Christ is Your Life

Sunday Sermons

Mark Dunagan
12/09/07 - Sunday Evening

Christ is Your Life

As one enters the third chapter of Colossians one is immediately confronted with the continual theme that Jesus is the center of one’s life:

“If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is” (3:1).
“Your life is hidden with Christ” (3:3).
“Christ, who is our life” (3:4).
“Christ, is all, and in all” (3:11).
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (3:15).
“Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you” (3:16).
“Whatever you do…do all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (3:17).
“Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord” (3:18).
“Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for is this well-pleasing to the Lord” (3:19).
“Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord” (3:23).

It is clear from these verses that the Holy Spirit is essentially saying, “It’s all about Christ”. One’s thought life (3:1-4) needs to be centered on Christ, one’s moral life (3:5-14) must be in harmony with Christ, in fact, whatever we do in word or deed needs to meet with the approval of Christ. So why is this? Allow me to suggest that many people might not be agreeable to observing the expectations of chapter three unless they understand what was said about Christ in the first chapter of this letter.

Who Christ Is?

“He is the image of the invisible God” (1:15)

Other passages reveal that Jesus is “not simply a sketch of God or a summary and more than a lifeless portrait of Him. In Him there is nothing left out; He is the full manifestation of God, and nothing more is necessary” (Barclay pp. 118-119). The Hebrew writer expressed the same truth when he wrote, Hebrews 1:3 “and the exact representation of His (the Father’s) nature”. “To say that Christ is the image of God is to say that in Him the nature and being of God have been perfectly revealed--that in Him the invisible has become visible” (F.F. Bruce pp. 57-58). Eadie notes, “A visible God can alone be the image of God, possessing all the elements and attributes of His nature. The Divine can be fully pictured only in the Divine” (p. 43).

What this means is that only in Jesus Christ can we accurately see God. If we ignore Jesus then we will never understand the Father, for only Jesus fully reveals Him to us (John 1:18). His compassion, mercy, His moral standards, anger at sin and human stubbornness, are exactly the way God the Father feels about such things.
This is why Jesus said to His disciples, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), and why He also claimed to be the only way to the Father (John 14:6). For one who is divine can be the only path to deity.
“Such a revelation (John 1:18) as Christ gives enables man to know a God who can be trusted and obeyed and loved. Hungering human hearts are not willing to accept the verdict that there is no God; nor are they satisfied with abstractions concerning ‘the Absolute’, ‘the Unknowable’. In Christ is found a God who is near, who cares, who hears, who pities, and who saves” (Erdman p. 52).

“The First-Born of all creation” (1:15)

This does not mean that Jesus is a “created being” or the “first one that God created”, for:

The text already declared Him to be the very image of God (1:15).
He is excluded from all created things in the next verse (1:16).
Other passages have equally removed Him from the created category
(John 1:3; Hebrews 1:2).
The Scriptures direct worship toward Him (Hebrews 1:6), yet, to worship a created being (even an angel) is idolatry (Romans 1:25).
The context of Colossians 1:15-20 demands that the word "firstborn" refers to position and not to origin, because the word is used again in 1:18, “the firstborn from the dead” - yet, Jesus was not the first person raised from the dead, rather He is the most important one resurrected, the one resurrected to die no more, the one resurrected who guarantees the resurrection of every person (1 Corinthians 15:22-23; Revelation 1:5). Thus, Jesus is the preeminent one over all creation, everything belongs to Him (1:16), and everything exists to serve Him.

“For by Him all things were created”

Therefore, He can rightly give all the rules seeing that He is the original Designer and Maker of not only the universe, but also man, marriage, civil government, the family and the church.
Thus, not listening to Christ is a decision to ignore the instructions laid down by the Creator for how life works, what will make us happy, and how to live.
“Every form of matter and life owes its origin to the Son of God, no matter in what sphere it may be found... Christ'screative work was no local or limited operation; it was not bounded by this little orb. Every form and kind of matter, simple or complex – the atom and the star, the sun and the cloud – every grade of life from the worm to the angel--every order of intellect and being around and above us are the product of the Firstborn” (Eadie pp. 51-52). Obviously, this leaves no room for the theory of Evolution. Everything that we see – Jesus designed it and brought it into existence because of the power that resides in Him.

“In the heavens and on earth”:

There is no need to revere or worship the heavenly planets and stars – they are just created things. There is equally no need to worship angels or any man – for such things fit into same category that we do.

“Visible and Invisible”:

He is the author of the laws of physics and all other laws that govern this creation. “That is to say, all the laws by which this world has order and not chaos are an expression of the mind of the Son. The law of gravity and the rest, the laws by which the universe hangs together, are not only scientific laws but also divine” (Barclay p. 120).
There is no force in the universe that is more powerful than He is. I like what Bruce said, “For those who have been redeemed by Christ, the universe has no ultimate terrors: they know that their Redeemer is also creator, ruler, and goal of all” (p. 63).
Jesus is the final goal toward which all creation is heading (2 Corinthians 5:10). The same expression is used in reference to God the Father (1 Corinthians 8:6; Romans 11:36). All things, as they had their beginning in Him, tend to Him as their consummation, to depend on and serve Him (Hebrews 2:10). This means that only when I find Christ do I really find out why I am here; apart from Christ I will never fulfill my destiny (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).

“He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (1:17)

“Christ not only creates, but maintains in continuous stability and productiveness” (Vincent p. 471). Apart from Jesus Christ, the physical universe would fly apart (Hebrews 1:3).

“They form ‘a cosmos instead of a chaos’. To see Christ as ‘existent behind all laws’, to regard stars and atoms, and the worlds of men and of angels, as ‘in Him’ and ‘through Him’ and ‘unto Him’, is to gain a wholly new and overwhelming vision of His glory and to find a new beauty and splendor in the universe He has made and ever sustains” (Erdman p. 54).

“He is also the head of the body” (1:18)

He is the sole head of the church (Ephesians 1:22-23), which leaves no room for men or governing bodies. If I really believe these verses, then I will conclude that we don’t need such men as Joseph Smith, the Pope, or Mohammed. How can any of them compare to Christ? They are nobodies compared to the Creator!

“All the Fullness to dwell in Him” (1:19; 2:9)

That is, all the fullness of God (Colossians 2:9). Everything that God can ever do or mean to a human being is only found in Christ. He can provide 100% of God and God’s blessings (Ephesians 1:3) to anyone who wants it (3:11). Other messages may claim that they can change you – but only the Creator has the answer! “Are we not entranced with the dignity of our Redeemer and are we not amazed at His condescension and love? That the Creator and upholder of the universe should come down to such a world as this, and clothe Himself in the inferior nature of its race, and in that nature die to forgive and save it, is the most amazing of revelations. Dare we lift our hearts to contemplate and credit it? And yet it is truth, most glorious truth. The God of the first chapter of Genesis is the babe of the first chapter of Matthew. He whom Isaiah depicts as ‘the Lord God, the Creator of the ends of the earth’, ‘who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span?’, is the Christ crucified. He who, in the pages of Jeremiah, is ‘the true God, the living God, and an everlasting King’, is in the pages of John the Word made flesh--the weeping Jesus--the Master girded with towel and washing His disciple's feet--the sufferer crowned with thorns and nailed in nakedness to the cross. He by whom all things were made had not ‘where to lay His head” (Eadie pp. 58-59). Christ is truly your life and mine!

Mark Dunagan/Beaverton Church of Christ/503-644-9017