Who is Jesus?

--- Welcome to week three of Finding Stability, which is our women's Bible study through the book of Colossians. Today we're going to cover Colossians chapter 1, verses 15 to 23. We're studying a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a group of believers in the town of Colossae. He said he was thrilled to hear about their faith, and he started praying for them in the previous lesson. He prayed for them to be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and understanding, to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to be pleasing to the Lord, and to bear fruit. And we got excited reading that prayer because we realized it was a great model for us to pray for other people as well, and that we ourselves should pray that we would be filled with the knowledge of God's will in wisdom and understanding, to walk worthy of the Lord, to be pleasing to him, and to be fruitful. And we know that this letter is going to ultimately lay down some warnings, because I've told you that it is. But first, Paul was laying down a platform of truth, and it ended last week with verses 13, 14. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, forgiveness of sins. So it's completely logical, then, that the next thing he would tell these people about is this beloved Son, who has this kingdom that they have been transferred to. Who is he? What is he like? And that's what we're doing today. Unlike us, this church was very young. They could not have been in the Lord for more than five years. Maybe ten, but probably three to five years. Unlike us, they didn't have a full Bible. I mean, they may have had some, the Jewish part of them may have had some scriptures and some Torah, but the letters of Paul were just being written. The gospel accounts were just being written and circulated. They didn't have everything that we have. Like us, they had probably heard a variety of things about who Jesus is. And like us, they needed to have knowledge so that they could apply wisdom and understanding to their lives in order to protect their faith and keep it from destabilizing. Now, Paul's prayer that we went through last week, he talked a lot. He emphasized the need for knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. So I want to emphasize that this week, too. And I want to start with the scripture from Proverbs, Proverbs 2, 6. It says, The Lord gives these things. We don't naturally possess this kind of knowledge and wisdom and understanding. It comes from the Lord. And I want to remind you of what we said last week, that knowledge is possessing important information. And wisdom is being able to apply that important information to our lives. So, verses 15 to 19 this week are going to present five bullet points of important information that we need to know about who Jesus is. Now, usually in our Bible study, I encourage us not to rush into application so that we trip over our observation and our information. But I just feel like the Lord has led me this week to apply every one of these bullet points to our lives. So that's what we're going to do. Let's start with verse 15. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. And that's our first bullet point, is that he is the image of the invisible God. Now, this word image is key here. It's a really interesting word. In the Greek, this word is icon. Same thing it is in English, except they're spelled differently in Greek and English. So I wanted to play a little game. I want to have a little fun with you this morning. Play a little icon game. Sometimes we call it a logo. So I'm going to put some icons on the screen, and you're going to tell me what it represents. So let's do the first one. Walmart. The place we all hate to have to go, but we do go there. How about the next one? Everyone knows this. The next one. Everyone knows this. How about the next one? Instagram. Some people know this. How about the next one? Hospital. And that's not technically a logo, but if you see a sign that says that the H, you know that help is there. And then this last one, if you know this one, you are my people. Yes. Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A has the best cob salad of any restaurant, expensive or not. We love Chick-fil-A. But icons help us recognize a store or a product, and Jesus helps us recognize God. He is Emmanuel, God with us, God in a way that we can see and understand. And so a few things in your study guide. We went to John 14 where Philip had said to Jesus, show us the father. And Jesus looked at Philip and he goes, whoever has seen me has seen the father. I represent who he is. And then Hebrews 1.3 told us he's the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. All right. Now let's go to some wisdom. Let me apply this. What understanding does this bring to my life? Well, I've heard people say, maybe you have even thought this. People say, you know, I really like the Jesus side of God because what's not to love about that? Blessed are the peacemakers. Ask and you shall receive. Have no anxiety for the future. But the Old Testament side of God, I don't know if I like that side very much. Impossible. You can't divide him up and have different sides because Jesus represents who God is. So that's how we apply that. If we get to know Jesus through our study of the word, we have gotten to know who God is. If you see those golden arches that I had up there, if you see them in Boise or in Bangalore, you know that you're going to get the same product. You know the fries will be the same. They will be relatively terrible all over the world, but it is the same. You can be sure it's the same. And it's the same with Jesus and God. He is the exact representation. OK, our second bullet point. He's the firstborn of all creation. And this doesn't mean that he was created first as in born first. Obviously, if you have children, you have a firstborn. Firstborns are interesting people, aren't they? They usually do think that they are in charge, sometimes rightly so. They are the first ones that we have left in charge of the other siblings. And we even say, oh, that was such a firstborn thing to say or to do. But that's not really the way firstborn is used here. I'm going to read it to you out of the New Living Translation that should help us out with this. He existed before anything was created, and he is supreme over all creation. I love that word, supreme over all creation. He has, in fact, he is the one with the authority to create, as verse 16 goes on to show us. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. Did you see the repetition there of all things? Two times in this verse, we'll have it two times in the next verse. And did you notice those prepositions? Created by him, through him, for him. And so this is knowledge to us that is very important to understand Jesus created all things. I think I was in my 20s. I was saved when I was a little girl, but I think I was in my 20s before I understood this, that Jesus was the creator. How old were you? When did you learn this? Maybe you're today years old when you meet this information. But the Colossians, maybe this was new information to them. This is important information for them to know. So how does this stabilize my life? How does this impact my life? I thought of a few things. First of all, our culture tells us that everything that we see randomly evolved. And the knowledge of scripture tells us that everything we see was created by, through, and for God's son. So I connect the dots on that, and then I say, if God was this intentional in creation, then nothing exists that is accidental. Everything was created. purposefully. Now, we know that sin has corrupted our environment, has corrupted the world, our experience in this world. We know that the whole world is groaning for redemption, but we can be confident that it was created with a purpose. We can be confident that someone bigger than me, smarter than me, laid down the plans for this world. Also, my culture tells me that my presence on this earth is random, and the knowledge of Scripture says that by him all things were created, even me, with my own specific and unique personality and DNA, even you with your own unique and specific personality and DNA. Paul and I like to find little series that we can watch, and we've been watching a little series. It's called Inventions That Shook the World, and it's been going through the 20th century, and it's really been interesting. I didn't know it wasn't until the 1980s when they've developed DNA testing, when they first identified that you have a repeatable sequence of DNA that's only, you know, unique to you. And so that's when it began to be used in forensics and all that kind of thing. It was super interesting to watch that and see how unique and how orderly that is. So, wisdom then says, everything matters to God. I matter to God. I was created the way that he intended. I was created specifically. I was created to be a woman, and so I'm spared from the destructive and destabilizing propaganda that I have to figure out what I am. I know because God specifically, purposefully created me. We meet ideas and philosophies all the time in our culture that war against biblical information, war against the knowledge of God, and they create instability in our world. They can deconstruct our faith if we don't put up the knowledge of the truth in front of them. The knowledge of God is what stabilizes our faith. So, let's go to the third bullet point, verse 17. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Here's our second to all things. And so, we learn that Jesus didn't begin to exist at Christmas time. We learn that he was before all things. And so, let's take a look at John 1, 1 to emphasize this.

And then, we also learn here that he's holding everything together. That's what this text says. In him all things hold together. So, let's go up to Hebrews 1, 2. In these days, in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world. He's the radiance of the glory of God, and the exact imprint of his nature, icon, again. And he upholds the universe by the power, by the Word of his power. So, knowledge, important information, tells me, it tells you, he is before all things. Through him all things were created, and in him all things hold together. How do I take this and apply this as wisdom to my life? Well, my culture is telling me that the world is falling apart, that it is, that it's out of control, that climate is out of control, that storms are out of control, that asteroids are out of control, and there's a thousand things I should be worried about, about my world. But the wisdom of God says, in him all things hold together. And so, there's one piece of anxiety I can cast aside in my life, is because Jesus is holding this all together. It is true that sin has affected our experience in this world. That is a true thing. But Jesus is still holding it together. There's a scripture in Genesis that I love. It's Genesis 8, 22. You maybe remember singing it, while the earth remains seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. So if there's trouble in my experience in this world, in my corner of the world, like people are having trouble right now with the hurricane, that is trouble. But the Bible teaches us that he is an ever present help in times of trouble. He's a shelter in the time of storm. So knowing he holds all things together should draw us to pray, should draw us to say, Lord, I need you right now in this experience. Bad things are happening. I need you. That's a good thing for us to be drawn to him. All right, so verse 18 is our fourth bullet point. It says, he's the head of the body, the church. That's who Jesus is, the head of the body. And this is important knowledge for us. We find out by looking in Ephesians chapter 5 how Jesus felt and how he continues to feel about his body, the church. I'll read you some of it from verses 25 to 27. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle, that she might be holy and without blemish. And so we learn about Jesus. The important information here is how much Jesus loves the church, that he sacrificed. If Jesus loved and loves his body that much, I should love his body as well. So here's some applications of wisdom. If you are a woman that tends to feel unloved, unwanted, unworthy, Ephesians chapter 5 is a place where you should go and dwell and meditate on how Jesus feels about you as being part of the church, his bride. Another point of application is that we should put up a resistance to these articles that are always complaining about the church, how the church is failing the next generation, how the church is falling apart. I don't get it. I mean, it is true that we should work in our own church experience to make sure that it's biblical, but to me, I think we should show respect. And you know, I get it that the church and the body of Christ are not technically the same thing, but Paul used the words in the same space here. And so I think it shows that we should offer a level of respect to what Jesus loves, what he sacrificed for. He's the head. He knows how to care for his body. It is my job just to respect what he loves. So then the fifth bullet point here is in verse 18. He's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. Firstborn from the dead. Again, we know that Jesus wasn't the first person, the first individual, to die and come back to life. In the New Testament, we've had the daughter of Jairus, and we had Lazarus. In the Old Testament, both Elijah and Elisha had raised someone from the dead. But again here, the firstborn means supreme over. Jesus was the first to not only conquer death, but then to rise again and never face death again. He conquered death. He's bigger than death. And so the wisdom and the understanding for my life teaches me that Jesus should be huge in my eyes. If Jesus becomes huge in my eyes, my problems become smaller. If my problems are huge, I need to dwell here so that I understand what truly is huge, and that is Jesus, the one who conquered death. I was thinking too about all the crazy things in our lives, the difficulties, the problems, things that need—can we just say things that need a resurrection? Maybe there's a marriage that needs a resurrection, a different relationship that needs a resurrection, a checkbook, health, either mental or emotional or physical, that needs to come to life. We can cry out to the Lord and trust Him with these things because He conquered death. And so when we see things, even dying in our life, it inspires me. I'm just going to draw close to the Lord. Where else am I going to go? No one else conquered death. He's the one. So, I need to bring it and trust Him to bring life to this area in His time and in His way. Verse 19 says, "'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.'" I actually really like to talk about the phrase, peace with God. I like that phrase. I remember one time I was on an airplane with a lady and we got to talking about spiritual things, which doesn't happen very often because everybody pulls out a book or pulls out their phone or something. But we did get to talking. I was asking this lady, she was telling me about a sister, and I said, "'Well, is your sister a Christian? Is she saved?' Oh yeah.' I said, "'So then she has peace with God?' Oh no." I'm like, we're getting somewhere here because that is the point for us to have peace with God. God created us to worship Him and to enjoy Him forever. We were created at peace with God. Sin has ruined it. Sin has entered into the world and robbed us of our peace with God, but we're not left without hope because God stepped in with His unfolding plan of redemption and it was His method to choose His Son, Jesus Christ, to reconcile us and bring peace again. So when we know the Lord, when we embrace the platform of truth, when we ask Him forgiveness of sins, we have peace with God. And it's through Jesus Christ that that peace with God has been established in our heart. Now my culture, your culture, downplays our need for peace with God. It tells me that people are basically good. The only reason people do bad things at all is because they're either oppressed or they've been deprived or they have a bad self-image. That's why people do bad things. And this can cause me to destabilize my faith by causing me to doubt that I need peace with God, but I do. And that's what verse 21 is going to tell us about, which says, 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. I think that people in general tend to fall into two categories. People who need the Lord can't seem to believe that they're hostile and do evil deeds. And people that are in the Lord have trouble believing they are holy and blameless and above reproach. But both of those things are true. Paul is saying the important information we get here is that we all started off alienated from His presence, not qualified to be in the presence of a holy God. And we started off hostile in mind. In other words, sin brings this negative energy into us that resists God in order to play God. That's in all of us. We resist God in order to play God. And then doing evil deeds. If you have raised a child, you know that it doesn't take very long for sin to show up in that child. The only people who do not sin are people who have redefined what sin is. Otherwise everyone else does. And that's evidence of a world that is hostile to God. All right. So wisdom and understanding. What does that cause me to do with this information? Well, it makes me think I need to embrace what Jesus has done by accepting the peace, the forgiveness of sins that He made possible with His body, His blood on the cross. That's where wisdom takes me. I need to embrace it. And then wisdom also takes me to say, I need to continue in that understanding. This is what creates a stable foundation for my life. And that's where our final verse of this study takes us. Verse 23. Paul says, 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. Once we find truth, once we find stability, we need to hold on to it. We need to continue in it. Now this verse does not say, if you continue without sinning, this verse does not say, if you continue doing Christian things, the verse says, if you continue in the faith, if you hold fast to the faith, if you continue in the faith, the understanding, the platform of truth, that Jesus is the one that gives us peace with God. If you hold fast to that, who we are, who Jesus is, what He has done for us, then we will possess that stable foundation. Stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard. What an amazing few verses that Paul wrote to those young believers, how it encapsulates their faith, encourages, stabilizes their faith, and it should for us as well. As we study this, as we read it, and as you discuss it now, this should be a marvelous stabilizing part of our foundation. So let's pray. Father, we thank you for these words. Lord, as I was even praying with the leaders this morning, and I admitted, it's infrequent that we think this deeply about who you are, and that we meditate on, you know, who you are, what you have done for us, and what change it makes in my life. It shouldn't be an infrequent meditation. And I pray that you would help us, Lord, to carry this with us, to live our life in what we do, how we please you, based on these important pieces of information. Lord, thank you for these words, and I pray that as we discuss now, that you will reveal more and more to us, and help us, Lord, continue in our faith of who you are, what you have done, as we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. ---