A Theology of Jesus: Who is He and What Did He Do? | Part 2

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Awakening! It is so good to be with you.

If you are not with us, this little series is a theology of Jesus, the theogology, the study of Jesus.

Who is he?

What did he do, and why does it matter?

And uh we're gonna talk about a second, probably central passage in all the New Testament that describes who Jesus is and what he did speaking to a church that was bombarded by a lot of false messages.

You know, Jesus is great, but you need to do this, you need to do that, you need to believe this other stuff.

And they were being pulled away little by little from who Jesus actually was, the truth of the gospel, and it was destroying their lives.

And before we uh jump into that, I'm gonna ask you to do something because we need a backdrop.

Uh, one of the great things about um history is usually the church sort of gets it really right and goes to an extreme, and then over time it goes the other direction, and Lord willing, somehow we'll make it balanced before he gets back.

But stand with me.

I want to read a couple passages because what we're gonna share is um has a sense of this awesome power, majesty, authority of who Jesus is.

And I think our informal world sort of works against that.

So listen to first commandment we know is there should be no other gods but God.

The second is don't take my name in vain.

And a time happened in Israel where they were blowing it on both.

And so God steps up and speaks through one of his Old Testament prophets.

He says, To whom will you liken God?

Or what likeness will you compare with him?

As for the idol or the craftsman, he casts a gold plate, fashions it with gold or silver, they put chains around it.

He's too impoverished for an offering, so he selects a tree that won't rot, seeks for himself a craftsman to prepare an idol, listen to this, that will not totter.

Basically, God is saying, You've all created your idols: gold, silver, wood.

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

Has it not been declared to you from the beginning?

Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

It is he, God, who sits above the circle of the earth.

Its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.

It's he who stretches out the heavens like a curtain.

He spreads them out like a tent to live in.

It is he who reduces rulers to nothing.

Think of the most powerful people, powerful countries, all kinds of weapons.

He reduces them to nothing.

It's he who makes judges meaningless.

Scarcely have they planted, scarcely have they been sown, speaking of powerful people and rulers.

Scarcely has their stock taken into the root of the earth, and he merely blows on them.

They wither.

The storm carries them away like stubble.

To whom then will you compare me?

That I would be his equal, says the Holy One.

Raise your eyes on high and see who has created all these stars, the one who brings them out, multitudes, billions upon billions.

He calls them each by name.

Because of the greatness of his might and the strength of his power, not one of them is missing.

And then, you know, like us, they were saying, you know, I've gone through hard times, and where's God?

And I don't think he notices.

Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, that your way is hidden from the Lord?

That your justice escapes his notice?

Do you not know?

Have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, doesn't become weary.

His understanding is unsearchable.

And if that was one little passage, but you turn the page, this is what God says, the Lord, who created the heavens, who stretched them out, who spread out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk in it.

I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness.

I am the Lord, that is my name.

I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to idols.

Behold, the former things have come to pass, now I declare new things.

And before they sprout forth, I will tell you in advance what will happen.

You turn a couple more pages.

It's like they didn't get the memo.

This is what the Lord God says.

He who is the King of Israel, the Redeemer, the Lord of armies.

I'm the first and I'm the last.

There is no God beside me.

Who is like me?

Let him proclaim and declare it.

He goes on.

I am the Lord, the maker of all things.

I stretched out the heavens, I spread out the earth alone.

I caused the I call the caused the omen of diviners to fail, the fools of fortune tellers to fail.

I caused wise men to turn back and make their knowledge ridiculous.

And final, this is the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, has spoken.

It is I who made the earth, I created mankind, I stretched out the heavens, I ordained all that will be.

And I could go on, but I'll let you sit down.

I want you to imagine what it would be like to meet that God.

He's not their buddy.

His goal isn't to make everybody happy.

Little by little, human nature, each one of us, we tend to reframe, remake, or reimagine Jesus in a way that works for us.

We just do it.

When I was uh I didn't grow up as a follower of Jesus, and I opened the Bible for the first time when I was 18.

And I uh I came to know him personally, I trusted him as my Savior, his spirit entered my life.

I began to uh read the scriptures in the morning and at night.

I didn't want my parents to think I'd freaked out, so I hid it under my pillow.

And um I all I can tell you is I had a really, really foul mouth.

I wasn't trying to quit cussing, but two weeks later, bam, it was gone.

Now, other areas took a long time, but it was just bam, it was gone.

And so I thought, great, I don't take the name of the Lord in vain anymore.

I'm, you know, like I got one command under my belt.

And uh, as I would learn a little bit later, uh taking the name of the Lord in vain isn't just about cussing, it's using his name in a way that wants to use him.

In other words, um, imagine if you are a let's hypothetically say a friend or a parent, and you say to someone, and maybe they're gonna go away to college, or maybe they're going on a big trip, and you say, Hey, look, you know, if if there's an emergency, it's your trip, all the rest.

Uh, here's my credit card.

It happens to be a black one, it's got a very high, you know, deal on it.

If there's an emergency and you're in trouble, use my credit card.

It's got my name.

Here's the little number in case it asks for the PIN.

And all of a sudden you get thousands of dollars coming in on your name.

And they're for concert tickets and they're for, you know, major purchases, and you're thinking, wait a second, these aren't emergencies.

What, what, what, you just abused my name.

You used me.

You used my name and my resources for your agenda and what you wanted to do, and your, and that's what the second commandment is about.

And so without going into a very long story, uh, I come to know Jesus, I go off to college, I meet a group and they're really into discipleship, I start reading the Bible, I start going to a Bible study, but I started to incorporate Jesus into my agenda.

And my agenda was thank you, Jesus, for saving me.

And I was very sincere.

And what I really want to be is a basketball star, because I've been working at this for a really long time, and I want a really beautiful girlfriend who loves me a lot.

So that's sort of so I'm gonna read my Bible and I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna be a good person, but that's what I really want.

And within a couple years, you know, I had this girl that I thought I was gonna marry, and she said, I don't really want to be a disciple like you're talking about, and do anything and go anywhere.

And I had to say, okay, is it Jesus or is it this girl?

And I agonized and agonized, and in a in a moment I'll never forget, decided it needs to be Jesus.

And I like to say the next day this wonderful girl came into my life.

It was about a year or 18 months.

I didn't date anyone, I was heartbroken.

And I thought for sure she would be the one, and I couldn't imagine anyone better.

And then the other one was the basketball side, and really it was about an idol, and the idol was me, but I just couldn't see it.

So, you know, year number one, it was the first year in my college years, where as a freshman you could make the varsity, and I made the varsity, so I thought, whoa.

And I didn't get to play a whole lot, but I got to travel with the team.

Then the next year it looked good, and then I had a stress fracture in my foot and missed half the season.

And then the next year I came out of the batter's box and I was playing a couple sports, and I ripped my quad from here all the way down, and I missed most of that season.

So the the theme of this story is I would work like crazy, stay at school in the summer, uh, play different leagues, and then when the season started, a major injury or catastrophe would take me out.

It was like someone was thwarting my dream.

And it took me a while to figure that out.

And finally, my senior year, we had a big drug problem and had people selling drugs on the team.

We went through five or six coaches, the whole thing blew up.

I had a guy think that I said something and told on him, and it was actually another player, but he tackles me in the midst of a practice, a fight breaks out, and um God has my attention.

And I realize, okay, I mean, after all these years, if I never pick up a basketball again, um I want to do life your way.

I'm using you.

I thought you were the means that I would get what I would want, and if I got these things, then I would be happy and satisfied.

And that began the real change in my future.

And this group, uh, the Colossians, it was a great church that were greatly confused.

And you'll you'll notice in your notes I put there, uh, you know, when Paul describes them, he'd never met him, but one of their church members, a guy named Epaphroditus, was telling him about this church and the great things that are happening.

But he says, man, they they are getting bombarded.

And he describes the church, they've got great faith, they have a love for one another.

Uh I'm in verses 3 through 8 of Colossians 1.

Uh they they have spiritual fruit, they have great character, they're powerfully impacting the people around them, but they are bombarded.

I mean bombarded by isms and people saying that Jesus isn't enough.

And so then Paul appraises a uh a really powerful prayer.

And as you listen to his prayer, uh think all these messages and all these people.

You know, one group says is that, you know, Jesus is great, but uh you need to add uh these festivals and you need to fulfill the Jewish law.

And another group goes, no, no, no, no.

This is it's more new agey than that.

You could worship these angels.

And, you know, it was an emerging thing called Gnosticism and the body's evil, and he's there was all these levels of spirituality, and pure divinity comes, and Jesus is just one of those, and they were getting all confused.

And so Paul says, after giving thanks, he says, for this reason, you're such a great group of people.

I'm praying that God will give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation into his will.

That you would know what he really wants you to do.

And then he says, Then he prays, I'll pray you'll have a real knowledge, you'll be filled with the knowledge of his will, and you'll have wisdom and understanding, that you can walk in a manner worthy of Christ, because it was beginning to take them in bad directions.

Not only was unworthy of God, but it was destroying their relationships with one another.

And they were going down paths that he knew was going to hurt them.

Finally, he prays that ultimately, out of all of this, they could persevere and they'd enjoy patience, that they would really be the kind of Christians that would follow Jesus and honor him.

And what you see here, you'll notice uh after that, in chapter two, he kind of tells us here's the issues.

Verse 4, verse 8, verse 16, and verse 18.

I summarized them, but let me go ahead and read it.

He says, I say to you, verse 4 of chapter 2, so that no one will deceive you with persuasive arguments.

Anybody struggle with that?

Getting a discussion someplace at work, and arguments start, and boy, they sure seem smart, and I wonder if what I believe is really true.

Verse 8, see to it that no one takes you by empty captive philosophy and empty deception according to human tradition, in accordance with the elementary principles of this world rather than accordance with Christ.

Oh no, you shouldn't do it this way.

I was just talking with someone outside, and they were talking about just even the issue of a family, and that having a family, and that the family unit just being told in certain circles, what's wrong with you?

You don't need a family.

Families don't matter, they aren't important.

What do you mean?

You you believe in Jesus, you believe in the Bible?

They were made to feel very small, very anti-intellectual.

It was happening to the Colossians.

Verse 16, therefore let no one act as your judge with regard to food or drink or respect to festivals or new moons or Sabbath days.

Things that are only a shadow of the things to come.

This was a group of Jewish people that it's Jesus, but circumcision and these rules and these traditions, what makes you right with God is not Jesus and what he's done, but right some of us walked out of that.

And then finally in verse 18, he says, See to it that no one keeps defrauding you and your prize by delighting in humility and the worship of angels, taking a stand on visions, and these people that have these amazing experiences with God.

And in that day, they thought they were these eons of from pure love and pure divinity and wisdom, and they came in these various levels, and you would work your way up through the levels, and Jesus is one of the levels.

In essence, the Colossians are bombarded by multiple messages and messengers seeking to shift their focus from Jesus alone to Jesus plus something or someone that's gonna really fulfill their life.

And I would say we are living in a day that is so similar.

I was thinking of the different Jesuses that are being reframed in our day, some of which I've certainly participated in.

How about the Jesus is loved one?

Love is love, if Jesus is love, it doesn't matter really what you do because he's love, and if he's love, then everything's okay.

If your life is different from other people's, if it doesn't line up with what the scripture teaches, you know, a Jesus of love, there is no, maybe never a heaven, there's certainly not a hell.

Jesus would never do anything to anyone who is sincere.

Or the Jesus of the light, kind of the new age Jesus.

I remember living in Santa Cruz for many years, and I mean lots of new agers, and we would talk, and I mean literally, I'd worship, you know, that rock or that tree, but really life it's all about the truth is inside of me.

And oh, Jesus, yes, he's he's he's the ultimate light.

I believe in Jesus too, or the Jesus of I love I love this one.

Uh I remember a guy telling Jesus is my homeboy.

Yeah, you know what, me and Jesus, we we be like this, man.

You know, he's my homeboy and the man upstairs, and he's uh he's with me when I need him, and he's gonna make life work out, and or the uh the Jesus who wants to make me happy, no matter what.

I remember being on a radio call-in program, and uh this lady was telling me, you know, I hear you saying it was a book about love, sex, and lasting relationship.

It was written to singles about how to have deep love, how to have uh a lasting relationship that would really work, and it was about having the kind of sex that God would approve of, and is actually better than any of the sex going out there by the research.

And it was a call-in radio show, and this lady says, Well, I hear what you're saying about you know the Bible and sexual purity, but here's what I know for sure: Jesus wants me to be happy, and I'm always happiest when I'm involved in immoral things with my boyfriend.

So I don't think you're right.

And then the next caller comes in and says, You know, I understand about divorce and what the Bible says and this and that, but I know Jesus wants me to be happy, and my wife is not making me happy, so I divorced her.

And I'm good.

I go to church, I read the Bible some.

But do you understand how we we remake Jesus in a way I remade him to be my self-help basketball guru and find me a good girl?

And I read my Bible and I prayed.

I tried to be a nice person.

Or I like the the one that if you turn on your television and go up in the channels, at least on my network, and probably six out of ten, he's the Jesus that wants to make you healthy and wealthy, and you never get sick, right?

Just give them X amount of dollars, and that's planting your little seed, and the more money you give, the more Jesus is going to bless you.

Seems like the more money you give, the richer they get, and the poorer that you get.

But anyway, but it's the Jesus of prosperity.

And then finally, I have some really good friends who are really wonderful people, and they smile knowingly and say, Oh, Jesus is a great example, he's a great moral teacher.

And as I've studied Jesus and Muhammad and Buddha and others, um, I, you know, you can believe what you want, but yes, Jesus is a part of the landscape, and he's certainly lived a wonderful life.

But he certainly isn't the savior of the world, and he's certainly not God.

And and all I want you to get in that because we're gonna look at perhaps the clearest picture of who Jesus is and what he actually did.

And it is majestic and it is overwhelming.

But my experience is that we often teach it like a theology class, okay, that Jesus is God, that Jesus created all things and by him and for him and through him, and he's the head of the church.

And we all go away and know in our Bibles that Colossians chapter one teaches that Jesus is God and He made everything.

But unless you walk into this passage the way the Colossians received it, the Colossians received it as if you don't grasp what Jesus has done for you, and if you don't grasp that there's not Jesus plus anything else, you're going to completely miss it because you will remake Jesus according to a way that works for you.

And there's lots of messages and lots of messengers that want to get you to believe a little different Jesus that will take you down a path that does not honor God, and you will not experience the goodness of God and what he wants for your life.

And so Paul's approach is very simple and it's twofold.

Number one, he reminds them of what Jesus actually did.

Verses 13 and 14.

If you want to open your Bibles and f follow along, or your phones, he says, For he, God, rescued us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son.

And what is this kingdom in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins?

Circle, if you will, redemption and circle, forgiveness of sins.

In other words, Paul says, Look, people are saying this, and they're saying this, and they're saying this, and there's arguments over here, and there's new age stuff coming at you, and there's people are saying, you know, you gotta fast a long time and do this religious stuff, and there's these traditions, and it all gets complicated.

He goes, Stop it.

God took you out of a domain of darkness and death that's controlled by the evil one and your lives of destruction, and out of his grace, he placed you in the kingdom of light of his beloved son, and two things happened.

You were redeemed, you were purchased.

You were literally purchased by God, and his blood.

Covered or atoned for your sin.

Sin, death, the enemy is defeated.

And beyond that, you were then forgiven.

The word is you were released.

It's like chains came off.

The penalty of sin, the power of sin, your future, that's what Jesus did.

Kingdom of light versus kingdom of darkness.

This is where you stand.

And then the very next line talks about who Jesus is, who is this beloved son?

But that's what he did.

And he almost wants to bring it back to could you, could you people just stop for a minute?

Could you get off your everyday life and what you want and what you're thinking about and what the arguments are and what everyone else says?

Could you get back to what the Jesus of the Bible did for you?

Never forget that.

But the only way he could do that is if you understand who he really is.

He's not a new age spirit.

He's not a self-help guru.

He's not the happiness gene.

He's not the I'll make your life work out.

He's not the add Jesus to whatever you think will make you happy and try and follow him in some sort of selective way.

In verse 15, he is now going to say, he's going to clarify who Jesus is.

He, Jesus, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Put a box around the word image.

I even put it in bold.

It means he's the exact representation.

He's the manifestation.

We get our word icon.

I had a big piece of clay up here, and I had a maybe a big coin.

I would slap it into that place of K like that, and then I would carefully take it out.

And the very image, the exact representation would be on that.

Except when we think about image, we think of a reflection.

This word means the manifestation, the actual essence.

When he says he's the image of the invisible God, he is co-equal in power, in substance, and eternality.

This is when Jesus said to the disciples, If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

When he said in John 8, before Abraham was, I am.

I am that I am.

He is, in fact, God.

And not only that, he's the image of the God that we can't see, and he's the firstborn of all creation.

And don't let firstborn fool you like, does that mean Jesus was created?

The word had two meanings, obviously, it could mean firstborn child.

It had the idea of first in rank, or it had the idea over time it developed the thought of absolute supremacy, and this is what it is.

In the Old Testament, we have Solomon was talked about David's firstborn.

Well, we know he wasn't the firstborn, but he had the supreme.

He's the one that got the throne.

Here, what we're gonna see in the very next line, we're gonna understand what it means for him to have supremacy or to be number one.

Why?

Notice the purpose clause.

For by him, Jesus, all things were created.

Could you circle the word all?

Now I want you to think of some of those passages that I read.

Over and over and over through Isaiah, what did he say?

I'm the first and the last.

I created all things.

It says he created all things, all things in heaven and on earth.

All things in heaven.

200 plus that we know of billion galaxies, not stars.

Within this little galaxy, 200 plus billion stars.

All things in heaven and earth, all things visible, things we can see, and invisible, things you can't see.

Things that with a high-powered electron microscope, he created those.

Things that are spiritual, invisible powers, thrones, dominions, rulers, and powers.

He's attacking that system that those people were believing of these various levels of spirits that would bring about deification of a human being.

And then notice the purpose.

All things have been created through him and for him.

Circle the word all again.

This isn't a Jesus that you can add anything to.

This is the Jesus who's the Lord, the King, the CEO of creation, because he made it.

It was for him, it's through him, and all of creation, the object of creation is he spoke and it came to being.

It came through him, and he is the object of its adoration.

He's the Lord of creation of all that's ever been made or ever will be made.

And then he goes from that external, huge, if you would think about a circle, he's the Lord of all creation.

Angels, powers, stars, everything.

Trees, mountains, oceans.

And then in the next line, he'll talk about he's the Lord of the church.

Notice he wants to make it sure, he's before all things.

He wasn't created.

And not only has he created it, but verse 17 in all things he holds together.

Notice those two little words again.

He's before all things.

The triunity of the Godhead.

No beginning, no end.

He's the alpha and the omega.

And he's created everything that there is.

And at this moment, we we call it science and gravitational pool and planets being held together.

And in our microscopes, when we look at that, you know, the atoms rotating and electrons and the neurons and how all those things fit together and our DNA and all that.

He holds it all together.

We can observe it, we can name it, we can call it different things.

We see how repetitive it is, we see the great harmony of it, and we are amazed.

But Christ holds it together.

He is the first cause.

He created all that there is.

And notice verse 18, he is the head of the body, the church.

And he's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.

He blazed the trail, his resurrection, so that he himself will come to have what?

First place in everything.

So he's the Lord of the creation, he's the Lord of the church.

And then notice this reason.

For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him.

And if you put a little box around the word fullness, the word is pleroma.

It has the idea of pure deity.

All that God is, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, was pleased in a bodily form to be in the person of Jesus.

The scriptures are unequivocal of who Jesus is.

He is God.

We learned what perfect humanity, undiminished deity, in this hypostatic union in one person forever.

And that God who created all that there is has placed his affection on you.

And he has died for you.

And he is at the right hand of the Father in that resurrected body.

And when you meet him, if you are a follower of Jesus, you will be able to see in his resurrected body the holes inside and his hands.

And he is permanently the God man.

He's not God in a body, he's fully God, fully man, without confusion, who created all that there is and placed his affection on you and has created a place for you and loves you, and says, I will have no competition in all of the creation.

I will have no competition in all of the church.

I have reconciled all things that he might have first place in everything.

Notice what Paul goes on to say.

And through him reconciled all things to himself, how, having made peace through the blood of his cross, through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Paul, if you would study this carefully, and I, it's interesting, you know, I was first service, I was thinking about, you know, we have different backgrounds, and some of you study quantum physics, and others, you know, you code and little Pentium chips and others, you know, all the we're in the Selecting Valley, right?

Well, some of us we we spend years, you know, studying this and the languages and the studies, and I have a file folder on the deity of Christ about this thick, and another file folder on it about this thick, and another folder on Colossians alone, this chapter about this thick.

So Ryan told me I better do a good job.

So I went through all that stuff.

And and theologians, we could spend, I mean, there's books and books and books and books written about these phrases and these words and the ancient Greek literature and later Greek literature and what they mean and why they mean it.

And it's just like it's humbling and amazing, but can I just get it down to the everyday for you and me?

The Jesus.

I'm speaking to youth who are followers of Christ in this room.

I'm speaking to those people on a certain day at a certain time recognized you had sinned against a holy God.

And it's not about being a good church member or a nice girl or a nice guy, or you understood that you're you violated a holy God, and your only hope, your only rescue is the blood of Christ paid for you.

And at one point in time, you turned in your empty hands of faith and you said, Lord, I fall short, I've blown it, I'm wrong, I've sinned.

And my only hope is put fully in Jesus and what he's done for me on the cross and his resurrection.

And you believed on the name of the Lord Jesus and you were rescued or saved, and the Spirit of God came into your life.

And the Apostle Paul is speaking to those people and saying, Here's what you got to know.

Don't add anything.

Don't listen to the voices, don't listen to the arguments, don't get confused by tradition, don't go down spiritual, weird stuff, don't worship angels.

Don't think that, you know, you can fast long enough or do religious stuff or add a bunch of stuff.

It's Jesus and Jesus alone.

He's worthy of your worship.

He has first place in creation, he has first place in the church.

And then he reminds them, and this is why you don't deserve this, but this is what you have.

He goes on to say, and although you were formerly alienated, hostile, and engaged in evil deeds.

Now, some of you were fairly moral.

But under the hood, I got news, all of us were alienated, hostile, and engaged in evil deeds.

Even in my little middle class world, the pride, the arrogance, the independence.

God gave me, God gave me the name of his son, not on a credit card, for eternal life, and I used him.

This is what Jesus can do for me.

My way, my agenda, my plan.

Life's really about me.

And I'll use the name of Jesus.

I'll use the relationship with Jesus.

I'll even use the Bible and what I'm learning to get what I want because I'm the king, I'm the center of my life, I want what I want, I want it for me, and I want it now.

And if that is shocking, that's the human heart.

And yours is no different.

In fact, if you get really disappointed with God because you're not getting what you want when you want it, in the way that you want it, and circumstances aren't kind of playing out the way you want it, what it tells you is you've added something to Jesus because he's not enough.

You're following the happiness Jesus or the religious Jesus or the He'll make you happy, Jesus.

Or maybe you own your own company, Jesus.

And and and Paul says, This that's who you were.

And and would you just like put a I I do these kind of parentheses, yet this is so beautiful.

Yet he has now reconciled you how in his fleshly body through his death.

Why?

In order to present you before him, God the Father, holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

That's what the only Jesus has done.

The Creator Jesus, the sustainer, Jesus, the Redeemer Jesus did for you and me.

Why?

Because he loves you.

Because he's got your best, he wants the best.

And then there's a little condition.

If indeed you continue in the faith, firmly established, steadfast, not moving away from the hope of the gospel, that was what was happening to some of the people that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.

And what I love here is this is a condition here in the original language that's assumed to be true.

He's not down on him.

It's not like he's hanging over your head if he's saying, You in fact have done this.

You in fact have trusted Christ.

You in fact were alienated.

Now you're reconciled.

You know what reconciled is?

That's when enemies become friends.

Some of you have had a boyfriend or girlfriend and had a really big fight, and maybe it went on for a while, and and and some things happened in you and happened in them, and then you you made up and you were reconciled.

For others, some of you have been through divorce.

And unfortunately, this doesn't happen too often, but at least two or three times in my years as a pastor, some people divorced, and then they got alone and they saw what life was like, and they believed a lot of the messages from lots of different people, and they said, you know, I'm gonna stop blaming this person because that's not working anyway, and I'm gonna at least ask, what do I need to own about what happened in this relationship?

And then the other person happened to do that, and then both of them felt like there's probably no hope for this marriage, but I'm not gonna give up, so I'm gonna get right with God and I'm gonna dress whatever he wants to do in my life.

In one couple cases, it was about nine or ten months later, and in one case it was about three or four years later, the couple comes back to me and said, Would you would you marry us?

We've we've reconciled.

I said, Absolutely.

That's what happened to you.

You've been reconciled to God.

And yeah, you live in a world that bombards you, and there's messages and isms and temptations we all have.

But he's saying the one who is Lord of creation, Lord of the church, is God.

He made everything.

He's the exact representation of God.

He's a good and loving God.

He's a just and holy God.

And he's a God who will not accept second place in anything or anyone ever, period.

Let me say that again.

He is a God who will not accept second place in anything or anyone ever.

Not in creation, not in the church, and not in your life.

And so I put some questions here that rather than sort of zip through, I I'd like to ask you.

And uh, and just so you know, ask, I'm asking me.

So I was driving over and I memorized a portion of this and was going over it in my mind and thinking about, okay, the introduction, and here's the transitions, and I want to do a good job, and right, this is what we do.

And as I was doing that, God spoke so clearly, Chip, this is for you.

Yes, you can teach this, but this is for you.

The first question is have you even unconsciously remade or redefined Jesus to fit your life and your agenda?

What do you think?

Do you see him as the supreme, not just in creation of the church, but nothing and no one is more important?

His way, his agenda, his path.

Um I jump to question uh three.

It says, What role or position does Jesus occupy in the church?

Well, we know that.

What's what's what role does he occupy in the universe?

Well, we kind of know that.

Well, what role will he occupy in eternity?

Well, we kind of know that one too, right?

Here's one for you and me.

What role does he occupy in your life today?

Is there another person or a child ahead of him?

Is work a hobby, a goal ahead of him?

And by the way, this isn't like one of those anecdotal just thoughts to my mind.

If you really want to know, just go home and look at your credit card statement, see where your money goes.

Open up your calendar and see where your time goes.

And when you don't have anything to do, and you think, you know, we all dream, right?

Think about, ask yourself, what do I really dream about?

What am I really hoping for?

And wherever your money goes, wherever your time goes, wherever you dream about, I got news.

That's your God.

That's who matters.

That's where your energy goes.

And see, the thing is somehow behind it all is we intellectually, I I can give a, I mean, I could give a I almost said a damn good lecture, but that would have been very inappropriate.

Because I I I actually I don't cuss.

But a lecture on verses 15 through 20 and what the Bible says is not the goal.

God brought you in this room on this day to bring you to a crossroads.

And that crossroads is, he's worthy.

If he did nothing ever for you ever again, just because of who Jesus is, he's worthy.

The fact that his plan is the best, the plan that he loves you, the plan that for relationships and the future and decisions and work and family or singleness or anything you could hope or dream, his plan is better than yours.

Infinitely better.

But you will have to give up the kingship.

It can't be Jesus, you're my homeboy.

Jesus, make me happy, Jesus make me prosperous, Jesus, I'll read the Bible a little bit to do chuck and jive a little bit of this and that.

It has to be Jesus, you are Lord God Almighty, and you will have the same place in my heart, in my life, in my money, in my future, and my decisions that you hold in all eternity, in all the universe, and as the angels worship you at the second seat next to the Father.

And Christians who do that have a trajectory like this.

And Christians who don't have a trajectory that goes like that.

Are they loved less by God?

No.

You just miss.

You just miss.

I think one of the reasons I was uh thinking about why Ryan asked me to talk sometimes is um I'm older.

I'm probably older than everybody here.

You're younger than me.

Thank you, my brother.

Well, I I uh I I made that big decision, okay?

See, I've got a rear view mirror that you don't have.

The windshield, giving up that girl was heartbreaking.

Letting go of basketball, heartbreaking.

A month later, after my senior year, four years of a pathetic career filled with injuries and frustration.

And you know what?

God in his mercy, Psalm 141, that will consume what is precious to you like a moth.

In order to reprove you to make sure you get the best.

When you're going on paths, when you're in relationships, when your money's not going the direction, your your God, your father is so caring.

He will he will bring the velvet vice of discipline to bring you to the point where you say, I give.

Not because he's mad at you, but to give you the best.

A month after I let go of basketball, I got a call from a group I didn't know and found myself that summer playing in every country for the next two years in South America against Olympic teams at levels way beyond any of my ability or any of my past.

I got a call from an Australian team in the middle of graduate work and found myself all throughout Southeast Asia playing basketball against professional teams, other teams, rice patties.

God in that showed me what he wanted to do with my life.

During that time, he showed me who he wanted me to marry, and he opened doors that changed the whole course of my life, all, all, all, all, because I finally got to where I said, You want me single?

I'll be single, but please no.

You want me to be a missionary?

I hate snakes and I don't want to be in the jungle, but what are those assumptions?

Somehow we think that if we surrender all that we are, all that we have, that somehow God's plan is not a good plan.

I mean, he loves you enough to die for you, and he created the world, and he spoke it on to existence, and he's gonna reign forever and ever, and you're gonna bow the knee, and you will say he is Lord, and you will follow him as Lord one day.

But you can either start today or keep your little crown on your little head and do life your way and be Jesus plus something and miss so much.

And more painfully, if we had time, the rest of this passage talks about this purpose and agenda of you being the light, of you living these counter-culture lifestyles, of you sacrificially loving one another, of you not talking and posting about the world changing, but rolling up your sleeves and actually loving people and giving your time and your energy and putting yourself at actual risk and not caring about what is cool or in or politically correct, and being winsome and kind and treating everyone with dignity, and just being a Christian that lives like a Christian.

You can't do that in your power.

And you can't do it if it's Jesus plus a little something.

At the very end, I gave you a passage.

Jesus said this.

Anyone who hears my word, you're hearing it right now, and puts it into practice is like a man or woman built your life and your future upon a rock.

And when the flood and the storms and the rain and the difficulties of life come, you will be great and you'll be stable and you will not be washed away.

But those of you who hear my word, today's word is Jesus is Lord of creation, he's the Lord of the church, he's the Lord of your life, and you either are acknowledging and living that or you're not.

You're at a crossroads.

You will say either yes or no to Jesus Christ today and his lordship.

He wants the same place in your life that he has everywhere else.

He will accept nothing less.

He says, those who hear that and don't act on it are people that build their house out of sand.

And when the relationship problems happen, and when cancer happens, and when the drunk driver goes left of center, and when the baby isn't born, okay, all these things happen to everybody, including Christians.

Your life gets washed away because it was Jesus, what he can do, plus give me something.

I just want you to know.

I that really big rear view mirror.

She was on the third row.

I'm so glad God didn't give me my way.

And I got to marry Teresa.

I got to adopt a couple boys that are my sons.

I got to have two kids that could have never come to existence apart from my DNA and her DNA.

I have 12 grandkids, and I've instead of all the fears of what I would miss, God has given me a life that I could have never dreamed in my wildest dreams.

Surrender is the channel to which God's biggest and best blessings flow.

Like you to bow your head, and I would just, this is not a complicated prayer.

The key is honesty.

Some of you for sure you're thinking about what would need to be repaired or fixed or what couldn't keep happening in the future.

I get all that.

It's not the issue.

His heart's desire is that you would say, I will be a living sacrifice beginning today.

I'll do whatever you want me to do with my money, my time, my energy, my future.

I'll go wherever you want me to go.

I'll be single, I'll be married, I'll stay married even if it's hard.

I'll do whatever you want me to do.

It's giving up control.

Prayer is really, really simple and meaning, Lord, I'm all in.

And if there's not some level of fear and anxiety, then you're probably not really getting the message.

But today's your day.

And let me be very clear, it'll probably get harder and more difficult before it gets better.

But there'll come a day when they add decades to your life like I already have.

And you will look back.

And the Lord will remind you of this day.

And depending on the decision that you make, you will look back with either great gratitude or great regret.

He loves you and he is so good and so kind and so generous.

He wants the best.

But it's his path, his way, his timing, his agenda.

And he here's here's here's the one command.

Trust me.

Get in my word, do what it says, trust me.

Hang out with people that are doing the same, but trust me.

You can't do this on your own.

So what's your decision?

Would you say to God, Jesus the Lord, I am all yours today?

No exception clauses.

No small print.

I'm all in.

Lord, I pray for those who have honestly met you in this moment, that you will protect them and guide them.

I ask that you would give them an insatiable appetite for your word, because it is in your word that the Spirit will give them the power to live out.

And then I pray you might bring some really special blessings.

You know, sort of that hug, that sort of pat on the back, that sort of something in their spirit, their life, their relationships that would say, Um, I'm with you, son, I'm with your daughter.

And all God's people said, Amen.

Let's worship.

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