The Character of Christ 11/9/08
Sermon Series: Colossians – All About Christ
Text: Colossians 1:15-23
Title: The Character of Christ
Theme: This message is about the incredible power and authority of Jesus. It is an anthem of His character and sets up the fact that He saved us himself.
Introduction: I love the holidays they make me almost giddy with anticipation of the upcoming days.
Transition: The passage that we read this morning is an anthem of the powerful character and work of our Lord and Savior Jesus. The Apostle outlines three different areas of Christ’s character that stand as eternal testaments to His power and authority.
I. Christ the Creator
a. Something about the fact that we cannot excise God as the basis of all creation and still worship Him.
i. It is the fact of creation that scripture returns to time and again as the basis for an understanding of Him.
1. It is the beginning of the Biblical narrative and builds the framework out of which all of our understanding of Him takes place. Gen. 1:1 – IN the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2. Scripture also makes it clear that this creative ability required no preexistent material –
a. “as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” (Romans 4:17, ESV)
b. “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” (Hebrews 11:3, ESV)
3. It is one the main reasons that we understand Him as God and it is out of Creative authority that God defines His sovereignty over man – Job 38-41
4. It is from Creation authority that we have to understand that Jesus is our sovereign Lord. Before the foundation of time the trinity was considering mankind and the world into which he would be placed.
5. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1-3, ESV)
ii. The application of this principle to you and I means that we understand that we are more than an accidental bit of tissue that accidently got stuck together in one magical moment – we are the design of an incredible architect who formed us to exist in a magnificent creation as the centerpiece of that creation. This thought should leave us with a couple attitudes toward our creator.
1. Honor and privilege We understand that we were designed for glory and because of that we are aware of the fact that we need to live in the larger context of our existence. In other words our designer lavished an infinite amount of care into us and our surroundings and we should feel the privilege of that high station and live up to it.
II. Christ the Preeminent
a. Christ has first place in “all things” – in every way that man can possibly imagine Christ is first. There are several phrases that depict the first-ness of Jesus.
i. He is the image of God – This phrase probably doesn’t have the impact to us that it would have had to the person of the first century that read this letter. When we think of image we think of a reflection or a caricature of something else. The ancient people understood that this word translated image meant that something was more than just the reflection of something else it was the manifestation of the very thing that it represented. This thought is further heightened by the phrase that “it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.” So this made it clear to these folks that Jesus was more than just a representative or an ambassador from God He was and is the physical existence of God.
1. The author of Hebrews frames a synonymous thought when he declares that Jesus is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature.”
ii. He is first born over all creation – This phrase signifies the fact that Jesus was pre-existent before the beginning.
1. Francis Schafer frames this idea quite nicely when he says that
iii. He is before all things – things here is represented by the neuter pronoun and indicates that Jesus is to be honored and revered above all material stuff that makes up the world and the universe.
1. I don’t know about you but since we have begun receiving the images back from the Hubble space telescope I have been fascinated at all of the marvels of the universe which have been existing out there without our knowledge of them. (Show slides) As incredible as all of the stuff that is around us appears nothing comes close to the magnificence of our Savior. Sometimes in our desire to make Jesus personal I think that we lose this sense of His majesty: Which makes His personal sacrifice even more poignant.
iv. IN Him all things hold together.
1. Maybe even more significant is the fact that the power and authority of Jesus is what holds the fabric of things together both on a macro universe scale and on a micro quantum scale, it is Jesus that is the glue of creation.
2.
III. Christ the Reconciler
a. The picture that we are given in scripture is one where all of creation suffered a serious brokenness when disobedience entered the creative canvas that God had built.
b. As I thought about this I was reminded of the animated Christmas Classic “Twas the Night Before Christmas. This movie tells the story of a village which has managed to raise the ire of Santa because one of the village mice has sent a letter to the local Newspaper in which he said that Santa was not real. Due to this being put in the paper Santa has started sending all of the letters that the children had written to him back unopened. In order to appease Santa the local clock maker was given the commission to build a large clock that would sing a beautiful song of reconciliation to Santa at the stroke of midnight on Christmas eve thereby causing him to rethink his anger and stop to deliver gifts to the children of this town. Well the plan might have worked except that the same mouse who had written the letter suggesting that Santa was not real wanted to get and see how the clock worked and in the process completely messed up the works. The mayor and town council were so infuriated that the clock didn’t work properly that they wouldn’t let the clock maker who designed and built the clock come and repair it.
c. While the analogy has several flaws I thought that there was an interesting similarity between this and the redemption story.
i. God designed and created us to be in perfect relationship with Him.
ii. We gummed up the works not only for us but for all of creation when we decided to be disobedient.
iii. And as incredible as it seems the designer and maker stands ready to enter the core of our works and repair the brokenness if we only allow Him in.
