Trinity Series - Sermon #5

If you have not been following this series, please go to the post for January 22 where an explanation of the format is given. Happy studying!

All of God:
Exploring the Mystery of the Trinity
God the Son – Jesus!
Colossians 1:3-23

Would you like to be famous? No, really. Would you like to walk into a strange place and a number of people walk up to you and say, “Excuse me, aren’t you so and so? I just love the way you do that thing you do!” I am not talking about Tiger Woods famous or Brittany Spears famous, but famous enough. Well, I hope you wouldn't want to be Brittany Spears famous!

Whether you say you would like to be famous or not, we are teaching our children that fame is something to be highly prized. And, if you can’t be famous, maybe at least you can know and be known by someone famous. I heard Jake Halpern being interviewed this week about America’s shift in its worship of God to worship of celebrity. You know old Jake, don’t you? In 2007 he wrote Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America’s Favorite Addiction.

Halpern conducted a survey of high school students in three different schools that were representative of American students across the country. The students were asked, “Which profession would you choose if you could be any of the following: A) CEO of a Fortune 500 company; B) President of Harvard or Yale; C) Navy Seal; D) Assistant to a star; or, E) US Senator. Can you guess which choice was the most popular? You guessed correctly – assistant to a star. The choice was not even to be a star, but to carry the star’s water. Girls in particular picked this option, choosing 2 to 1 over being a US Senator, 3 to 1 over being President of Harvard or Yale, and 4 to 1 over being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

In the same interview, Halpern referred to an ongoing survey among American teenagers called the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory in which students are asked if they think they are important. In the 1950’s, 12% said “yes.” By the late 1980’s, 80% said yes. Halpern went on to say that while it is a good thing for teenagers to think they are important, perhaps we have overshot the mark and have caused our children to move from self-esteem to narcissism.

In a society made up of individuals increasingly looking for their place in the son, their 15 minutes of fame – no, scratch that – whatever time they have left of fame – there is little room for an exalted Savior. Oh, lip service may be paid to Jesus, but does He really have the place of priority, even in the church? He certainly has the exalted status in all of the Creation that really knows the deal, such as in the spirit world, and one day we are told that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.

This morning we are going to read from Colossians 1 where we are told that Jesus is preeminent in the universe, the famous one. Just before we read, would you ask the Lord to take away your desire to be famous and put in your heart a desire for Jesus to be famous in your heart? We are going to read verses 3-23 of Colossians 1, but our focus will be on the last half of this passage. Last week we learned of God the Father’s place of authority in the Godhead, and today as we read you will notice many of the truths we learned about God the Father last week, but you will also see the Father’s plan to exalt His Son, Jesus, and to make Him famous in all creation. Would you please stand as we read God’s Word together?

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,
4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints,
5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel,
6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing – as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,
7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved follow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf
8 and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.
9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy,
12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,
14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
16 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.
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
18 And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent.
19 For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
20 and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.
21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,
22 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,
23 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.

How many Sundays do you think we could spend talking about Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity? Let me rephrase that – how many years do you think that we could spend talking about Jesus? No telling! So, how can we possibly say all that needs to be said on one Sunday morning? We can’t. We are going to let today’s text be our primary guide, though such a vast subject requires an additional passage or two. We will be concentrating on three different facets of this wonderful one we call God, the Son. I think you will find that these are all important areas for us to consider, though if you are thinking deeply about this series on the Trinity – and, I hope you are – you will no doubt wonder why I did not cover a particular aspect that you were wanting to think about at a higher level. It will help if you consider this message in context of all of the messages thus far in this series. For this morning’s content, I can only apologize and claim limited time. But, enough talk about how little time there is! The first aspect of Jesus that we want to consider this morning is His nature:

I. Jesus – 100% God, 100% man (vv 15, 17, 19)

You will recall several weeks ago when we talked about why it is so important to be precise in our definitions of the Trinity that many people could never accept Jesus’ full divinity and full humanity in the same person. How is it possible to be 100% God and 100% man at the same time? It just isn’t logical? The first answer to such a dilemma is that it doesn’t have to be logical – God is so much higher than we and what is impossible in our realm is not so with God. Nothing, in fact, is impossible with God. But, Scripture gives us more than enough information to enable us to form our beliefs.

Our text in Colossians speaks mostly to Jesus’ divinity. Verse 15 tells us that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. It was understood in the Old Testament that to see the face of God was to die. Even though we are told that Moses spoke with the Lord face to face, we understand that to be symbolic, not literal. In fact, when Moses asked the Lord to show him His glory, God told Moses that it would be impossible to see His face and live. So, what does God look like?

Well, Ezekiel had a vision of God that he recorded in the first chapter of his book. There was somewhat of a shape of a human, but the vision was very murky and Ezekiel fell on his face in the presence of the glory of the Lord. John had a similar vision in Revelation 4 of God the Father. Again, the image was murky and distance between the Father and John was all too evident. Isaiah’s vision of God recorded in the sixth chapter of his book was also a terrifying experience. The difference in Isaiah’s vision and the other two was that John 12 tells us Isaiah saw Jesus, not God the Father.

And yet, Jesus came to earth and lived here as one of us. He was the image of the invisible God (v15), which means He was an exact representation of God, but in a form – human, to be exact – that made God accessible to us. Now, we can see God.

Colossians 3:17 tells us that Jesus is before all things. In other words, He is coeternal with the Father. He has always existed. Verse 19 informs us that He embodies all the fullness of God – not partial deity, as some of the heresies we have talked about purport, but all of God is in Jesus. Indeed, you will recall last week when we read from John 14 that Jesus told Philip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”

I want to say something with which I know some will disagree. As far as I can see in Scripture, Jesus is the only face of God we will ever see in eternity. John’s vision in Revelation 4 indicates that we will be aware of God the Father’s presence, but we will never get a handle on His appearance. No one ever questions who Jesus is – He will be recognizable to all creation. He restricts the fullness of His glory so that we can approach Him. In addition to Isaiah’s terror, Revelation 1 tells us that when the Apostle John saw Jesus in heaven in all of His glory, he fell as though he were dead. Remember, John was the one who had laid his head on Jesus’ breast at the Last Supper. Jesus mercifully holds back the effulgence of His glory in order that we might commune with Him.

So, Jesus is 100% God, but was He 100% man when He was on earth? Philippians 2:6-8 says “Yes.”

6 (Jesus), though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

There is no way to go into the details of this passage. You may recall that we had a rather lengthy and technical couple of sermons about these verses back in May of last year. You can access the messages online, plus I can e-mail you a study guide to go along with the messages if you are interested. The truth we need to glean here is that though Jesus was and is as much God as the Father was and is, He did not hang onto His position of glory, but rather in humility became a man and lived His entire life in total obedience to the Father. Jesus did not give up His divinity, but rather He took on human flesh, which means that He gave up some of the privileges He had as part of the Godhead. That is why Luke tells us that as a boy Jesus grew in wisdom as well as in body. Jesus willingly limited the use of some of His divine attributes to the leadership of the Father and the power of the Spirit for the purpose of identification with humanity. Just think of the implications! You will, this week, at Home Fellowship.

Consider how different Jesus is than us. Adam was a human who sought to be God. Jesus existed as God yet chose to unite Himself with humanity. That is what it means that Jesus emptied Himself. It is the essence of the incarnation – a union of perfect humanity and undiminished deity. Jesus added a human body to His glorious self. For us, adding something means an increase, but for the Eternal Word, adding a human nature involved a process of emptying Himself.

A human nature – that raises so many questions about Jesus’ sinlessness. There is not time to go into all of the details, but let me just say a few things about Jesus’ nature. Does the virgin birth ensure Jesus’ sinlessness? Well, I suppose, if the sinful nature is received only through the father. But, Mary was sinful. The Catholic Church understood this problem, so they decided that Mary must have been miraculously kept from sin. But, that’s not what the Bible teaches. I will put what I am about to say on the screen, but you may not have time to write this down. It is very important, so please access it online next week if you are interested.

We do not receive our sinful nature genetically, but representatively. We do not receive it because Adam and Eve were our ancestors, but because Adam is our federal head, or, the representative of the entire human race. But, Jesus is not a member of Adam’s race (and the virgin birth does speak to that). Jesus is the 2nd Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45) and He conquered sin. It was necessary for Him to have a human soul in order to meet the requirements necessary to be a perfect substitute for our sin.

Well, I have spent almost the entire time on the first point. There is no way to tell you how difficult it was to decide what to talk about today – the material is overwhelming. I do want to briefly, and I do mean briefly, consider two more thoughts from our text in Colossians 1 about Jesus, the first of which is:

II. Jesus is the Preeminent One in the Universe (vv 15-20)

Our text says so, very plainly in verses 15-20. This was the Father’s will. He is Creator. All that exists was created by Jesus. He is Sustainer. If Jesus did not hold the universe together, it would cease to exist. He is Redeemer. Verse 20 says so, even though it is not on the screen. Jesus rescues us from certain eternal punishment – He does so through the literal blood of His literal body that was nailed to a cross as the perfect substitute, the only one eligible to absorb God’s judgment of our sin. Have you trusted Jesus as your Savior? Have you believed that He died for you? Ask God to forgive your sin and ask Jesus to save you – He will gladly receive you to Himself on this day.

Jesus is also the Head of the Church. Today, we will vote on an amendment to our Constitution about the terms of elders. Let me assure you that as elders, we recognize that this is not our church – Jesus is the head of Grace Community Church. We verbally acknowledge that at almost every meeting we conduct, and we conduct all the business of Grace under His headship. Does that mean we get it right every time? No – Jesus was the only perfect human, remember? But you have to know that there is not one elder who takes his responsibility as a steward of Jesus’ church lightly. And, they didn’t tell me to say that!
Oh, that all of us would make Jesus preeminent at Grace Community Church! In fact, let’s put that into contemporary vernacular and:

III. Make Jesus famous in our hearts, minds, and lives (vv 21-23)

Christianity. Think about it. Without Jesus, it doesn’t exist. And, yet, a lot of people who speak freely about God are reticent to utter Jesus’ name. The temptation for the believers at Colossae was to remain spiritual, but to not make such a big deal about Jesus. They had just been told in no uncertain terms that the entire universe will recognize Jesus as the preeminent one in all of creation. He identified with us, we should now proudly identify with Him!

Verse 23 comes across differently in the Greek than it does in our English translations. Paul wrote this verse in such a way as to communicate his confidence that they would continue in the faith, which meant “faith in Jesus.” He did not expect them to turn away from Jesus. Indeed, to renounce Jesus is to indicate that one never had genuine faith in the first place.

Well, that’s the easy interpretation of verse 23 for those of us who believe in eternal security. But, let’s not miss the call for Christ-followers to think and live as though we do, indeed, belong to Jesus. What do Christ-followers do, after all? We follow Jesus! That will not be easy if we allow ourselves to be swept up in the current of our society’s obsession with famous actors, politicians, and athletes in our midst. God’s call on our lives is for us to keep our focus on the preeminent one in all of creation – Jesus is the famous one.