For those of you who don't know me, my name's Alex Costa. Excuse me. I am an elder and an outreach leader here and I have a request.

Tom prayed for the Halloween outreach that is coming up on October 19th from 5 to 7 p. m. If you have never been to our Halloween outreach, it's something that we work pretty hard on. We move all the chairs in this room to the sides. We have, Bounce houses set up in here. We have hot dogs, cotton candy, popcorn, a trunk or treat in the, on that side of the parking lot.

And so, this is kind of a bit of an all-hands-on deck kind of thing. We would love for as many of you to volunteer as possible. If you go to the CTK Cinti website and register to volunteer, there are 39 spots, but really, we could use more than that, especially for set up and tear down, but 39 spots that need to be filled.

And there's going to be other opportunities to get involved as well. So, would you please consider that. But, okay, we are today in Colossians chapter 1, verses 15 through 23. Before I read that passage, I actually want to read to you a quote from John Calvin with two words omitted. So, this is John Calvin.

No answers please, Esther. This is John Calvin from the first sentence of the first paragraph of the first chapter of his life work, Institutes of the Christian Religion. And some of you have already heard this quote with the two words omitted, and I'm asking you to think, what are these two words that would be omitted?

And I'm sure some of you already know that. I'm not asking for volunteers to answer but let me read it. Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts the knowledge of blank and of blank Now like I said some of you in my CTK Institute class.

I've shared this plenty of times I've asked you to fill in the blanks and some of you may know it already and some, I've even heard, seen that some have given answers that I think are very appropriate for this, this sentence, but it is not the words that John Calvin happened to write. And some may know and may not have any idea what those two words are, but the entirety of wisdom.

Almost entirety. Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed, true and solid wisdom consists almost entirety of two parts. The knowledge of God and of ourselves. The knowledge of God and of ourselves. This goes hand in hand. The more we know God, the more we see who He truly is, the better understanding we'll have.

of whom we truly are before Holy God. And the reason why I'm drawing this out right now is because with this passage, we have an opportunity to see God, to see Jesus Christ for who He truly is and to see ourselves. We have an opportunity to see God in a similar way to what Isaiah saw. If you remember Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah He comes in, he has this vision, he has before this vision all of these preconceived notions as to who God is.

Some of them are not true. And he has this vision where he sees the Lord, high and exalted. The train of his robe fills the temple. We have the seraphim, they have six wings, with two they fly, with two they cover their eyes, with two they cover their feet. They're calling out to one another, Holy, holy, holy.

It's the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundation of the threshold of the temple shook at the voice of him who called out. And what's Isaiah's response? Woe is me, for I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the king.

So, we have with this passage an opportunity to see God, to dispel of our preconceived notions as to who God is, and to see Jesus Christ, the King, as he truly is. And we can see ourselves for who we truly are. So, I want to pray for you. I want to pray that we would all have a proper perspective into our understanding of the knowledge of the God of the universe.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, you have given us your word and you have displayed Christ gloriously. Help us, Lord, as we dive into this passage, as we try more and more to understand the Word of God. Help us to know you, to know you more, to grow in our understanding of who you are. And in turn, we can see our proper place as those who were ungodly and sinners and enemies of you, but are now friends and more than that, sons.

Help us, Lord. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Colossians 1:15-23. This is God's word and is eternally true. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by his blood, by the blood of his cross.

And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death. in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if, indeed, you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

This is the word of the Lord. Is there A more Christ exalting or magisterial depiction of Jesus in all of the Bible. Michael and I were talking about that in his office earlier this week, and I don't know. There are plenty of passages that you could read, and you could be just humbled by how amazing Christ is.

John 1, you know, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God. All things came to being through Him. In Him was life, the life was the light of men. John 1. is a Christ exalting passage. Hebrews 1, Christ exalting passage. Revelation 19, the rider on the white horse. Jesus as he will be when he returns.

And yet there is something about this passage in particular that says very specific truths about Christ that I don't know if it weren't for these words. I mean, God is sovereign, and he has sovereignly put this in his word, but I don't know. If it weren't for these words, if there are things that are true of Jesus that we just wouldn't know.

Things like, all things hold together through Jesus Christ. That's amazing. And the reason, a reason, why I tend to think that this passage has so much effect in honoring Jesus Christ, is because Paul is being very pointed here. He has, a plan with this, by the power of the Holy Spirit, with this entire book, he is confronting serious error.

It's not like he's just writing a letter to the Colossians. It's like, okay, I did my introductory remarks. Now I want to tell the Colossian church how awesome Jesus is. That's, that's not it. He is writing to a church that's under attack. He's writing to a church that is under the temptation of being seduced by false teaching.

And I want to highlight some of what that false teaching is. Now, we don't know every detail of it, but there are some things that we do know. And this false teaching has some Gnostic elements to it. Gnostic elements, they denied that, uh, that anything was good. They had this belief that all created matter.

Is evil. All created matter is evil. And so, Jesus couldn't possibly have taken on flesh and if he hasn't taken on flesh, we are doomed. We, he had to have taken on flesh. If he had not taken on flesh, we will. He, he was not a perfect sacrifice for our sin. He had merely, according to their beliefs, the appearance of taking on flesh.

But he did not. He was not the perfect sacrifice on the cross for our sins. And when we stand before Holy God, God will see our sin. He will not see Christ's righteousness. No. Jesus Christ took on flesh. But they took it a little bit further than that. If all matter is evil, they would say that Jesus Christ is not the creator of the world because a good God wouldn't create evil matter.

And so, if he's not the creator, they logically deduced that he's not divine either. This Colossian heresy, whatever it was, it somehow denied Jesus's deity. And His humanity and our God, our King, Jesus Christ, He is fully God and fully man. What I saw from the commentaries that I read was this word, emanations, that Jesus, according to this Colossian heresy, was just simply an emanation from God.

We had God, God Himself, and Jesus is an emanation. And there are many emanations. And every emanation. gets more and more distorted until you have this evil emanation that created the world. And so, Paul, as he's writing this entire letter, he is confronting, he's being very pointed in confronting this error that denies Jesus's divinity and his humanity.

And we see this fleshed out perfectly, not just in this passage. Colossians 2:9. Could this confrontation be done? In fewer words, I don't know, but Colossians 2:9. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. Do you see, with this perspective, how he's confronting both sides of this error? In him, the, not some of the deity, not most of the deity, the fullness of the deity dwells where?

In his body. Paul, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is laser focused right here in confronting that error and doing away with it. We see that in this passage as well, Colossians 1:19, for in him, not some, not most. All of the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. If we put all of our resources together, all of mankind put all of our resources together, we could not construct anything in which all of the fullness of God would dwell.

And yet, Jesus, all of the fullness of God, was pleased to dwell in his human body. We praise God for that. So, keep that in mind as we go through this passage. The intention here, under the power of the Holy Spirit, to confront error. Let's start out in verse 15. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Okay, we're in a similar position now, because has not error been produced? From this verse in particular. There are people who will read this verse and falsely argue that Jesus was a created being. And so, I want to take this one at a time. He's the image of the invisible God. He's the firstborn of all creation.

They're going to claim that Jesus was born just like any of us. And he was born, but that he had a beginning. He did not have a beginning. He was born in his body on the earth. But he exists in eternity past. And so, let's take this one by one. He's the image of the invisible God. The word used for image here is icon.

Now, there are two uses of the word icon in the New Testament. This word is mentioned 23 times in the New Testament. We have two different meanings. One is representation. And so, you have Jesus. He's asked, you know, should we pay taxes? And he's handed a coin, and he says, you Whose image, whose icon is on this coin.

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar, and to God the things that are God. That is representation. That coin is not Caesar. That coin is a representation. But this passage translates this word. The word is to mean manifestation. That he is the manifestation of God. That God invisible. He is God visible.

Again, the fullness of deity dwells in his body. He's God visible. We see Philippians 2;6, he was in the form of God. John 14:9, he who has seen me.

So, he is the image. He's not created in the image of God like we are. He is the perfect image of God, the visible God. And then, the firstborn of all creation. False teachers of our day, modern day Aryans, Jehovah's Witness. They, they love this verse. They claim that Jesus, was a created being. They're wrong.

Amen. This word is used many times to not talk about time, but to talk about preeminence. To talk about the rights of the firstborn. I want to give you three examples. Esau was born first. Jacob was the firstborn. Example number two, Exodus 4:22, Then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son.

Many peoples, many nations, they came before Israel. And yet Israel had the right of the firstborn. Psalm 89:27, A prophetic verse talking about Jesus, and I will make him the firstborn, the highest of kings of the earth. I will make him the firstborn, not in time, but the firstborn as in he is the highest of kings of the earth.

And there is a common word, a common theme that we're going to hear multiple times throughout this passage. And you, when you hear firstborn, you need to think highest of kings of the earth. You need to think Jesus and his preeminence. He is the firstborn. And if, for some reason, that's not enough, here's what you do.

You let Scripture interpret Scripture. You read other verses if this is confusing, and you're tempted to believe something that's not true of Jesus. All you do is read other verses and have that interpret. Have the easier verses to understand interpret perhaps the more confusing ones. And we don't have to go far to understand that firstborn does not mean that he was born, that God was born.

All we have to do is go to the next verse. For by Him, all things were created. For by Jesus, all things were created. This can't mean that He was one of those created things. No, He is the creator of all things. In the beginning, Jesus Christ created. All right, so let's move on and we see in this passage, Jesus, many times mentioned in relation to all things, all things.

It's, it's mentioned. There's six different mentions of Jesus in relation to all things. He is the creator of all things, but there's more. All things were made through Jesus Christ. All things were made for Jesus Christ. Please go to the next side.

Next.

All right, go back. There was a slide that I had. I wanted all of this laid out. All right, so I'm just gonna lay it out. All things were created by Jesus. All things were created, there we go, for Jesus. All things were created through Jesus. All things, he is before all things. All things hold together through him.

Now let me pause here. These five things, these five references to Jesus in relation to all things. This is Jesus the creator. The first one. The first three verses of this passage, verses 15 through 17, focus on Jesus as the Creator. And then the next verses focus on Jesus the Redeemer. And so, we're going to transition from Jesus the Creator to Jesus the Redeemer.

The first five here focus on Jesus as the Creator. The last one focuses on Jesus the Redeemer. But then also the first five are very applicable to Jesus the Redeemer. So, I want to spend time on all of these to varying degrees, okay? All things, for by Him all things were created, by Jesus, all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

Whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities. So, we know, Jesus Christ created all things. It's easy for us to look out into this world, to look out into the stars. We know that Jesus Christ is the creator of all things. But under the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul draws something else out here.

He draws our attention to things that we don't always perceive to be things. We don't think of these things as, yes, Jesus Christ created all things. He emphasizes in heaven and on earth. He emphasizes things visible and invisible. What's he talking about here? And then he goes on, thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

What is that? Well, Paul, is directing the reader to this sphere, this realm that we only get a tiny glimpse of on this side of the grave. But on the other side, we're going to see it in its full glory, and we're going to praise God even more. Talking about a celestial realm and what he's, what he's drawing out here is just like there's rank and authority, there's hierarchy on earth.

The same thing exists in the heavenly realm. Rulers, authorities, dominions, throne. There is rank In heaven, there is rank, Ephesians 6, it doesn't just talk about angels, it talks about demons, there's authority, and again, it's easy, it's easy for us to look around at the things that we can perceive, and say yes, Jesus is king of kings and lord of lords, it's easy for us to look at earthly rulers, Joe Biden, do any of you, is that a challenge for any of you to say that Jesus Christ is king of kings and lord of lords, Vladimir Putin, Sorry, Chinese students, if I mispronounced his name.

Jesus Christ is his king, whether he worships him or not. Xi Jinping, Hu Jintao, Mao Zedong, Jesus Christ is his king, whether they worship him or not. It's easy for us, right? To look at earthly rulers and to say that. What's going on in this, this verse in particular, though, is that these are beings that if we could see them.

What does it say? Whenever somebody sees an angel in the Bible, do not be afraid. We would either be terrified, or we would be tempted to worship them. And Paul, again, here is saying, he created these beings. These awesome and powerful beings. These beings, some of whom are able to wipe out an entire city. In one swoop, Jesus Christ created them as well.

But not only were they created by him, they were created through him and for him. We were created through and for Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ. That means without him we would not have our being. He is the means through which we exist. for Jesus Christ. All things were created for Jesus Christ in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

All things were created for him. He is the main character. Okay. There is a sickness among us. And I'm not talking about CTK. I'm not, not talking about CTK. I'm not just talking about the American church. I'm not, I'm talking about just all over. There is a sickness in that we think that we are preeminent, that all things were created for us.

And no, Jesus Christ, all things were created for him. I want you to understand something. We have our hot dog outreaches. We have people come up to us and they'll, they'll, some will, will give their objections to believing in Jesus. And I am quite convinced that if you had this mentality in the front of your mind, that all things are created through Him and for Him, you would be able to handle, maybe not to their satisfaction, but in a satisfying way, almost any objection you can hear.

What's an example of that? During one of our recent hot dog outreaches, a college student came up to Sterling, you know, with a smirk on his face about to ask this question that was going to stump us. Right. And he, he asked, why did God create Satan? And what's the implication of that? Well, he went on to say, there's no way a good God.

could create an evil Satan. All right, that's a hollow question. Let me ask a different question. Why did Tolkien create Sauron? Tolkien must not be good if he created Sauron. That doesn't make sense. Okay, but here's this young man's problem. Here's the problem of many people. Most people, they don't understand that all things were created for Jesus.

And not for themselves that he is preeminent and that we are not if they understood that perhaps they would understand why that question doesn't make any sense at all. Now all things were created for Jesus. He is the main character. If this were to play itself out the way that we would want it to play itself out, if we understood the cosmic perspective, we would not be preeminent.

We would not be the main character. We would be the villain. That's But, well, I'm getting ahead of myself. There's, there's more to this. Okay, so all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things. Again, preeminence. He is preeminent. We see in verse 19, verse 18, excuse me. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

He is before all things. This is, we can't take this as in, in terms of time, that he is, you know, before Abraham was, I am, Jesus speaking, before the creation of the world, I am, Jesus. He is before all things. But this is in terms mostly of preeminence. Again, in all things, and in him, all things hold together.

What does that mean? I don't need to, to translate that at all. That literally means every atom in your body, every atom in this building, every atom in this world, in this universe, galaxies, stars, black holes, trillions of miles away. All things, every atom is right now being held together by Jesus Christ, and it is not burdensome for him.

I was tempted to think of like, all right, that sounds exhausting, right? I picture, like if we were to, you know, if this was our lot in life, we just had to hold 50 apples in our hands and try to balance it and how exhausting that would be on a scale of zero to 10. How exhausting is it for Jesus to hold every atom in this universe together in heaven and on earth?

It's a zero on a scale of zero to 10. This is by no means a burden to him. He is that powerful, that amazing. And you think you're the main character. Are you tempted to think you're the main character in that you are preeminent, that mankind is preeminent? Lord have mercy. All right. This is where we switch from Jesus, the creator to Jesus, the redeemer, Jesus, the redeemer verse 18.

And he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead that in everything he might be preeminent. He is the head of the church and praise God by the ministry of reconciliation. We are not the villain, but we are invited to take part in bringing heaven to earth. But he is the head.

We see a theme in this verse. The head meaning he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. It is not helpful to think of the head of the body as a CEO of a corporation. It's better to think of this literally as a head of the body of Christ. Without the head, the body does not move.

The head directs the body. Without the head, the body does not have life. And everything that we've looked at already in relation to Jesus Christ. In all things, it is true of Jesus in the church as well. He created the church. The church exists through him. The church exists for him. He is before the church.

He is preeminent. And the church holds together through Jesus Christ. How? Through reconciliation, through the ministry of reconciliation. And through him, I'm going to cover this verse 20, the contents of verse 20, in a minute here, in a few minutes. But through him to reconcile to himself. All things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross, God sent his son, Jesus Christ came into this world.

He took on flesh. He lived a perfect life. He was the perfect sacrifice for our sins so that we could be reconciled to God. But okay, back to this quote from John Calvin, from his Institutes. Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves.

We have seen Jesus Christ for who he truly is in these verses and in many places in the Word of God. But who are you? Verse 21. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. You, Christian, you were once alienated from God. You once had a mind that was hostile to God. You once did deeds that you thought, sure, some of them were good.

They were evil. In the sight of God, the Bible has some hard words to describe us before we became Christians. Ephesians 2, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air. Ephesians 2:3, You are by nature a child of wrath.

Romans 5, You are powerless, ungodly, sinners. Verse 10, Christian. Before you came to know God, you were an enemy of God. This God, this God who holds every atom in your body together, you were his enemy. Is there anything that I could say to you that is more terrifying than that? And for those of you who don't know the Lord, I'm so thankful that you're here.

And I want to tell you the same thing. You are an enemy of God. You are an enemy of the king of the universe. And Christian, you were once his enemy. But thank God, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death He has now reconciled you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds.

He's reconciled you in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. You are a part, if you are a Christian, of the body of Christ. You have been reconciled to God. Reconciliation takes two parties. And praise be to God that he was willing to reconcile with his enemies. He was willing to reconcile with us by coming to this earth, by dying a death, by living a perfect life, by shedding his blood and dying in our place on the cross, so that instead of being alienated from God, we could have peace with God.

And instead of doing evil deeds, God could see us and see the righteousness of Christ instead of being his enemies. We are now his friends in more than that. We are sons of God. Thank God that he was willing to reconcile with us and open our eyes so that we would reconcile with him. Praise God. So Christian, this is true of you.

You are no longer an enemy of God. You are a son of God. You are no longer alienated from God. You have peace with God. If I would've loved to have just ended right there, but the passage does not allow that if indeed you continue in the faith stable, in steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.

Which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. Now remember, remember what I said about the purpose of this letter that Paul is writing to a church that's under attack. Paul is writing to a church that's being seduced by false teaching. This false teaching that is denying Jesus’ manhood and his divinity.

And he's saying, Colossian Church, if you persevere, if you remain steadfast, if you continue in the faith, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard. And that is true of you today. Now, does that mean that you can lose your salvation? Is that what Paul is saying here? We can give you many references here.

If you remain steadfast, you are truly of the church. If you are truly a Christian, you will remain steadfast. But Christian, the command is to remain steadfast. John 2. 19, speaking of apostates, they went out from us, but they were not really of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.

But they went out in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us. I'm sure you've had; I have had many friends who claimed Christ. And then the word that we, the words that we use, they fell away. I would not say that I would say that their names were never written in the book of life and your name.

If your name is written in the book of life, it cannot be erased. All right. So, two words in response to all of this, two words of application. One more time, our wisdom in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom consists almost entirely of two parts, the knowledge of God and of ourselves. If you do not know God.

Again, this Jesus, this high and mighty Jesus, the one who is holding every atom in your body together. You are right now alienated from him. You are his enemy, but he came and died so that you could be forgiven so that you could be granted repentance and friendship with God. And here's my plea to you. My plea to you is to know God, to pursue the knowledge of God so that you too can be a part of the body of Christ, that you too could enter into eternal life.

For those of you who know God. Those of you who have heard the gospel, you've repented in your sins, you believe in Jesus Christ. My encouragement to you, my plea to you is the same. Know God. Know Him more. We will never stop knowing Him more. We will know Him more and more throughout all eternity. You have already started.

Pursue the knowledge of God. Even more in hand in hand with that, know yourself more. I'm sure that I could give very specific application to all of this, but the application as you. know God more, it will come out. So, let's pray.

Father in heaven, may we know you, may we know and love and obey you more. Help us Lord, help us to dispense of any thoughts of Jesus Christ that are not true and to see Jesus for who he truly is. And in turn, see us for who we truly are and thank you so much for reconciling with us for creating in us a desire to reconcile with you Let us not be wasteful with our time on this earth before we see you face to face but let us bring glory to your name.

Help us, Lord. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen