Classic Sermon #6061: That in Everything He Might Have the Preeminence

We are making our way through the Epistle to the Colossians, and I am taking several themes from this epistle, which is very dense in content, and we are trying to make our way through various passages. And today we are going to Chapter 1, and we will pause at verses 15 through 23. This is a passage that exalts the person of Jesus.

Colossians 1:15–23, and the word of the Lord says this, evidently speaking of Jesus Christ: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, because in Him all things were created, those in heaven and those on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or powers; everything was created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things exist.

“And He is the head of the body, which is the church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell in Him and, through Him, to reconcile all things to Himself, both those on Earth and those in heaven, making peace through the blood of His cross.

“And you also, who were once strangers and enemies in your minds, doing evil works, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and blameless before Him. And indeed, you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith, without moving away from the hope of the Gospel that you heard, which is preached throughout all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, was made a minister.”

May the Lord bless His holy word.

I always like to give a brief summary of what we covered the Sunday before last, in this case. There I spoke about verses 12 and 13 of this chapter, about the typical attitude of the Christian, and Paul mentioned two qualities there: the joy and gratitude that should be present in the life of a child of God.

Joy, I said, should be the prevailing tone of the believer, because when we look at everything we have received from God, we cannot feel anything less than joyful and full of hope. And gratitude, again for the same reason, because when we recognize that what we have received has been by grace, not because we deserved it, the Christian should always live giving thanks to the Lord.

This week we chose Thanksgiving Day. This nation chooses today, Thursday, to express gratitude to God. And that is very good, but of course we also have to remember something, and that is that for a child of God every day is Thanksgiving Day, isn’t that right? Not just one day or two, no.

Every morning when we get up, a note of gratitude should spring from our hearts, and each day, when we complete a task and when God brings us out of problems both small and great, we should lift up our gratitude to the Lord. The Christian has a grateful heart, which is the enemy of complaining. It is the complete opposite of that attitude of complaint and negativity that so often characterizes us.

Now, that life of joy and gratitude has a foundation. Why? Paul points to three things Christ has done. Number one, he says that we have been made partakers of the inheritance of the saints; that is, we have riches in Christ. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing; we have received spiritual gifts. We are rich, we are powerful, we have authority in Christ Jesus. That is the inheritance of the people of God.

Second, Paul says that we have been delivered from darkness and transferred into the kingdom of light. Satan no longer has control of our lives. Christ has charge of our lives. It is no longer Satan leading us down a path of destruction, exhaustion, and stagnation; rather, Christ is encouraging us, lifting us up, strengthening us, and managing our lives, raising us higher and higher each day so that what Scripture says may be fulfilled: ‘For the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the day is perfect.’

Why is that? Because God is managing our lives, because God is leading them from growth to growth, from blessing to blessing. Satan is no longer the one who governs our days; God is.

And finally, Paul also says that we have been redeemed and forgiven. In Christ we have redemption through His blood and the forgiveness of our sins. We have been bought out of slavery to sin at the price of blood. And that has very serious consequences. Since we have been bought, we therefore belong to the One who bought us, who is Christ Jesus.

Now His yoke, He says, is easy, and His burden is light. When Christ is now our owner, that is a blessing. It is not a curse, and we are also called to a life of holiness because He is holy.

There you have some ideas from the preceding passage. And now I believe that, as Paul was writing and meditating on those three things—the inheritance, freedom from darkness, and the redemption we have—his mind was directed toward the figure of Jesus Christ, who made all these things possible.

All of that, all that inheritance, all that blessing, comes as a result of Christ’s work on the cross of Calvary, and so I believe that moved Paul’s mind to think about the person of Jesus, to focus on the figure of Jesus Christ. And that is what he does in the following verses, 15 through 23: he takes time to exalt and expound upon the person of Jesus, His work, His functions, and His attributes. And that is what he does here in these eight verses.

It is a hymn. Some scholars believe that this particular passage was part of a hymn sung to the person of Jesus in praise of Him and that Paul was, as it were, quoting that hymn when he wrote this section. We do not know. But it would fit very well, because it is a hymn of praise; it is very profound worship offered to the person of Jesus.

Another thing about what Paul is saying here is that he is not merely praising Christ in a neutral way; there is also a polemical character to what Paul writes here.

You will remember that at the beginning of this study I told you that Paul wrote this letter in part to contradict a heresy, a false teaching that was circulating, that was beginning to circulate among the churches in the region of Colossae. And that teaching, among other things—in fact, it is called the Colossian heresy; scholars have even given a name to that kind of teaching that circulated at that time.

That false teaching was a mixture of Jewish legalism and also a kind of mysticism that encouraged people to delve into strange and mysterious theories about gods and demigods. And the idea was that the material world was a curse, that living in this world was a condemnation for us, and that man should aspire to escape this condemnation and enter a spiritual dimension where there is liberation. That was this teaching.

So, according to this teaching, one needed mysterious knowledge that could be received only by the initiated in order to ascend to those levels. They said that between man and God there was something like an intermediate layer inhabited by superior beings who were not God, but neither were they human. They were like demigods. And one had to deal with those beings in order to reach that higher level. And they acknowledged Jesus Christ, but they did not acknowledge Him as God; they did not acknowledge Him as the Son of God and as God Himself.

And so Paul wrote this letter in part to neutralize those ideas, because what that false teaching did was take the emphasis away from the person of Jesus, take the focus away from the person of Christ. And that is why, as you will notice, Paul places great emphasis in this letter on the person of Jesus Christ; he emphasizes His work and His nature, because this epistle was written to counteract that teaching which was subtly drawing people’s gaze away from the person of Jesus.

I would say, brothers and sisters, that one of Satan’s principal ways of trying to harm Christian doctrine is precisely by trying to neutralize and diminish the glory of the person of Jesus Christ and His redemptive work on the cross of Calvary—to strip Christ of that unique, indispensable character and suggest that there are other ways of reaching God.

To draw Christians away from their awareness that Christ alone saves, that only in Christ do we have hope, and that Christ alone has been the bridge between God and the Father. And so the enemy tries to introduce doctrines that make Christ merely one among many possible mediators.

And I believe that one of the things that has characterized heresy throughout the centuries is precisely that subtle attack against the person, against the nature, against the subtle and unique work of Jesus Christ. And that is why anything, brothers and sisters, that takes your gaze away from Christ and places Him in a secondary position or on a level parallel to other beings is harmful and false, and you should avoid it like the plague.

And that is why Paul attacked that again and again, continually. With all due respect, for example, Jehovah’s Witnesses are very sincere, very good, God-fearing people, but the doctrine of Jehovah’s Witnesses says that Christ is a creature who was created. He is simply something like the greatest angel God created, and Christ is not God Himself. So even though they are people who believe in the Bible and believe in Christ’s work on the cross and all of that, this is a very dangerous teaching because it draws attention away from what Christ has done.

He is the only one. The Bible says that ‘there is only one mediator between God and men: the man Christ Jesus,’ and there is no one else, and that Christ is the Son of God and is God Himself.

So we have to be careful with anything, no matter where it comes from, that draws our gaze away from that uniqueness, that indispensable character of the person of Jesus. And what Paul does here is invite the Colossians to focus their gaze on the person of Jesus Christ; then he turns his gaze toward Him and begins to describe certain attributes of Jesus Christ, and that is what we have here.

He exalts Him. That is why I liked that chorus that says: ‘To You we ascribe the glory. To You we ascribe the honor; to You we ascribe power and majesty,’ because that is a chorus that exalts the person of Jesus—this other one, ‘King of kings, Lord of lords.’ They are choruses that exalt Him very directly and invite the worshiper’s mind to focus on the sublime character of the person of Jesus Christ. That is something the Bible does again and again.

And so Paul does that very thing here. I see here at least five fundamental attributes of the person of Jesus, and I have made a little outline here so you can see it. According to what Paul explains here, Jesus Christ is these things.

Jesus Christ is: God. Creator. Sustainer. The Head. Reconciler.

And that little arrow you see, forming a kind of staircase in which one points toward the next, is there because each of those attributes of Jesus Christ leads to the next. They are all linked together; they are links joined to one another logically. One leads to the next, one thing is implied by the other, and they are all part of the function Christ performs.

And I believe that, in the end, what that body of attributes suggests to us is what Paul himself says in verse 18: ‘So that in everything He might have the preeminence.’ Brothers and sisters, that is the foundation of the Christian life: that Jesus Christ might have the preeminence in everything. That is why we call ourselves Christians. Christ must be the primary focus of our lives.

So look, let us go to the first element. Paul says in verse 15: ‘He is the image of the invisible God.’ What is Paul saying when he says that He is the image of the invisible God? The word translated into Spanish as “image” is “icon” in the original Greek, and that is where the English word icon comes from, as does the Russian word. The Russians have these very beautiful images.

And in Greek literature, an icon was simply a statue, a drawing, a painting, a copy of something that existed in reality and represented that thing. So when Paul says that Christ is the image of the invisible God, he is saying that Christ is the visible expression of the God who cannot be seen. That when someone looks at Jesus Christ and looks at His spiritual attributes, His character, His nature, and His person, that person is seeing the God whom no living being can see, and that Christ directly projects the nature and person of the Father.

The Bible says that ‘no one has seen the Father,’ but through Jesus Christ, yes, we have seen the Father. And that is what Christ Himself told him—and do you remember that famous passage from John chapter 14, verses 8 and 9?—when Philip says to Jesus Christ, “Show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”

Verse 8 says, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us,” and what does Jesus say to him in verse 9? He says, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. How, then, can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

And that is what Paul is saying here: Christ is the image of the invisible God. In modern terms, if Paul were writing this letter today, do you know what he would say? “Christ is the portrait of God; Christ is the photograph of the Father.” That is what Paul is saying here. In those days there were no photographs, there were no portraits, so it was the image, a painting. But today he would say, “Christ is the spitting image of His Father.”

As we say around here. Have you heard that expression? That son is, forget it, the spitting image of his father. He is his living portrait. Well, that is what Jesus Christ is, and this is not expressed only in Colossians. If you go to the Book of Hebrews, chapter 1, verse 3, there the writer says, speaking of Christ: “Who, being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His substance.”

Again, that expression, “the express image,” in the original Greek is “character,” and character is where our word character comes from. It refers to the die that was used in Roman or Greek seals. It was what bore, for example, the imprint used to make a coin, so that it would always bear the same reproduction of Caesar’s image, for example. When that engraved image was pressed onto wax or hot metal, it transferred precisely the image on the original to the other substance.

So the writer of Hebrews says the same thing: Jesus Christ is the complete, exact reproduction of the Father. We will never fully understand the mysteries of the relationship between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit—this matter of the Trinity, that they are the same, yet they are different—because that is beyond the human mind.

But what I can tell you with absolute certainty is that Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, declares in an inescapable way that Christ is God. And that has been a fundamental doctrine of the church throughout all the centuries. And any doctrine that suggests anything less than that is dangerous, is heretical, and must be rejected and totally avoided.

Now, what practical consequences does that have? To me, the fact that Jesus Christ is God means that Jesus Christ deserves my worship, that Jesus Christ must be the object of my continual meditation, that I must be continually renewing my mind, visualizing Him, worshiping Him, and rendering tribute and glory to Him as God.

Jesus Christ must be the starting point of all my efforts, and He must also be the object toward which everything I do in my life is directed. I must live to please Him, to honor Him, to acknowledge Him as God, as the very foundation of my life. As He said: “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.” That is, He is the totality of all these things.

And I would say that before being Jehovah’s Witnesses, we are witnesses of Jesus Christ—not that we are setting up a controversy between the Father and the Son; no! Because they are the same thing. But I believe there is a subtle reversal of roles there. The Father has given us the Son so that we may deal with the Son, and with the Father through the Son.

Jesus Christ is the intermediary, and that is why the Father said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him,” which could also be put as, “Deal with Him.” And we must direct our worship, our reverence, and our primary dealings toward that Son, who then leads us to the Father. All of that is implied in the deity of Jesus Christ.

Now he moves on to the second teaching and says: “For by Him”—verse 16—“all things were created: things in heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him.” And how astonishing—not only through Him, but what? “For Him.” It was like a gift He gave Himself.

What a mysterious thing, isn’t it?! God created this creation for His own rejoicing, for His own enjoyment, so that He might express Himself, so that He might take pleasure in His creation. We live, brothers and sisters, and this world was created to bring glory and pleasure to the Lord.

And we live for that, and when we recognize that function of ours, then our lives are transformed. I was created for Him, so that He might rejoice in me and find pleasure in me, just as an artist finds pleasure in contemplating his creations. So everything that exists was created by Christ and for Christ.

And you see, there you have an implication of the deity of Christ. For whom does the Bible say created the heavens and the Earth? Genesis 1 says: “In the beginning”—who?—“God created the heavens and the Earth.” Then here it says that Christ created the heavens and the Earth. Is there a contradiction? No. Rather, Christ is God.

[Closing remarks from the program]

And when God was creating the heavens and the Earth, Christ was creating them in God. These are the mysteries of the Trinity and of the relationship between the Father and the Son. But everything that was created was created by Jesus Christ and for Him. The Gospel according to Saint John declares this same truth.

You will remember the first chapter of John. In the beginning was the Word—speaking of Jesus Christ—and the Word was with God, and the Word was who? He was God. And verse 3: “All things were made through Him”—that is, through Jesus Christ—“and without Him nothing was made that was made.” And later, in verse 10, it says: “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him,” speaking of Jesus Christ.

It is the same thing Paul is saying here in Colossians: Jesus Christ is the Creator; He is the origin of everything that exists. And He is not only the origin of lesser things, but also of greater things, and that is what Paul is emphasizing here. He is the origin of all authority; Jesus Christ is the creator of everything that has authority and importance.

Do you see? And Paul chooses to emphasize this fact: that there is nothing in this universe, no matter how great it may be, that was not created by Him. What, then, is the implication? That all things are under the authority of the One who created them. He is above everything—the visible things and, just in case, the invisible ones as well—and He is above thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers.

And what does Paul mean by that, brothers and sisters? That Jesus Christ, as the Creator of everything that exists, is above kings, He is above princes, He is above presidents and prime ministers, He is above nations, He is above state governors and city mayors. That is on the political, human level, but it goes beyond that.

Jesus Christ is above angels, archangels, cherubim, and seraphim. And you know what? Not only that, but Jesus Christ is above demons, above demonic powers, which also have their own ranks of authority. And the astonishing thing is that what Paul is saying here is that Christ created all of that. Did you know that Christ even created the demons? Or did He not create them? The Bible says that demons are fallen angels, angels who disobeyed and lost their dignity and lost their beauty and were cast out of the presence of God.

And those beings who rebelled against the authority of Christ and His Father were cast out. That is Satan, the most exalted creature God created, who rebelled against God and wanted to place himself in God’s very position, and so he was cast out and became that nightmarish being who is Satan.

So Christ created all those beings, and Christ is above them all. Remember that when you are afraid of Satan or of a demonic power: Christ is above all of that, and you are above all of that because Christ lives in you. It says: “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world,” isn’t that right?

And Christ says: “I have overcome the world; take heart, I have overcome the world.” The prince of this world is Satan, but Christ has already defeated him as well, and Christ is his master. Christ is his creator; Christ is the One holding the chain around his neck, leading him wherever He wills, and we have that authority as well.

That is tremendous. Jesus Christ is the master of my life; I do not have to fear anything whatsoever. And not only that, but there is also something in the fact that He is the Creator and He is the owner, brothers and sisters. I cannot resist taking just a moment to refer to this. If Jesus Christ created everything and created it all for Himself, and He owns everything, then that means I do not own anything, isn’t that right?

These clothes I am wearing are not mine. The money, the little bit of money I have in my pocket, is not mine either; my wife is not mine, my daughters are not mine, my bank account is not mine, my talents are not mine, my time is not mine, my education is not mine, my future is not mine. Everything belongs to God and to Christ Jesus. Therefore, if I am truly a servant of Jesus Christ, I must always be confessing with my mind and with my actions that everything belongs to Him, is for Him, is for His glory, and is at His service.

Brothers and sisters, if you and I understood what that means, I assure you that our lives would be completely revolutionized. Even I, who am preaching it, do not know what I am saying. Because if I truly believed that, I would serve the Lord ten times more than I do now.

If we understood that our money belongs to God, that our talents belong to God, and that our time belongs to God, then, brothers and sisters, we would live solely for the glory and honor of God and for the expansion of His kingdom. Everything I had, I would invest so that the kingdom of God might advance, so that God might be glorified. And that, brothers and sisters, is the life of discipleship, and that is the life that acknowledges the lordship of Jesus Christ over all things.

If Christ created the universe, He owns everything He created; He is the Creator.

But not only that; He is also the Sustainer. You will remember that I told you these things are linked together, one with another. He is the Sustainer. Notice, Jesus Christ did not merely create the world. Deism is a theological philosophy that says God created the world, then wound it up like an alarm clock, set it floating in the universe, and forgot about it.

Existentialism also preaches a doctrine similar to that. But the Bible says that God and Christ did not create the world and then forget about it. Rather, after Christ created the world, He got involved in working with the world, with the cosmos, with the universe, and Christ maintains—so to speak—the universe.

He did not merely create it and then act irresponsibly and wash His hands of it. No! Jesus Christ is continually sustaining the world, you see? That is why verse 17 says: “He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” What does that mean? That all things find their explanation, their reason for being, in the person of Jesus.

He sustains, He upholds everything that exists, everything that was created. He gives it its meaning.

Christ imparts coherence and meaning to the universe. Christ is totally involved in the cosmos, in the movement of the planets, in the laws governing the universe, in the rising and setting of the sun, in the law of gravity, in the laws governing the movement of physical bodies in the world and in the universe; the person of Jesus is involved in all of that.

The psalmist says: “In our mother’s womb, He was the One who created us. My body was not hidden from You, though I was made in secret and intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my embryo, and in Your book were written all those things that were afterward formed, without one of them being absent.” The God who created the macrocosm is also the One who creates the microcosm.

The God who governs the galaxies and keeps them spinning and traveling at millions of miles per hour is also the God who creates a minute cell with its composition. The God who creates the entire human body is also the One who creates the complexity of the eye. That is the marvelous sustaining work of Jesus Christ.

In Him all things consist. Now, what does that imply? Something very important: Christ is involved with us every day. My mind always goes to that passage where Christ says: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”

He did not merely accomplish the work of salvation and then leave, as though catching a jet to heaven, and forget about us. He said, “I am leaving, but I am also staying with you through the Holy Spirit.” And Christ is present in the Holy Spirit, in His church, and He is maintaining the world and maintaining the universe.

The other day I was thinking about the science of physics. Scientists are always racking their brains to find a law that sums up all the other physical laws of the universe. They are always trying. They have currently reduced the motion of physical bodies and matter to a few laws of thermodynamics, a few basic laws. But, not content with that, they are searching for a Law [with a capital L] that would be the law that makes all the other laws unnecessary and explains all the other laws.

They are always searching for that governing principle of the universe. I can tell them that the Bible already found it two thousand years ago, and its name is Christ Jesus.

In Him all things consist. He is the explanation for everything that exists. He gives coherence to everything; He imparts purpose to all the movements of the planets and the atoms. So if Christ is the Sustainer and He is the One who maintains everything, we, brothers and sisters, must do the same.

Just as the universe is closely bound to the person of Jesus, we have to remain continually attached and rooted in Him. Because He is the one who sustains our spiritual life. And you know what? Christ already said the same thing long ago in the Gospel according to John, chapter 15—do you remember? What does the Lord say there? He says—chapter 15, verse 5—“I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”

Do you understand? Because Jesus Christ is the one who sustains. Everything holds together in the person of Jesus. Anything separated from that organic union with the person of Jesus is destined to die. It is like a piece of fruit: from the moment you pluck it from the plant, the process of that fruit’s decay has already begun, because it no longer has the plant sustaining and nourishing it.

The moment a person or a Christian separates himself from that intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, decline begins. Spiritual deterioration begins, and that is why we must always remain intimately united to the person of Jesus, because He is the one who sustains our spiritual life. He is the one who sustains all our efforts. If I want to bear fruit, I have to remain firmly attached to my sustainer.

That is why, when Martha and Mary had their disagreement, Martha was over there anxiously bustling about, working, preparing everything for Christ so that everything would be just right for Him and His Apostles, while Mary was simply there, nestled close to Jesus, listening, receiving from Him, clinging to His person. And Martha says to Jesus, “Lord, look at my sister; she is being lazy. Can’t you see that I am here working my fingers to the bone while she is over there as happy as can be with you?” And what did Jesus Christ say to her? “Martha, Martha, you are very anxious about many things. I want to tell you that Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Why? What was the better part? Staying close to the person, the work, the word, and the presence of Jesus Christ. That was the better part. Many times we throw ourselves into working in the things of God, and we do this and we do that, and our lives are spent going from one activity to another, doing, doing, doing, but we do not take time to keep renewing our relationship with Christ—our intimacy with Him—and we begin to decline. Much busyness, much action, and little fruit.

Why? Because we are not setting aside that time to renew our sustaining relationship with the One who sustains all things.

Brothers and sisters, the Christian grows through fasting, through prayer, through reading the Word, through fellowship with the saints, as we are enjoying here today, and through service to the Lord. Through all these things we are renewing our intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the sustainer; He created us for Himself and has also promised, “Stay close to me, and I will sustain you. I will feed you. Receive your nourishment from me. Seek me; remain close to me.”

Fourth: He is the head. Verse 18 says, “And He is the head of the body, which is the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the preeminence.” He was the head of the body, which is the church. In other words, the head of the church. That is very important because Jesus Christ is our captain; Jesus Christ is the general of this army that is the church.

He is the new Adam who, through His person and His work, established what is called the Church with a capital ‘C.’ Jesus Christ is our high priest. Jesus Christ was even the first to rise from among the dead to eternal life. He was the one who made this new era of Salvation possible through His blood shed on the Cross, and He Himself was the first to rise under that new plan that He made and established on the Cross of Calvary.

How complete the Lord’s work is!

So He is also the beginning. He is the one who leads His church: as God, He died on the Cross and paid an infinite penalty; and as man, He rose again and goes before us, redeemed men and women, leading the endless procession of those who have been redeemed under the new plan of salvation. He is the firstborn from among the dead. He is the head. In everything, He must have first place.

And for me, once again, the fact that Jesus Christ is the head has very, very serious implications. If He is the head, that means He is the brain. Okay? That means the church receives its directives from Him.

Jesus Christ is the one who, through His Holy Spirit, guides His church into all truth. We must turn to Jesus Christ to receive revelation, to receive wisdom, to receive understanding, and to receive counsel in our decisions as individuals, as churches, and as the universal church in this world.

The church, congregations, and Christians must be attentive so they can receive their orders from the thinking head, who is Christ Jesus. Periodically, the Lord—if I believe that, I believe that from time to time—the head, my head, will tell me what He wants me to do. He will tell me what I have to do, what I have to think, and what I have to say.

Do you remember that image in the Old Testament—Israel when they were in the wilderness? There was a pillar of fire and a cloud of smoke. At night there was a pillar of fire, and during the day there was a cloud of smoke. And as Israel traveled through the wilderness, wherever that cloud stopped—if it was daytime—the people stopped there, pitched their tents, and camped there for a year, two years, or six months, as long as the cloud remained over that place.

When that cloud went like this…and rose, what did the Israelites do? They rose with it, took down their tents, gathered their animals, packed everything up, and moved to the next place where the cloud stopped. There they stopped again for as long as the cloud remained in that place.

That, brothers and sisters, is a symbol of the church and of believers who are continually attentive to the direction of Jesus Christ. Wherever Christ sends us, that is where we go. Wherever Christ tells us, “Stop,” that is where I stop.

Wherever Christ tells you, “Get up,” that is where I am supposed to get up, because He is my head; He is my leader. He is the one who tells me what I have to do. And so, brothers and sisters, that means we have to expect that, if He has said it, He will honor us and bless us. He will support us. He is the head. My only concern in life is, “Lord, are You involved in this decision? Are You guiding me?” Because if Jesus Christ is guiding me, I have nothing to fear. God will honor me.

And when you have some problem, some need, or some dilemma in your life, seek direction from your head, who is Christ Jesus, and make sure He is speaking to you. If He is speaking to you, He will bring you safely into harbor. “He who began the good work will be faithful to complete it,” the Word says.

He is the head of the church. Many churches decline and stagnate and die. Do you know why? Because the head is continually giving directions about where the body should go, but the body, out of fear or self-preservation or whatever it may be, remains paralyzed. It does not move.

It is like a person who freezes and sees a car coming straight at him at 100 miles per hour. His fear keeps him from moving, and he sees the car, and his brain is telling his muscles, “Move,” but something freezes him, and the car runs him over. Many times our problem is that we do not move when the Spirit of God tells us to. Brothers and sisters, let us make sure that we can hear the voice of God and that, when we hear it, we move.

Wherever He tells me to go, that is where I will go. Wherever He tells me to stay, that is where I will stay, because He is the head of the church. We are the body.

Finally, it says that Jesus Christ is “the reconciler.” Verse 20 says, “And through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on Earth or things in Heaven, making peace through the blood of His Cross.”

And look at how wonderful this is. Verse 21 says, “And you also, individuals, who were once strangers and enemies in your minds, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh through death.” That is why I say that Jesus Christ is also the reconciler.

You see, in His work with the church, Jesus Christ is carrying out a work of reconciliation. Just as He is the creator, just as He is the sustainer of the universe, He is also the one who reconciles all the elements that make up the universe.

And what does this mean, brothers and sisters? If you think about it, when sin entered the world, what happened there? Sin introduced the element of conflict into the universe, didn’t it? Sin introduced discord; it brought death; it brought enmity among human beings. When Adam was in Eden, it says that a mist rose from the Earth and naturally watered the ground, and the ground produced its fruit without any effort.

What happened when sin came into that place, Eden? Then God said to Adam, “You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow.” The ground no longer produced its fruit naturally. Now its fruit had to be wrested from it by digging into it with a rake, striking it, and snatching its food from the ground. And man did it by the sweat of his brow.

When Adam was in Eden, his relationship with God was perfect, completely harmonious. Then sin separated God and man. When man was in Eden, there was harmony between the man and the woman. There was no enmity, no struggle over who was greater, no conflict. The man did not lord it over the woman, and the woman did not rebel against the man’s authority. There was perfect harmony between the two.

What happened when sin came? Then God says, “From now on I will put conflict between you and the woman. The man will lord it over the woman, and the woman,” it says, “will rebel against the man.” There was also enmity; there was conflict. The battle of the sexes is not something from the twentieth century. It began thousands of years ago in the Garden of Eden when man sinned. There, in a sense, the friendship between man and woman was damaged, and discord arose.

And between man and man. Cain and Abel, two brothers—Cain killed Abel. Envy came, bitterness came, resentment came, jealousy came. All of that came as a result of sin, and that universe which Christ created and sustains was damaged. The mechanism went haywire.

And what did Christ do? He came down into the world and said, “I am going to repair this universe that I created. And I am going to do it by dying on the Cross and now establishing the principle of harmony.” And the Word says that “Christ made one people out of two peoples.” The Word says that now in Jesus Christ there is neither man nor woman, slave nor free, Scythian nor barbarian, Greek nor Jew; rather, we are all one in Christ Jesus. There is unity; there is harmony in Christ Jesus. He is the reconciler. He came to unite all things.

And what matters most to me—and with this I conclude—is what He says: “You also, who were once strangers and enemies in your minds.” That is very interesting, brother. Before we knew Jesus Christ, we were enemies of God.

Now, through that relationship with Christ, we are reconciled to God.

But something else that is important here is that, when a person is without God, there is a war within him; there is struggle; there is internal division. The Apostle James says, “Where do wars come from? Where do the struggles among you come from? Where do revolutions come from? Where does this business of people killing one another come from? Beware of your passions, which wage war within you.”

Man projects his inner war outward, and from there come wars and struggles between individuals, between nations, and between social groups. Now, when Christ begins to work in a person’s life, what happens? He turns that division in our minds into peace. That is why it says that Christ “is the Prince of Peace.” “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give it to you as the world gives. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

Jesus Christ is the great reconciler. He not only reconciles the external elements of the universe, but He also reconciles the elements that make up the human personality. If you want peace, make sure that Christ reigns in your heart. If you want peace, make sure your life is surrendered to the Prince of Peace.

If you want there to be peace in your family, make sure you hand all your keys over to Jesus Christ so that He may enter the rooms of your life and put them in order, so that there may be peace in your family, in your marriage, and in your relationship with your children. If the nations want peace, let them give Christ His rightful place of importance. If this city of Boston wants peace, let it put Christ first.

If you want peace, let Christ deal with your life; let Christ unite the parts of your being, your emotions. Place your mind and your heart at Christ’s disposal and say to Him, “Lord, deal with me so that these parts of my life that are in conflict may be united and may become one.”

That is why there is anguish in the world; that is why there is anxiety and agony. To the extent that Christ is not the Lord of our lives, to that same extent there is discord within us. And that is why the Lord Jesus Christ says, “Take my yoke upon you, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Meaning, “Let me deal with you, and you will find rest for your life.” There are many Christians who do not know peace because they are not bearing the yoke of Jesus Christ.

For I believe that when a person has Christ fully at work in his life, He gradually smooths out all the sharp points in our lives. So, brothers and sisters, here we have a wonderful, complete picture of the person of Jesus. I believe that the church must always examine and renew its exalted vision of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ is Creator. Jesus Christ is Sustainer. Jesus Christ is the head of the church, and Jesus Christ is Reconciler, so that in everything He may have the preeminence.

May the Lord bless us!