Through Him and for Him (Colossians 1:15-17)

This episode covers Colossians 1:15-17 and the supremacy of Jesus over all creation. Paul gives us one of Scripture’s clearest pictures of who Jesus really is—not simply a good teacher, prophet, or spiritual guide, but the visible image of the invisible God, the Creator of everything, and the One who holds all things together.

What does it mean that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” and “the firstborn over all creation”? We explore why seeing Jesus is seeing God, why Jesus didn’t begin at His birth, and why understanding His eternal nature changes the way we understand Christianity altogether. Jesus is co-eternal, co-equal, and co-existing with the Father—God in the flesh.

Colossians also tells us that everything in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, was created through Jesus and for Jesus. That includes more than what we can see or fully understand. While we may not have answers for everything about the physical and spiritual worlds, we can have faith beyond our best understanding. Everything exists for His glory—and that includes us. We were made for Him, and our fullest selves are found in Him.

Finally, Paul reminds us that Jesus doesn’t create and abandon. “In him all things hold together.” When it feels like everything in life is falling apart, Jesus is still holding it all together. Instead of pulling away when life becomes uncertain, we can get closer to Him.

The more clearly we see who Jesus is, the more our response becomes awe, worship, and wonder. Jesus was before us, He is beyond us, and everything ultimately depends on Him.

Additional Resources

• Watch or listen to Past Sermons
• Start With 7 (Daily Audio Devotionals)
• GOOD.GOD.GOSPEL. (How to Have Conversations Toward Salvation)
• Learn about Church Project Network and follow our NEW Instagram (@churchprojectofficial)
• Read this book by Jason: “A Church of House Churches: An Articulated and Applied Ecclesiology”
• Website

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey, thanks for joining us for the Rethink and Return Podcast. We do this, we rethink and return to the scriptures. That's what we're doing. We're talking about the Bible. We're talking about Colossians in the Bible, working through these passages of scriptures. Sometimes we'll have a conversation about leadership in church and other things. We'll do that again at some point soon, I hope. But for now, we're just walking through the sermon that we did on a Sunday to people that are using it in house churches, and hopefully wherever you are, you can use this too. And as always, my amigo Davito, gracias for being here.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

Always glad to be along for the ride. I'm excited about these three verses.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Man, uh packed rich, rich stuff. Yeah, I mean, I think um, you know, one of the reasons I love Colossians, it it's one of the tag in our tagline where we talked about what its Colossians means, the sufficiency and supremacy of Christ. And today is really about both of those, but especially like who Jesus is, man. I think our normal view of Jesus, I mean, it can keep growing because there's more about Jesus that we don't yet fully understand. I mean, the gospel gets bigger and more beautiful, it doesn't get boring, it's not static, it just keeps growing into more beauty the more we understand. And I think these verses today uh give insight into why that's true.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

I do too. And I think when you use the term, it clarifies our Christology, you know, that it brings it it brings it into higher definition about what we believe. I mean, everyone's okay with Jesus as a teacher and as a philosopher.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:31

When you start tightening the screws on what these verses say about who he is, yeah, that's right. And like you, you know, when you when you talked about, I think that that there's there's a more tepid version of Jesus in our culture, and this really takes him out of that category and makes him totally uniquely distinctive.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yeah, uh, that's that's true. And I I think I think there are people who would listen to this and go, I don't know that I've have believed those things about Jesus before. And I I there's on the one hand, we're gonna understand more and more about Jesus when we get into the word. That's one of the reasons we get into the word. So to grow in our Christology and our theology of Christ and our doctrine of Christ, that's a good thing. To understand more of him and then say, not so sure I believe that, that's a whole other thing.

SPEAKER_04 2:24

That's a different thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

So it's it's one thing to grow and understand more and more and more about Christ. That's beautiful. But to understand more and then not be so sure that you believe it, that's where I'd be concerned. I wouldn't be concerned of someone going, I didn't understand that before, but it's beautiful and I believe it. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 2:41

Right, that's right. And I I I think, you know, these verses part of me just wants you just to read them and talk through them again, because I think people have to listen to it to go, now what? You know, like uh you're right. I think if people know the they know Jesus of Christmas and Jesus of Easter, but then we talk about a Christology, which means an understanding of who Jesus is, a working understanding. That's what that word means. That's what these verses get into. And Paul is laying out the uniqueness of Jesus over and against all the critics that are surrounding the church of Colossa.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Well, I mean, he's fighting against false doctrine and Gnosticism and world religions, and uh and so he's clarifying to these people this is who you're following.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

So good.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

This is who I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

So he says in verse 15, the sun is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. I I think it's important. I think it'd be really important for Christians. I mean, I would hope at least people attached to our body, but I think it'd be good for anyone listening to go, I'm gonna memorize this.

SPEAKER_05 3:44

Really good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

The sun is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn overall creation. Like these three verses you can memorize, and it would help you when you when you're sharing the gospel with people. But it is a wild thing to say he is the image of the invisible God. And I use the analogy of people telling my son, oh, you look like your dad. And he's like, Don't say that, gross. But uh, and I tell him, Congratulations. That's right. You're welcome. That's right. But uh, like that's a real thing, by the way. I believe it.

SPEAKER_04 4:13

No, I get it.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

But uh it's funny when your your kids don't want to look like you. I get it. Especially when you're a teenager, but this isn't what that's not what Paul's saying here. It's not like, oh, the son resembles the father. That's not what he's saying. He's saying this is the image of the invisible God. It's the visibility of the invisible God. Jesus is the visibility of the invisible God. Yeah. He's he's if you want to see God, you have to see Jesus. That's what Jesus said in John 14 9. Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. And then, you know, why is this important? 1 Timothy 6 16. God, the only ruler, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone is immortal, and who lives an unapproachable light, who no eye has seen or can see. So if we're not gonna see the visible God, uh what are we gonna do?

SPEAKER_05 5:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

This is he is the image, he's the visible, he's the visibility of the invisible God.

SPEAKER_04 5:24

That's right. I mean, and when Jesus, when you read John 14, 9, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I think we have to stop and think about what he's not just saying metaphorically, he's saying, You've seen I am the exact uh image of everything that is true about God the Father, Jesus is saying is true in me. And then when you think about the implications of having a relationship with Jesus, that's right, and what that means.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

I am convinced that many people who would call themselves Christians are following the philosopher Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

They're following the prophet Jesus. Yeah. But here this changes that possibility at all. I mean, I I I wrote, you know, down a C. S. Lewis quote for this. I didn't I didn't share it in my sermon, but you know, he said Jesus is either a liar or he's a lunatic or he's Lord. I mean, it is offensive for someone else to say, oh, Jesus was a great prophet, but he wasn't God. It goes against everything Jesus said about himself. Right, that's right. You know, or he was he was a son of God, which would Mormons would say. Yeah, or Muslims would say he's a prophet. No. That's it, it it's not, I think some people would say, Oh, I think uh I'm trying to relate to you, or I'm trying to honor at least that I believe something respectable about your faith. It's not respectable to say I think Jesus was a great prophet. Right. No, he he he then is a liar. Or he's crazy and thought that he was God in the flesh. Yeah. Or people try to twist this and say, Jesus didn't really say that he was God. I mean, I hear that a whole lot. I hear that from atheists, I hear from Muslims, you know, I hear from Mormons. Jesus didn't really say he was God. He said he was a son of God, or he he's a prophet. No, Jesus is saying here, I'm the visibility of the invisible God.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Uh you know, Muhammad didn't say that, Joseph Smith didn't say that, Buddha didn't say that, they didn't say it about themselves, nobody else said it about him, but Jesus did say it about himself.

SPEAKER_04 7:27

And they all claim to be representatives. You know, they all claim to be representing some something they heard from some other ethereal world. Jesus says, No, I'm the real deal. That's right. And like you in when you were moving through this verse, you talked a little bit about how the Trinity impacts our understanding of that.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Yeah, I mean I'm also convinced that a such a weak Trinitarian theology has limited people's view of Jesus. They think maybe that you know, I I think it takes people back to Jesus, I follow Jesus the prophet or Jesus the philosopher teacher because if if Jesus isn't fully deity, I think people may struggle. Well, of course, we would all struggle with there's no comparison. This is completely unique. But the fact that Jesus is God and God is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. So in this Trinitarian theology, we have to understand how is the Trinity possible? Is it possible? And we know it's possible because God made us in his image, right? Father, son, and spirit, body, soul, spirit. Well, but we we have a hard time, I think, looking at Jesus as if he's fully, fully deity. Do you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 8:49

Yes, I do know what you're saying. And that's why I think these verses need to be read slowly and meditatively, because you have to, you know, while you're saying all this, I'm thinking about I feel like that, you know, when it comes to Jesus, you've got a smorgasbord of the way you have different Jesus for different people.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 9:08

And they kind of pick out, well, I like the teacher Jesus, or I like the hippie traveling, you know, hillside Jesus, or I like, you know, whatever. You kind of have this golden corral of Jesus, you know, and like Paul's saying, no, it's not any of that. He is those things, but he all he is the exact image of God Himself.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

He's the visibility of the invisible God.

SPEAKER_04 9:32

So good.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

And so, you know, one of the ways that we prove this is we look back at stories in scripture to show that Jesus wasn't born. Uh, he was born, but he didn't begin. Uh Jesus was born, but he didn't begin. That's why we can go back to the like the Old Testament. If you can't find Jesus in the Old Testament, then you don't have a proper Trinitarian theology. Right. You think Jesus began at his birth. Yeah. You know, but you know, Jake, like in Genesis, Jacob wrestled with God. Yeah. But he didn't wrestle with God the Father because, like the verse says, 1 Timothy 6 16, he lives in an unapproachable light, and no eye has seen him or can see him. And he didn't wrestle with the spirit. And so he wrestled with what's called a Christophany, like uh an appearance of Christ. I mean, God himself would step in in a physical manifestation. Yeah. And that would be Jesus, because he is the visibility of the invisible God. That's right. And Jesus could do that because he's eternal. Like the Trinity would mean co-eternal, coexisting, co-equal. Right. So I have a co-eternal, coexisting, co-equal God. I don't have God the Father who is a who is singular. I mean, we're not even singular. I said today, we are more complex than we know, uh, but we are incomplete. God is more complex and we understand, but he is completely complete.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

So we we do understand. I mean, what a reduced human perspective to say, I am only body.

unknown 11:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Or I am only mind.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Or I am only emotions. Yeah. Or I am only spirit. No, we are body, and behind this body that will die is a soul, our mind, our emotions, our will, our personality. And then we have the spirit. And so people whose spirit is dead, they still have a body, and they still have a mind and emotions, but their spirit is dead. Jesus makes our spirit alive. Yeah. He raises it, it was dead, he makes it alive. It wasn't asleep, it was dead. So he brings life to the spirit and he makes a person complete. Now they're body and soul and spirit. But in the animal kingdom, their body and their souls, people love dogs because they have personalities and emotions and mind, but they don't have an eternal spirit. They're not made in the image of God. And so we have this body and this soul and the spirit, and we don't even understand all of that. It's complex. We don't know it. But we're we're we're complex, but we're incomplete. All of that's broken. Yeah. You know, body, soul, it's all broken to some degree. God is more complex than we are, but he's more complete than we are. That's right. And so if we if we are more complex than just I am mono body or mono soul or mono spirit, God is more complex than mono father, mono son, mono spirit. He is he is the Trinitarian complexity and completion of it all. Yeah. And so we look at Jesus being eternal. He he's always always been because God is eternal, God has always been, Jesus is God, therefore Jesus is eternal.

SPEAKER_04 12:37

We have to keep talking about this for it to sink in. You know, one of the things you talked about, I think that you have people tend to glitch out at all of this. And you referenced uh Exodus 33 when you're talking about the presence of the Lord and him appearing to Moses. And I think it's right, it's right in that where we are, you know, and then how God reveals himself that everything he wants us to know, he's made sure that we know it.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah. Yeah, he he is the image of the invisible God, he's a visibility, he's God visible. Yeah, Jesus is God visible. That's right. And so he's the image of the invisible God. The question then becomes, why is God invisible? Like, why would why would God apart from the visibility of Jesus be invisible? And you know, one great example in scripture to give light to this is Exodus 33, when God's gonna meet with Moses and reveal himself to Moses, and he said, Moses, I'm gonna have, I mean, listen, Exodus 33, 19, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, but you cannot see my face, so for no one may see me and live. And so, like even Moses, even in this incredible moment, he's gonna come off the mountain, his face is gonna glow. Right. You know, even in this incredible moment, having all the goodness, all the goodness of God. God said, I'm gonna have all my goodness pass off right. What is that? What moment is this? Yeah, like all of the goodness of God. Yeah. Like when I think about, there's a lot of goodness. The world's broken. I had somebody ask me one time. I was on a trip, I was having dinner uh at like this uh bar, I was actually on a solitude retreat, but I had to eat, so I went to this place, had had a meal. Yeah, I'm sitting at the end of a bar is where I try to go by myself, sit at the very end of the bar, and there's this couple next to me, and I'm like, I'm on a solitude retreat. I don't want to talk. They came and sat down next to me. I went like at an off time, you know, where I could just eat and go.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Because I'm I I don't talk to anybody for days, which is hard. And I'm just talking to myself and the Lord, which is hard. So I'm there, and but then these people come to sit next to me when there's other places to sit, and you know, so they start talking to me, cool couple, and we get into a little bit about what you do, and so I'm I'm trying to not say pastor, but I say everything a pastor does, which they're like, everybody loves that until you tell them you're a pastor, and they're like, right. So anyway, so finally, and then I tell them all the good that our church does and where we work, and they're like, Oh, that's really you see a lot of broken stuff. I'm like, Yeah. And they said, How do you how do you handle that? And I said, Well, there's a lot of brokenness, but there's a lot more beauty. There's so much beauty in the world, like there, there's a lot of brokenness, but there's so much goodness in the world. Yeah, like that's just human goodness.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Can you imagine all of God's goodness passing? Um, you know, I I cry at some commercials that are really good. You know, I don't cry much, but the right movie, the right commercial, right? But man, all of the goodness of God passing in front of you, and God said, You cannot see my face when I do that. Yeah, you won't live. So God is invisible. He's revealed himself to us, though. He's he is a God. He doesn't want He does want to be seen, but He doesn't want the revelation of Himself to hurt us. So he's held back.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

He's held back what we can know, yeah, but we there is much more to know than we now know.

SPEAKER_03 16:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Like what whatever all there is to know of God, we we don't have we don't have capacity to know it here. Yeah. But there is capacity to continually know more of God while we're here. You know?

SPEAKER_04 16:16

And he and he's made he's uh designed different avenues for us to know what he wants us to know about him.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yeah, I mean, anything we know about God is because God let us know it about him. Yeah. And he wants us to know it about him. Right. So he showed us himself through creation, through eternity, through scripture, through his son. I mean, through creation, Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands, day after day, they pour forth speech, night after night, they display knowledge. There's no speech or language where their voice is not heard, their words go to the end of the earth. You know, so the whole world in every language knows of the greatness of God through creation. Romans 1 reiterates that. Right. You know, his invisible qualities and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that no one was without excuse. So he's revealed himself through creation, even his attributes and qualities you can see in creation. Everyone in the world, right? No one has an excuse to not know God, and they can start to seek God through the attributes revealed from his creation.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

So God wants us to know him, so he's put us all in creation. Even if you can't see anything, that even feeling wind and sun on your face and the seasons change, God has a way through creation, through eternity in our hearts. Yeah. Ecclesiastes says he put eternity in our hearts. All of our systematic theology would help us understand that we're made eternal. C.S. Lewis was like, if you find something dissatisfied in your soul after finding looking for satisfaction in the world, and you're still dissatisfied, the answer is you weren't made for this world. And so we all feel it, like this low-grade fever of sadness. Uh I mean, I feel it. Yeah. Like just dissatisfaction with the world. Uh, that's just a little sign of there's something more. Uh, we have scripture. I mean, all of scripture is revealing God. Psalm 119, you and I talked about before. This like every verse except one in Psalm 119, I think there's like 150 verses. They're all talking about scripture. Like God has used scripture to reveal himself. Hebrews 4:12 talks about how his word divides our heart, even helps us understand our own between our emotions and thoughts. The word's so powerful, and then the Son, you know, he revealed the fullness of himself. Hebrews 1, he is the exact representation of his being.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

And so, like when we see Jesus, we see God. So, yeah, God wants us to know him, he's revealed himself to us, but there are things we'll never know about God here. And there's more to know about God than we'll ever know.

SPEAKER_04 18:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 18:38

Well, it's just it's hard to even imagine what you don't know about God. You know, I think we kind of we you and I were blessed to grow up in good environments that taught the word faithfully. And I wanted to ask you about, like, in both gatherings this week, like you rattled off, you know, Psalm 19, Romans 1, Hebrews 4, 12. Even now you just did it. So, like, it tells me that the the word of God, like what you know about God in terms of the word of God is be is how did you you had to dig it out. How did you do that? How did you what's been your relationship with scripture and how it's impacted how you know the Lord?

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah, I mean the story of how my when I was five, how I got to church, went in church before that. Yeah, the reason my parents went, and then they quit going, but I I stuck, you know? Yeah. And the people there that just taught me the word, taught me the word, yeah, it was beautiful. And then, of course, you know, the spirit of God coming to live inside of you. The spirit of God wrote the scriptures of God.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

So inside of you, when the spirit comes to live in you, is this appetite to deeply desire the word. So I had people teach me the word, which increased my appetite for it. And then on my own, I just studied the word, loved the word, read the word. I mean, junior high, high school, my parents divorced. I'm living in my grandparents' house in a bedroom. And I would, I remember I turned on the radio, there was a thing called the radio kids. It was live and digital. And I would uh listen to these preachers at night, and then I'd read like a I would read um like the whatever passage they were in. Yeah. I just keep reading. It's the first time I heard expositional teaching. Wow, you know, and um so it it uh it was uh Tony, it was Tony Evans and you know, Chuck Smith from Calvert Chapel, Tony Evans from Dallas, and so these guys would teach the word, and then I just start keep studying those passages. Or I I stole like a devotional from uh an old people's Sunday school class, you know. I walked through there and I'm like, oh, our daily bread. And um, I got it, and then I would it had like a verse or a part of a verse, and I would go there and then I'd open my Bible and I'd read all around it. Yeah, and those are the things that got me started, and then I just kept doing it, like high school, college, and then I kept I just started memorizing scripture.

SPEAKER_04 21:00

I mean, I think it's important to you because there are some things you can look at creation and kind of know God, but you can really know the heart of God by getting into the word. That's why I wanted you to talk about that because I think people think, well, that can't be that can't be it. There's got to be some other way. And like when you quoted all this stuff from memory today, it's because your life is intertwined with it. Like there are some things you know about God because you found it in his word.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 21:28

And there's just no there's no substitute for that. And that's that's my only point.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

I you know, no, but it it's a necessary point for people who want to know God. Like we want to know there is more to know about God than we now know.

unknown 21:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Like we what we do know is we're not gonna know everything about God. We couldn't handle it. It would kill it would kill it, it would kill us. So God's invisible because otherwise it would kill us. And so He he masked all of his glory in in some fleshly humanity. The Philippians 2 Kenosis, he took. Took off all the rights of it. He put on human flesh. If he didn't mask all of his glory in that way, because Jesus is going to look different physically when he returns. And so he masked it. And by then, at that time, we'll be able to handle it because we'll we'll be in a glorified body. We'll be out of this place. But right now we can't handle that kind of glory. There are things to know about God that we'll never know here. But there is more to know about God than we will ever know that is available for us to know. And so that's why we got to be in the Word.

SPEAKER_05 22:30

So good.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Every I was talking to one of my kids about it this week. Like every time I'm in the Bible, because he was talking about, you know, reading the Bible, and I said, every time I'm in the Bible, I don't feel something. Like I'm not having this incredible existential spiritual experience every time I'm in the Word.

SPEAKER_05 22:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Sometimes I do. I'm like, I know God had this for me today. Sometimes I'll pause on a phrase and I'll I'll pray it, I'll meditate on it, I'll think about it. And I know that that's why God had me here today. But a lot of times I'm just I'm understanding a little bit more. I mean, the dial of my heart, right, you know, like special forces people say dial is not levers, you know, just pulling it on off switch. Right. It's just slightly, I mean, it's just turning the dial a little bit, understand a little bit more about God today, or it's reinforced a little bit more, whatever. We got to be in the word. And um like this, we're just in three verses today, but there's more to think about God than maybe we've thought about before. So we'll move on to the next verse.

SPEAKER_04 23:32

I think so. That's great. I mean, uh it's just all this stuff is so rich.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

It's deep, man. It's rich. Okay, so Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, and then it says, in him all things were created. Things in heaven on earth, visible and invisible, were the thrones, rulers, powers, and authorities, all things were created through him and for him. So now we're into come on. He's the creator. Yeah. And again, I think because of a really broken, broken Trinitarian or incomplete or insufficient or immature Trinitarian theology, we haven't thought, whoa, Jesus the creator, no, savior, get it, resurrected savior at Easter, born savoring to the world at Christmas. Right. I get all of it. Maybe now he's eternal, yeah, but creator. I don't think many people think of Jesus as creator, but God is the creator, Jesus is God, Jesus is the creator.

SPEAKER_05 24:26

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Yeah, God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. He He's co-equal, co-eternal, coexisting.

SPEAKER_04 24:32

Well, it's amazing to think that, you know, I mean, only God could have revealed this to Paul. I mean, I mean, this is not you don't get this by trying to reason it out. You you do have to have a relationship with the Lord. And like you said, with with the spirit who wrote the words connects with the spirit inside of us, that you you go, oh, I I see it now. Yeah. Just with the reason alone, it's not enough.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

I mean, you think about what Paul, what Paul believed before Jesus, he believed that God was a creator. I mean, the Paul who's writing this one, great point on that. The Paul who's writing this one believed that God was a creator. He he believed in one God, the creator God. Yeah. And he also believed in a Messiah that was to come.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

He so he knew a Messiah was going to come, he just didn't think it was Jesus. But when he believed that Jesus was the Messiah, he then necessarily believed, oh, the Messiah is God in the flesh. Right. And that's what put Jesus. It went from God's the creator and a messiah is coming. Yeah. Now he's like, the Messiah is God. And Jesus is the Messiah. Therefore, Jesus is the creator. So for Paul to say this, I mean, that's why that's why they wanted to kill Paul, man. Yeah. I mean, you're saying things about you're saying things about Jesus that even other people weren't saying. Right. You're helping these people understand and believe these things about Jesus. When that that's language that even the apostles weren't using. I mean, they believed that he had power over it, which helped them understand that maybe he created it. But Paul's like, he created all things.

SPEAKER_04 26:05

That's powerful, man. Like it when you're talking, I had this image of a puzzle, you know, uh during the holidays. Uh I helped my mom work a puzzle. You're a good son. With pieces and all. And that Christology is the missing piece of the puzzle. Like when you finally get the last piece in, it draws everything else together. You know, and like when you if we have students that are listening, young young adults, this is why it's important to think through these things and pray through these things and contemplate and meditate on it, because your Christology is the missing piece. You can have a lot of pieces and scattered about think Bible truths and whatnot, but really what you believe in the depth and the robustness of what we believe about Jesus is the missing piece.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Dave, I agree with that. Again, we've made, I think a lot of us, if we if we audited our own faith in Jesus, we've limited. I mean, we we might even say he's God or he's deity, but we've reduced, we've reduced a lot of his power. We don't think he's co-equal, co-eternal, coexisting in the Trinity.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

And so, yeah, he's the creator, man. I mean, he's the he's the creator. And here's the thing, it says he created everything, like everything visible and invisible. Yeah. And then it says earth invisible and heaven invisible.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

So man, there here's what I like to think about when I'm when I was thinking about this this week, right? Yeah. Like um, there are visible things in Earth and there are invisible things in Earth. Like there are there are things that are available to be visible that we haven't we haven't visualized yet. Like this telescope going out to space for 20 years at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour, it starts to take pictures of things we've never seen before. Or scientists find a new, you know, mammal or a new fish on the bottom of the ocean before. Right. Like there are there are things that can be visualized that we haven't seen yet. So seen or unseen things. But then he's saying there's also the spiritual heavenly world that we've never seen. Right. And he said, in that world, there's thrones and powers and authorities and principalities. And like Jesus even made all that. So it's not when we think of Jesus being the creator and the king, we can't just think, oh, he's got power over that nation across the world, or no, no, no, no, no. His authority extends way beyond what we can see into the unseen realm. Yeah. Powerful stuff. And and when we start to go, okay, I don't understand all of it, we we get to the end of that verse. We have to accept we're not gonna understand all this. We understand as much as we can, but there's a line that we know I'm not gonna cross in understanding. That line is a lot further for us. We can keep understanding more. But we need to get to a point to where we go, even though I don't understand all of it, all of this is created for him. And I gotta give it to him. Yeah. Like everything about my life. That's why I think when we get aligned, you know, like when when our whole life gets aligned, yeah, that means everything's created for him.

SPEAKER_03 29:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

And so I I get I take all of my life and I put it in alignment for him.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

So my body would be for him, my time would be for him, my money would be for him, my marriage would be for him, my kids would be for him, my gifts would be for him. What I think about, like everything, I'd be like, hey, this is for you. I mean, you know, I think I'm gonna watch a football game for you because he gives us things for our enjoyment.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

But I I want to make sure that everything I do is honoring him and lines up with him. By the way, thank God for football. Started yesterday.

unknown 29:55

Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

I'm so thankful for it.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

No, you're not, you don't care.

SPEAKER_04 29:59

I don't even know it started.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Dude, you know, it's amazing that we're friends. It's wild. It's wild that we're friends. Well, we have more common that's more important than football.

SPEAKER_04 30:08

Well, that's true. And like what I know about sports, you basically have to explain it to me.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Well, you you don't you don't drink wine, although I'm off it for like six months or so, you know. Right. And along with a good steak, you don't have a good stay. No. You don't have good wine, you have a good steak. And and sports, man. I mean, it's it's amazing. But we've been best friends for over 25 years. Well, because we have love for Jesus and the church of comment, and you're a funny smart dude. So anyway.

SPEAKER_04 30:35

And I I just want to say, like, I think I thought, you know, taking something that is this rich theologically for and all this language that people may not be familiar with, that you know, created all things before him, all these things, to bring it all down to this should bring your life into alignment.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:55

Like for any young adult or student, I mean, this is how you apply this section of Colossians is your whole life should belong to him because he is everything. He's before all things, and all things hold together. He's the firstborn, like he's all of these things, and because of that, our whole life has to be brought into alignment. I mean, I think that is such a practical way of saying this is the way you can tell if you understand Colossians or not.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 31:19

Because you said, like, if you if you if you reserve something for yourself, if there's a part of your life that you've reserved for yourself, then it throws everything else off.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Well, I mean, it it would it would beg the question, what do I not believe to be true about Jesus? Like if you created all things for yourself, I would have to think everything in my life is for you. And if if not, then I don't think you're I don't think you're the creator or that you hold all things together, which is how this closes, and we'll close at verse 17. He's before all things, and in him all things hold together. You know, if we were if we take parts of our life out and keep them for ourselves, we think that we hold all things together. And what I will tell you is that you don't hold all things. I don't hold all things together. Right. I I don't, I can't. And God will get you to places in your life over and over. He's done that with me several times just to remind me. Hey, you're not the one holding everything together. I don't hold the world together. Yeah, I don't even hold all my life together. Yeah. And so this is where you really start to trust. Do I believe him? Do I believe the things he says about himself in these verses? Like he holds all things together. Do I really believe that? And part of it, Paul said, he's before all things. So part of the reason we can trust that he holds all things together is he's been here doing it for a long time.

SPEAKER_03 32:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

And like uh, you know, I had a man uh I went and met with him in his office, you know, many months ago now. And he's like, he's an old guy, I've known him decades. Yeah. And he's like, I've been in this city since it started, you know, 53 years or whatever. And he's like, let me tell you what I've seen in this city for decades. And he told me a few stories. He's like, I've been here, like, you know, and uh let me tell you how I think it's gonna go. And uh let me give you some you know, clarity. It was it was such an encouraging conversation. And I think to be with somebody who's been here before, yeah, that's why God's so good to give us older people and mentors to be in our life, to listen to, to learn from, which is his plan for the church. That's why we love generational community, you know, diversity and community, because people are learning from each other, older people pouring into younger people, younger people learning from and giving life to older people. I digress a little bit, but we were here. We need people who have been here before to remind us that hey, God's holding this whole thing together. Yeah. And God didn't just come and He didn't, like Nietzsche say, God is dead. God didn't create it and then leave.

SPEAKER_05 33:57

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

He created, in fact, we know the nature of God to not create start something and then leave. We know his nature because he's he presses in more, he doesn't pull away. Yeah. I mean, God, he created the world, sin corrupted it, he kept sending, he showed sacrifices and profits to show our dependence on him, and then finally he came. Wow, and sent himself, yeah, his son, father, son, and spirit. Um the the visibility of the invisible God, he he came visible to us. So God doesn't he doesn't pull away, he presses in. Yeah, he doesn't step away, he steps in. And this is what God does. And so we need to trust, we have to trust, and it it's it challenges my faith. This challenges my faith. Right. And I want my faith to grow, and our faith, by the way, is the most valuable thing to God. It's it's more precious to him than anything else.

SPEAKER_04 34:51

That's true. And I wrote down in my notes that wherever you are, he's already been there.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_04 34:57

You know, so whoever's listening, wherever you are, yeah, whatever circumstance, that's right, Jesus has already been there and walked through it.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Yeah. And and yeah, and he's gonna he's gonna hold whatever part of your life together. After the first gathering, a lady told me she was like, that's what I needed. I needed to know that he is the one holding all things together. Even when it feels like he's not, yeah, what we know is he does because he's he's been through this before. Yeah, whatever you're going through or I'm going through, yeah, he's seen it. He's been here before. Yeah, and he holds all things together because he he steps in. And I think the gospel here gives clarity to that as we close. It's just the nature of God is he he comes he comes to get us, he doesn't leave us alone.

SPEAKER_04 35:42

Right. And you said that we don't step away from that, we step into it.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:48

That we have to double down on the fact of who he is.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 35:52

And if you were gonna summarize, like what does having a healthy Christology do for somebody?

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:59

Like if you're like you you mentioned it a couple things, like you said, it creates a sense of awe and it's a deeper sense of trust, and it helps us it helps us to answer these questions when people go, Why should I believe in Jesus?

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah. Well, I mean, Jesus said follow me. He wanted them to throw everything down.

SPEAKER_03 36:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

And you know, if you're really following Jesus, you're throwing everything down and following him. Yeah. That doesn't mean you don't work. He's told us to work, you know. No, it doesn't mean you don't love or enjoy things. He's told us to, he gives us things for our good. But the entire direction of my life now is about following him. It's gonna be a lot easier, a lot better, a lot more filled with joy and peace if I know who I'm following. That's right. I mean, knowing having a higher Christology helps me trust Jesus more in the storm.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

Yeah, really good.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

It gives me more joy when uh when I know who I'm following. So it can only help us to keep growing our understanding of the reality of who he is. Yeah. Well, and we're I mean, that's just three verses here.

SPEAKER_04 37:04

We're just getting started. We're just getting started. So I I hope that our listeners will take some time and read through these verses between now and next Sunday slowly and methodically. Like we said last week, you know, we're taking some verses and we're talking about it on Sunday, and we're talking about a house church, and we're figuring out how to live it out. So that's right. I pray that we just keep everyone who's listening, just keeps pushing these verses deep into their soul and their mind.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Uh unbelievable. It's good. Thanks for being a part of it. Appreciate it. Always y'all are awesome. Hey, thanks for watching this. Appreciate you. If it's good for you, like it, uh, subscribe to it, share it. I think it was the other thing. If not, no worries. No worries at all.

SPEAKER_04 37:50

We're not worried about it.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

Hey, you're great. Hope you have a great week. You're loved. See you soon.