Truth That Changes Lives

JP Jones: It doesn't matter whether you're in those first few steps or you're down the path of following Jesus, there is a part of your life, an area of your life that I can absolutely guarantee that you need to surrender to him.

Greg: Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the senior pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California, and a professor in biblical studies at Biola University.

Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled All About Jesus. Let's listen in as JP gives us part four of The Truest Thing About You.

JP Jones: So it's critical that we think rightly about Jesus. And Paul is trying to correct some false views that people had at this church in Colossae because they were religious people, but they still had false views.

Did you know you can be a religious person and have false views? You can go to church and not believe the truth because the ultimate truth is what's true about Jesus.

By him, all things were created, things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers, rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him. Paul includes in this list the things of the visible world and the things of the invisible world because the Bible teaches that there is more than just what we see with our eyes. There is an invisible world that oftentimes in the New Testament is described as the heavenlies, and in the heavenlies, there is a whole angelic realm.

And Paul in this passage and in several other passages describes an angelic hierarchy. So when he says rulers and authorities and powers, he repeats this here in Colossians 2, and he makes reference to it in Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 6 and in Romans chapter 8.

You see, Paul's description of the angelic world is that there are spheres of influence and power. There's a hierarchy within the angels, both the good and elect, holy angels, and in the fallen demonic angels. And so they rank up as rulers, authorities, powers, and as dominions.

But what he says here in Colossians chapter 1 is that Jesus Christ is the creator. He stands in relationship of preeminence and authority over all angels, good and bad.

In fact, Paul asserts in Ephesians chapter 1 with reference to Christ's resurrection, ascension, and seating, that he has been seated to the Father's right hand above all rule and authority and power and dominion, above every name that's named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. Jesus has absolute authority over the angelic world.

And in Colossians 2:15, it says that after his resurrection, Jesus disarmed and triumphed over the rulers, the authorities, and the powers. So Jesus has absolute victory over all angelic opposition, demonic opposition that we might have to our faith.

In Hebrews 2:15, it says that Jesus had to be made like his brethren to be a perfect mediator. So he had to take on flesh and blood, and when he did, he died as an atonement for our sin. And it says that he defeated and dethroned him who had the power over death, which is Satan.

So Jesus has absolute authority over any spiritual opposition we would ever have as followers of Jesus Christ. He has absolute spiritual authority because of his position as the protokos, the creator of all things.

He has absolute spiritual authority because of his death on the cross, he defeated the enemy. And he has absolute spiritual authority because he's been resurrected, ascended, and seated at the Father's right hand above all rule, authority, power, and dominion, every name that's named. Here's the impact of all of that.

What Paul's saying about Jesus is he's number one, and everything else is underneath him. We don't have to feel like in our spiritual struggle that the opposition is so powerful we can't overcome.

I know we feel that way, but that's not true because the truest thing is what God says is true. And what God says is true is that Jesus himself is the protokos, the creator over all things. He's the victor, he's triumphed, he's seated at the Father's right hand, he has absolute rule and authority.

And so is our focus on the enemy or is our focus on Jesus Christ? Is our faith in how we feel or is our faith in what God's word says is true?

Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God, the protokos over all creation, and in him and by him and through him and for him, all things have been created. Verse 17 says, "He is before all things, and in him, all things hold together." Paul's making a tremendous statement of the truth about Jesus.

He's making a tremendous statement about the truth about Jesus because of the potential and the reality that people had false ideas about Jesus. Jesus is before all things, and in him, all things hold together.

He's before all things. He uses the Greek preposition "pros," which literally means before, but we understand by the context that there are some implications of that. He's before all things from the standpoint of time. He is temporally before all things because Jesus is eternal.

He is uncreated. He eternally exists. Everything else is created. So everything else came into being. Look around, look up here at me, look around at everybody, all of us, we came into being at some point in time.

Everything else in creation came into being at some point in time. Jesus never came into being. He has always existed. He is eternal. So from the standpoint of time, he's before all things.

He's before all things authoritatively. He has authority over all things. That's his position. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 28, "All authority's been given to me in heaven and on earth."

In Ephesians 1, it says that he's seated at the Father's right hand above all rule, authority, power, dominion, above every name that's named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And in this passage, he is the protokos over all creation, the preeminent one, the authoritative one, the source.

He's before all things because of his relationship to all things, you see. Jesus is the author, the source, the reason behind everything in creation.

Let me ask you, is Jesus before all things in your life? Is he before all things in your experience? Is he number one in your life? Is he the number one in your marriage? Is he number one in your family? Is he number one in your finances? Is he number one in your career? Is he number one in your leisure? Is he number one in your future? Is Jesus number one—is he before all things?

Have you taken what is true and placed it before yourself and said, "My life needs to line up with this because of the amazing grace of Jesus in saving me and because of who Jesus is and who I am in relationship to Jesus."

Is he before all things in my life? Because he's before all things in the universe. He's before all things, and in him, Paul says all things hold together. I think Paul is saying something both metaphysically and something actually.

Actually, this universe holds together because of Jesus, not because of natural law. Jesus invented gravity. What we call the laws of the universe or the laws of nature exist because God has brought them into existence.

So ultimately, God holds all things together, and in this passage, Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God, he's the protokos over all creation. So the object of our understanding is that Jesus Christ literally holds everything together.

But there's another sense, I think, in which Paul is describing this, and maybe this is the sense in which he is relating it to his audience because Gnosticism was a view, a worldview that tried to understand reality.

And what Paul is saying is that Jesus is the ultimate reality that is the substance of everything and the connection, the glue, kind of so to speak, that holds everything together. And in fact, with respect to understanding reality, he's the integrating truth that holds everything together.

Everybody has some kind of worldview. Everybody believes some take on reality. And some of us have studied and have sophisticated understandings of our life philosophy and worldview, and others of us maybe don't even realize that we have one, but we do.

It's kind of how we understand reality and how things just kind of work. Paul's statement is this, that ultimately Jesus is the one who holds all things together, even in the area of ideas, in the area of worldviews and religious systems and religious understandings.

Trying to answer those ultimate life questions: Who am I? And where am I going? And what's my purpose for being here? And is there a God? And is there life after death? All that kind of stuff.

The only coherent, logical, satisfying system that answers all those questions is a system that has at the very center, Jesus Christ. He is the one who sustains and upholds all things. He's the visible image of the invisible God, the protokos over all creation.

Everything that exists, everything that's been created was created in him and for him and by him and through him. He is the one who holds everything together. Have you come to the place in your life where you've thanked him that he holds your life together?

You've surrendered your life to him and said, "My life is not my own, it's yours." Paul says in the next verse that he is the head of the body, the church, he's the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy.

So in relationship to God, he's the visible image of the invisible God. In relationship to creation, everything that exists, he's the protokos, the firstborn over all creation, he is the creator.

And everything that has come into being has come into being in him and for him and by him. And he holds all things together. And in relationship to the church, which is his body, he's the head. I'm not the head of this church. Your pastors aren't the head of this church.

Your deacons and lay leaders are not the head of this church. We collectively in our congregational majority, we're not the head of this church. Jesus Christ is the head of the church. The church is his body.

Jesus said in Matthew 16, when Peter says, "Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God," he said, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you but my Father who is in heaven. And upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it."

The church belongs to Jesus Christ. He's the head of the church, and we stand in relationship to him. And that has individual implication and has corporate implication.

So individually, have I come to a place where Jesus is the head of my life? That means author, authority, and source. So is he my head? Have I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ? Am I rightly related under the headship of Jesus Christ? Am I drawing my source of life from Jesus Christ?

Is my Christian life sustained because the life of Jesus is in me and flowing through me because I'm in a right relationship to Jesus? And then corporately, we as a body, are we surrendered to Jesus?

Does Jesus have preeminence for us? So our goal is to try to find out where Jesus is working and join him. Our goal is to find out what Jesus wants us to do and then do it. And that the lifeblood of our church is not because of our charisma or education or even our dedication.

It's because we're connected to Jesus, you see. That's what the Bible says. He's the head and we're the body and we're in relationship and we draw our life from him. So the mark of authentic Christianity isn't the dedication of church members, it's the authentic life of Jesus in us and through us because we are connected to him.

As the head. So with reference to his Godhood, he's the visible image of the invisible God. With reference to creation, everything that exists, he is the protokos, the preeminent one who stands over all things.

And has priority in all things because everything was created in him and for him and through him and by him. And in reference to the church, he's the head, the head of the body. And Paul says he's the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead.

There's that term firstborn again. He's that preeminent one from those among the dead, the resurrected one. There's a whole new order of life in Jesus Christ, resurrection life, and he stands as the one who is preeminent and authoritative over all who are new creations in Christ.

And all of this is so that in everything he might have the supremacy. So in our thinking, Jesus is to have the supremacy. In our worship, Jesus is to have the supremacy. In our discipleship, Jesus is to have the supremacy.

In our following of Christ in life, Jesus is to have the supremacy. In our personal spiritual lives, Jesus is to have the supremacy. In our marriages, Jesus is to have the supremacy. In our families, Jesus is to have the supremacy. In our work, Jesus is to have the supremacy. In everything about our lives, Jesus is to have the supremacy.

That means every person here, there's room for us to take a next step. For some of us, we stand outside of that life in Christ. We're here as seekers and maybe guests or friends, but we've never surrendered our life to Christ, experienced his salvation.

He has no supremacy in our life. And we need to take that first step of crossing the line and believing in Jesus Christ and surrendering to him that he might have supremacy. But it doesn't matter whether you're in those first few steps or you're down the path of following Jesus, there is a part of your life, an area of your life that I can absolutely guarantee that you need to surrender to him to have the supremacy.

There is room in this church for us to say Jesus must have the supremacy. And Paul is making this declaration, you see, about the uniqueness of Jesus, and he's answering some false ideas about Jesus, but he tells us his whole purpose is so that in everything Jesus might have the supremacy.

Because it's all about Jesus. And then he finishes this section and really this verse serves as a transition to the next section which we'll look at next week. Verse 19, "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him."

God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ. This word fullness is a rich term in the Bible, especially in the book of Colossians. It's the Greek word "pleroma."

It speaks of absolute perfection and adequacy, something that's being filled up to its very fullest, so it's the complete measure of something. And in this context, I think it implies two things. First of all, when it says, "For God was pleased to have his fullness dwell in him," it's speaking of the fullness of deity, the absolute divinity of Jesus.

Because as Paul continues in his argument in chapter 2 verse 9, he actually says it, he restates it very clearly: "For in Christ dwells the fullness of deity in bodily form." Jesus is the unique god-man, perfect God and perfect man.

But another implication that is found in this context is how Paul transitions to the very next thought because having said all these things about the awesome nature of Jesus, he's the visible image of the invisible God, he's the protokos over all creation, everything that's been created has been created in him and for him and by him and through him.

And he upholds all things and he's the head of the body and he's come to have first place in everything, supremacy in everything. That's who Jesus is.

Then he shifts into what Jesus has done, and Colossians 1:20 says, "And through Jesus, he has reconciled all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood shed on the cross." And so he launches into a whole discussion of the reconciliation that Jesus has accomplished for us through his death on the cross.

That when Jesus went to the cross, he died to pay for our sins and so he's removed a barrier that would separate anybody from God. And so no one now needs to be stuck in the shame and guilt of their sin because of what Jesus Christ has done for us.

So Paul in Colossians 1 makes a statement about who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. That's the gospel, by the way, folks, really clearly knowing who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. And so when he says it was God's pleasure that the fullness might dwell in him, it's the fullness of deity in bodily form.

But also the fullness of redemption, the fullness of reconciliation, the fullness of salvation. There's salvation in no one else other than Jesus. When you understand who Jesus is and you understand what Jesus has done, he is the only way.

That's why Jesus said in John 14, "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me." You say, "JP, that gosh, that is such a narrow statement." Well, I say it in the same way I say two plus two equals four. It doesn't equal five, it doesn't equal seven, it doesn't equal three. Two plus two equals four.

I don't mean that critically, I'm not putting somebody else down if they think two plus two equals seven. They're wrong. I don't mean that judgmentally, but they're just wrong because two plus two equals four.

People can think whatever they want to think about Jesus, but that doesn't make it true just because they think it. What's true about Jesus is he's the visible image of the invisible God. He's the protokos, the preeminent one over all creation. Everything that has been created has been created for him, by him, through him. And he upholds all things.

And he's the head of the church. And he has supremacy in all things. And it was God's pleasure that the fullness, the fullness of God and the fullness of reconciliation, redemption, and salvation would be in Jesus Christ.

So the fundamental question for every one of us here, wherever we are in our spiritual journey, is what do we believe about Jesus? And what is our response to what we believe about Jesus? For us as a church, in case you've ever been in any doubt, Jesus is the head of the church.

And we will in every way possible try to find out what Jesus wants for this church. And we will discover what Jesus wants, and we discover what Jesus wants, that's what we're going to do. But for you personally, where are you in relationship to Jesus Christ? Does he have the supremacy in your life, in your worship?

Greg: What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP provides us with great insight. That is why we'd like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today's date. We'll send it your way for just $5.

Or if you'd like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653. Or give us a call at 949-916-0250. That's 949-916-0250.

For your gift of $25 or more, we will send you a signed copy of JP's new book, Facing Goliath. Please join us every Sunday at 9:00 or 11:00 AM at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills.

The address is 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653. Or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com. We're going to get to the address and phone number again in a moment, but before we do that, Pastor JP, do you have any insight from today's message?

JP Jones: Thanks, Greg. We're in this study in Colossians talking about the fact that it's all about Jesus. And in this great passage in Colossians chapter 1, Paul is presenting to us the supremacy of Jesus Christ and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.

He's told us that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, he's the image of the invisible God, he's the unique Lord of creation, he's the creator himself. He's the one who holds all things together. Jesus Christ is the one who rose again from the dead. He's the head of the church. He's preeminent in everything.

He has absolute spiritual authority over human rulers and over demonic hierarchy and over angels. He is the one who fully expresses God to us. He's the God-man.

Paul says that Jesus Christ is the unique representation of the Father, the only Savior. And so the most important question for us today is what do we believe about Jesus Christ? Because if we don't believe what's true about Jesus Christ, everything else in our lives is going to be misaligned.

If we don't believe what's true about Jesus Christ, we won't have salvation. Our sins won't be forgiven, we won't have the gift of eternal life. If we don't believe what's true about Jesus Christ, there's no way we can experience the abundant life that Jesus Christ came to give us.

If we don't believe what's true about Jesus Christ, our whole worldview is skewed, and all that we think is actually true isn't true because we haven't had the truth, Jesus, at the very center.

You see, when we believe what's true about Jesus Christ, everything else aligns properly and comes into focus. Most importantly, our lives in relationship with God. Where are you right now today in your relationship with God?

The only way for you to be right with God and experience the life that he has created you to experience is to believe what's true about Jesus. To see Jesus Christ as the unique God-man, the one who died for your sins, rose again from the dead, is reigning, is the head of the church, and is preeminent in everything, the King of kings, the Lord of lords.

If you believe that's what's true about Jesus Christ, your life is transformed. And so today the most important thing for you, the most important thing for me, is to believe what's true about Jesus. If you'd like to express your belief in prayer, I invite you to pray with me right now.

Lord Jesus, we believe what's true about you. We believe that you're the only Savior, that you're the Son of God, that you're the visible image of the invisible God. We believe that you died and you rose again from the dead.

We believe that you paid for our sins on the cross. We believe, Jesus, that you're the head of the church. You're the creator and you hold everything together, that you're the preeminent one, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

Jesus, we believe that in you all the fullness of God dwells. We worship you, Jesus, we surrender to you, we fully believe in you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Greg: We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653. Or call us at 949-916-0250.

On the internet you will find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.