Happy snow day everyone! Now we have double reasons to stay home!
Today we’ll be taking a look at Colossians 1:15-20:
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, 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 the blood of his cross.
This section is an exposition on who Jesus is. It begins by describing Him as the exact image of God. The word used is ‘icon’ which eventually lead to the iconoclastic controversy of the 8th century (if you want to talk about that sometime, let me know! That period fascinates me! I don’t have time to discuss it here!). The intent here is saying Jesus is God. If you’ve ever seen a wax seal, it bears an imprint of the seal on it, which is the same every time. Jesus is exactly the same as God, this is another way of saying He is God! So we see Jesus is God, but then we also see how the Son was involved in creation. He created everything together. As Abraham Kuyper is popular for saying, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” Jesus is the beginning and end of everything. He not only created everything seen and unseen, He holds it all together! But the most important thing He holds together is the church.
The point Paul is driving to in this passage is the need of the church to submit to Christ’s headship. Because of that, we need to recognize that Jesus is preeminent in everything. In our life, in our house, in our marriage, in our parenting, in our chilling, in our buying, in our living. In everything we do, Christ should be seen as Lord and Savior. He is the Lord of the Church, and because of that we need to do our best to submit ourselves to his leadership. And because He is the head, Lord, and Savior, He is able to reconcile everything to Himself. I have a distinct memory of one class in college where the professor asked if we could tweet the gospel message (at the time, Twitter was limited to 120 characters). After spending almost 2 hours on it, the class came to the conclusion that we couldn’t! Yet as I’ve thought about it since, I think I would define the gospel as: reconciliation. We were enemies with God, but Jesus through His sacrifice on the cross has brought about reconciliation. At some point I’ll look at the next step of this idea where we are thus commanded to be ambassadors of reconciliation! But that’s our task as God’s people. We must seek to bring reconciliation in every area of life. I think this is timely for all of us right now, as I’m guessing many of us are maybe starting to reach the point where you might need some reconciliation at home 🙂 I know my family has reached that point a couple times! Being stuck inside is bringing out the best and the worst in all of us! So I hope you’re able to be a minister of reconciliation in your home today!
SONG:
Today’s song is originally by Andrew Peterson, but if you’ve heard of Shane & Shane you may have heard that they’ve started a new ministry of how to lead worship more effectively, so they’ve got a ton of great covers you should check out! The song’s name is ‘His Heart Beats’ and you can listen to it on YOUTUBE or SPOTIFY.
FREE STUFF:
There’s a guy who’s started a TV series looking at the life of Jesus that Cara and I just started watching last night and really enjoyed it! For a little while you can watch it for free, it’s called ‘The Chosen’ and you can watch it HERE. They also have an app where you can watch it all for free that you can access HERE.
Pastor Mike's Musings 