.

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When we read together this specific verse. They claim that the first born of all creation.

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Means Jesus was the first being to be created. Which would again contradict the very next verse.

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However this is a classic mistake. Of reading the modern view.

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Into the text. We can't use our modern lens.

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In order to understand the ancient text. So what does that mean?

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For ancient Jews. First born did not always mean the order of birth.

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Because there was a huge blessing to being the first born. Unlike the modern times.

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The first born would inherit the kingship. The first born would inherit most of his father's wealth.

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And this is not the case in our context. Because we tend to be more egalitarian. Every child will get the same share of his or her inheritance.

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But it was not so in the ancient times. Hence the word first born could be used metaphorically.

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To show the supremacy of his rank. We look to a couple of passages that use the same phrase.

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And clearly mean rank not the birth order. First in Exodus 4 .22.

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The Lord God sends Moses to tell a message to Pharaoh. Then you shall say to Pharaoh.

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Thus says the Lord. Israel is my son. My first born. Now if we take this literally.

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It would be incorrect. Israel was not the first nation ever to be established.

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Many different nations existed even before Abraham was born. The father of the

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Jews. In fact, how can a nation literally be a son?

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It doesn't work out. The context calls for a metaphorical interpretation.

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So when we read. Read the text as how the ancient Jews would have read it.

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Israel is my son. My first born means. Israel is the one nation that ranks higher before other nations.

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Now the verse makes more sense. God wanted Israel to be the nation of priests.

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To reveal himself to all other nations. It also had a special place in God's plan to save the world.

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After all, the Messiah came from Israel. That's why Paul often says in the

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New Testament. For the Jews first and also to the Greeks. That's what it meant for the

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Israel. The nation of Israel to be the first born. Now we look at Psalm 89 .27.

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It says that. And I will make him the firstborn.

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The highest of the kings of the earth. In this context, the poet is talking about a

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Davidic figure. The Davidic Messiah. Whom God will use to fulfill his covenant with King David.

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To set up his offspring to reign forever. The Jews often understood this figure to be the

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Messiah. In order to understand this verse. We need to look at how

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Hebrew poetry works. Hebrew poetry works where a verse.

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One single verse is often divided into two or three. Sometimes four little verse sets.

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Little sections. And the latter ones. The following verse sets.

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Would intensify or add to the meaning. To the first one. So let's look at the first verse set.

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And I will make him the firstborn. And the second verse set specifies and explains what that means.

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The highest of the kings of the earth. The poet amplifies what it means to be the firstborn.

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Not the first one to come out of the womb. That's not the context here. But rather the highest of the kings of the earth.

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The most supreme king. Here, the poet shows that firstborn means highest rank.

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Rather than the birth order. This Davidic figure will rank the highest of all the monarchs in the world.

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In both texts, the word firstborn signifies the one who is supreme.

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Now we know what kind of person Jesus is. We are going to go over what he has done for us in the past.

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Verse 16. For by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth.

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Visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.

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This shows that everything that exists was created by Jesus.

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In case you are in doubt, Paul goes into a detailed description of what he is referring to when he says all things.

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First all things in heaven and on earth. And for anyone who has read

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Genesis 1 .1, it rings true. That is what

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God created and he created all things that dwell in heaven and on earth. The visible signifies the earthly physical things that we see.

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Like dogs, cats, people. The invisible include the spiritual beings that we often do not see.

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Angels, demons. The following four items specify the spiritual beings.

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Thrones, dominions, principalities, powers. These are terms used for high ranking angelic beings, spiritual beings.

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The cosmic powers they would call it. This of course strikes the

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Colossian heresy which believed that worshiping angel was necessary.

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Even after believing in Christ. Paul here is saying Jesus even created the angelic beings that you are falsely worshiping.

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Even those. Jesus ranks higher than any high ranking angels because he created them.

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There is one Christian music group called Solos. And they compose music based off of scripture.

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They have an album for the book of Hebrews. Which the book of Hebrews is very

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Christ centered. It elevates Christ over everything. And that book compares

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Jesus to the angels. And this lyric from one of their songs resonates well with the concept of Jesus ranking higher than the angels.

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Jesus Christ is better than the angels. He is better than the best of heavenly hosts.

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At the most, they are lesser than the greater. He is better than the angels and it's not even close.

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After that, Paul sums up Jesus' role in the act of creation.

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All things were created through him and for him. This is an emphasis on Christ's indispensable role in creation.

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There is nothing that exists without Christ. Not only that, everything exists for Christ.

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Everything in the world only exists for Christ's sake. This means

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God is in charge and he is not taking any chances. All things, whether good or bad,

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Christ is the purpose for them. This is not a cosmic chess game.

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Where God has a turn and then Satan has a turn and God has a turn. God's in charge. Paul wraps up this section on Jesus' supremacy over all creation.

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And he leaves us with no doubt of who Jesus is. He's divine. Verse 17, and he is before all things and in him all things consist.

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Before all things means Jesus existed before all things, temporally. There was no time in which

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Jesus was not. Jesus has always existed. Arius, a third century heretic, who believed that Jesus was less than God the

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Father, once claimed that there once was a time when Jesus was not. However, this text directly goes against that.

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If Jesus is before all things, there was no time when he was not. Before all things also can be understood qualitatively.

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In all creation, Jesus stands before all things. Jesus is superior to all things.

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What's more is that Jesus' role in creation has not stopped. And in him all things consist.

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What does this mean? Other translations often have it, in him all things hold together.

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This is Jesus' role in sustaining all things. The divine sustenance.

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In the Bible, that is God's prerogative. That role is exclusively reserved for God.

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God, God willing, if we live through this service, it's because God sustained us.

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God gave us the next breath for our lungs. I could be stricken dead at any moment.

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Paul here is saying, in Jesus, all things hold together.

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The reason why the universe is not dismantling right now is because Christ holds together the whole universe.

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From each galaxy to the atoms that make up your fingernail, all things are held together in Christ.

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Whether you believe in him or not, your next breath is loaned from Christ. And your last breath is already decided by him.

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What does this mean? Contrary to the spirit of the age, it is not some extraterrestrial beings who created us and then left.

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But we were created through Christ alone. Contrary to the secular academia, life on earth did not start from an accident.

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There was a clear purpose, and it is Christ. If what

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Paul says about Christ is true, and it is true, then there is no other way to approach

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Jesus but in full submission and allegiance to the one who created us.

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It is the duty for all creation to kneel before one, the one whom all things are created.

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However, postmodernism has poisoned our minds and allowed for an answer such as this when you share

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Jesus as Lord and Savior. Well, I'm glad following Jesus works for you, but frankly, it doesn't work for me.

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You may have shared the gospel with your colleagues, friends, and family, and have gotten a similar answer as that.

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Well, I admire Jesus as a moral teacher, but I don't view him as God.

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Whether a sinful human views Jesus as God or not, he remains divine, even if everyone on earth were to deny him.

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The truth of Jesus' identity does not depend on us nor your neighbors.

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Jesus is supreme over all creation because he is the creator. Our opinion leaves no dent on who he is.

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And when we do get such an answer, God willing, speaking truth in love, one day you have to correct that ridiculous claim.

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If Jesus is truly God, you don't get to decide. You don't get to choose how to define him.

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It is as ridiculous as Mona Lisa telling Da Vinci that he didn't paint her.

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What right does the created have to define what the creator did?

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Any other option than the utmost submission to Christ is an outright treason against this sovereign.

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Any other way of viewing Christ is an outright rebellion. Any act, speech, or thought that goes against his will is treasonous against this heavenly monarch.

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And we deserve an eternal punishment for offending such God. But even those who know

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Christ as creator sin against him. What chance does anyone have before this supreme creator?

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This leads me to the second point. As the reconciler, Jesus makes peace between us and God.

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As the reconciler, Jesus makes peace between us and God.

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Praise be to God that Jesus is not only the agent of creation, but the only agent of reconciliation.

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The one who created us is the same being who came to reconcile us, to mend the shattered relationship.

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The great inventor of the whole world is also the great fixer of the whole world. After elaborating

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Christ's role in creation, Paul explains Christ's crucial role in redemption.

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Verse 18 starts with a new set of titles. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have the preeminence.

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The first title shows that Christ is the head of the church. Here the body, the word body is used in a metaphorical sense to show that church is a group of people who share the same interests and serve together for the common goal.

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It functions naturally, not forced, and organically, as a body would, rather than a machine.

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Different people bring different talents and gifts to the church. It would be horrendous if I were to do what

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David Peck does up here, because I can't sing. Now Christ is the head of the body.

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First, Jesus is the head of the body means Christ is not separate from the church.

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He is truly God with us. Just as Revelation 1 describes

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Jesus as standing among the lampstands, the church is, Jesus is part of the church.

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He's not separate from the church. Christ has a deep relationship with the church, just as your head has a deep relationship with the rest of the body.

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He is not far away, watching the church as an unfolding drama, but Christ is personally involved in the church as the head of the body.

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This is why we gather on Sundays, when the body of Christ gathers, when

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Christians gather for the purpose of worshiping Christ, Christ is among us.

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And this is why I'm glad Harold introduced this church as, this is the Lord's church.

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It belongs to Christ. We encounter Christ together as the church, and there's no other organization that can claim that.

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Second, the head carries a special role in one's body. Without it, the body is no longer living.

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The head of the body, Christ, is the source of life for the church. Just as a person would be dead without his head, a church is dead without Christ.

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As the head controls the whole body, Christ rules over the church. He is the one with control, and he is the one who gives instruction.

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The body, the church, listens to the head. The church is not only bound to Christ, but absolutely accountable to Christ.

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There is no other head for the church other than Jesus Christ himself. The Pope is not our head.

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Mary is not our head. Nor are pastors or elders our heads of the church.

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If there is a pastor or elder that teaches anything against what

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Christ teaches through Scripture, the church ought to obey Christ rather than the pastor or the elder.

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The church has one head, and she listens to and obeys

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Christ alone. And any body parts that claim to be the head must be removed.

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Then Paul reminds us that Christ is temporally prior.

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Christ is the beginning. Now one might think this is repetitive, but this is understandable because Christ became man in order to redeem us.

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And it points back to over 2 ,000 years ago. God became man.

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Even though he has existed before all things, there was a specific time in history when

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Christ became a man. We call that the incarnation. Think carne, meat, flesh.

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He became flesh. In this context of redemption, Christ's incarnation is in view here.

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In order to clarify that Christ existed before his birth, his physical birth,

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Paul reminds us again that he is the beginning. Christ's physical birth was not the start of Christ's existence, but rather he has always existed.

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Next, the same language, the firstborn, is used here similar to verse 15.

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However, here the firstborn is linked to the resurrection. Christ is the firstborn from the dead.

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From the dead points to the most important event in human history. He is the first person to defeat sin and death once and for all.

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And he won't die again. He is the firstborn from the dead as his body is glorified and cannot decay, cannot grow tired, cannot get hurt, cannot get sick.

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His resurrection put a permanent mark in history as he triumphed over his enemies, sin,

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Satan, and death. His resurrection is the foretaste of the great physical resurrection that the church will experience one day.

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Glorified resurrected bodies which will never go bad. When I often meet people who are in pain or sick going through surgery,

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I quote, I don't know where I heard it before, but some theologian said, he was old, he was dying, and they said, are you doing okay, how are you doing?

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And he would just say, nothing a good resurrection can't fix. That's what it means to have the firstborn from the dead.

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We look to him. Paul is stressing

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Christ's primacy over all things again. And the next verses tell us why.

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For it pleased the father that in him all the fullness should dwell, and by him to reconcile all things to himself.

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By him were the things on earth or things in heaven having made peace through the blood of his cross.

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The first reason for Christ's preeminence is that it pleased the father that in him all the fullness should dwell.

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It is specifically Christ that God in his fullness dwells.

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This fullness in dwelling words occurred in the Old Testament. When the

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Ark of the Covenant where God dwelled in the Old Testament is brought to the newly built temple of Solomon in 1

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Kings 8, 10 through 11, it says, and it came to pass when the priest came out of the holy place and the cloud filled the house of the

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Lord so that the priest could not continue ministering because of the cloud for the glory of the

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Lord filled the house of the Lord. The fullness refers to God's very presence.

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Before Christ, God allowed his people, only a certain people, to meet him in the temple.

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And as you know, God's presence left the temple when his people sinned, Ezekiel 10.

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After the incarnation, God is fully present in Christ and he is pleased to dwell in Christ.

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Christ is God. Only in Christ we have full access to God. Only in Christ we encounter the very living

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God. The second reason for Christ's preeminence is that and by him to reconcile all things to himself, by him whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross.

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Because Jesus is divine, he is the only agent who can reconcile us to God. Remember from the prior section, we all owe our full allegiance to Christ.

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However, in reality, if any one of us is still breathing, we have offended

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Christ in our lives. We have rejected him before we were saved. In fact, we rebel against him whenever we go against God's will for us, when we choose to be selfish, when we desire our way over God's way, when we view ourselves more significant than others.

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We sin against God. We offend the holy God. And sin affects all creation.

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There are diseases, famines, earthquakes, and hurricanes. And God's created order, because sin entered the world due to Adam and Eve's rebellion against him.

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World with sin and death is not God's ultimate purpose for his creation.

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And what is God's response to sin? Instead of destroying all things and starting fresh, he reconciles all things to himself by Christ.

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All things include everything on earth and in heaven. And how does he reconcile us?

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By making peace through the blood of his cross. It is his blood.

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That's why in Revelation, when there's a sealed scroll and no one can open it, and the author,

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John, begins to weep. Why? Because if the scroll is not opened,

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God's will of salvation and judgment are not played out. And sin remains on earth.

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And no one is worthy to open it except the

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Lion of Judah. But who is this Lion of Judah? He's the slain lamb.

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He's the blood. The Lion of Judah conquers because he was slain.

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And for us, we all have to admit that when we go against God, we create enmity between us and God.

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God, who is light, and in him there is no darkness at all, cannot wink at a single instance of evil, a single instance of selfishness.

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The holy God cannot overlook any evil, or he would cease to be holier than God.

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And this is not good news for sinful people like us. We're sinful, treasonous people who have declared war against God.

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But God, abounding in mercy and grace, reconciles us to him through his

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Son. God does not ignore our sin. No, that would be unjust to overlook any evil.

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God faces sin directly in order to establish peace between him and us.

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Jesus, the God -man, took on our sin, and he faced the judgment that we deserved on the cross.

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Instead of us facing God's tremendous wrath, Jesus faced that for us so that we could be reconciled to God in his place.

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It is precisely his blood on the cross that brought peace between us and God.

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It was not your blood, it was not my blood, but the precious blood of Jesus Christ, the great creator and reconciler of all things.

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This morning and every morning, the greatest problem the world faces is not the inflation rate.

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It is not some disease. It is not some dictator. No, the greatest problem the universe faces is the absence of peace between us and God.

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Which begs the question, are you right with God? I have heard many people say, yeah,

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God and I are cool. But how do you know? If the answer is not

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Christ, who reconciled me to God by dying for my sin on the cross, then there still lies enmity between you and God.

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The only source of peace is Christ, who was slain for you on the cross.

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It is his violent death that brings you peace with God. It is his death that makes you righteous before God.

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Your peace was purchased with his precious blood so that you may live according to his will rather than die following yours.

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Turn away from evil ways and trust in Christ alone. And this morning, are you not at peace?

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Are you overwhelmed by life? Your only source of peace is in Christ, who bled for you on the cross.

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It is his blood that purchased this eternal peace. The most important relationship in your life, which is with God, is secured by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

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It is none other than God's blood that secured the peace between you and him.

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Let us pray. Father, we thank you so much that Jesus is not just the greatest human on earth, but he is so much more.

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He is the creator, he is the reconciler, and he is the only way to you. And we rejoice in the peace that's purchased for us at such a high cost.

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And God, we pray that as we go out, we would not trample on the blood of Christ by sinning liberally.

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God, we pray that your spirit would guide us and that we would experience your love.