Crowning Christ as Lord of All, Part 1

From the beginning of time until now, the world celebrated the litany of spiritual leader. So here's the question what distinguishes Jesus Christ from the rest.

What is it about this man that set him apart today on Insight for living Chuck Swindoll reminds us that the answer is found in the supremacy of Christ. It was Paul who said Jesus existed before anything was created and is supreme over all.

In his third message in a 10 part study through the book of Colossians Chuck explains what it means to crown Christ is Lord of all involved in a study of a little let her the have never read even one time. It's the letter Paul wrote to the Colossians in the little church that had been formed because of a man named Pepper. Fretz, who took the gospel to them. He himself no doubt having heard of it, heard the gospel through Paul, who was the one who writes this letter we find ourselves in the first chapter versus 15 through 23, which is one of the great sections of the letter as it focuses full attention on Christ.

I call it crowning Christ as Lord of all and you will see why as I read the section for you. I'll be reading from the new living translation. If you have a copy of the Scriptures. Please open to Colossians 1 beginning at verse 15 Colossians 115. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. For through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.

He made the things we can see and the things we can't see, such as Crohn's kingdoms, rulers and authorities in the unseen world.

Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. Christ is also the head of the church which is his body, he is the beginning supreme over all who rise from the dead.

So he is first in everything for God in all his fullness was please to live in Christ and through him God reconciled himself reconciled everything to himself.

He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross.

This includes you, who were once far away from God you were his enemies separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body as a result, he has brought you into his own presence and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault but you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don't drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the good news. The good news has been preached all over the world. I call it been appointed as God's servant proclaimed search the Scriptures Chuck Swindoll.

Be sure to download his searching the Scriptures.

Studies by going to inside world.or/study another message from Chuck called crowning Christ Lord of all, I have always loved the hymns sung them since I was a little boy and I can remember singing them in the churches where I was reared I have my mother to thank for that love which was cultivated early in my life I sung the him so long that without trying to. I've memorized most of them and when I thought of founding a church. This church one of my goals was to make sure that we would be a church that sings the hands, not just the hymns. There are other their other great songs that are written, not just those of the early days because the we know today. There are some still being written and and we love singing those as well as well as great courses of worship that that to resound to the glory of God and carry a message that has meaning in depth the music of a church is not to be entertaining is to be edifying. It's to lift up our understanding of the truth.

A characteristic of the hymns is that they are Orthodox and they are Christo centric. They center on the person of Christ and not just on Christ but on the Godhead. God the Father as well as God the Holy Spirit and the doctrines of the church that have been continuing for centuries all emerge in the singing of these great songs. These great cues. These great hymns applying to the younger. As far back as A.D. 110 said to the Roman Emperor Trajan.

The Christians sing a song to Christ is a God. When that appears in literature or the word God is a little G deploying me. Christ was another of the many gods but it troubled the Emperor as well as those around him that the Christian slang to Christ as the Lord, not to Caesar.

Interestingly, whenever cults come on the scene and invade the church, which is what they pray on it.

Invariably they introduce information that decrease the significance of Christ. Check it out. Cults do not exult in Christ as God. The question is deity that called into question his role in life. Certainly as Lord of our lives certainly is the creator of the world. Hymns are deep and worshipful. They remind us of the great truths of the faith they communicate a definite message and when written well. They have singable tunes where there is a progression of truth that is taught through the hymns that may surprise you to know the section were looking at at least versus 15 through 20 of Colossians chapter 1 could very well behave have had been one of the agent hymns a him. Paul wrote under the direction of the Spirit of God or a him known in those days of the first century.

Paul puts words to, as he writes these these words that appear in this passage you would miss that if your Bible does not written in the metric verse as though you were reading a poem by the way, it occurs to me when I talked about early on about starting this church and we would be a him singing church. I don't know how many people said to me lots of luck that's not going to work in this generation. Less like telling Sikkim to a bulldog. I was more determined than ever to prove it can work it does work, how many people who visit our church stop by the front where I stand. Following the service, to say we didn't know there could be a church like this. We haven't heard songs or hymns like this for years. We thought they were all lost or gone, perhaps in Paul's day, it was just the beginning. The emergence of the expression of faith in the him style when you read of this, you see how Christo centric. It is I've taken the time to underscore and read in verses 15 to 20 in my Bible. The references to Christ by name or two pronouns referring to him. He him himself 15 times in six verses there is a reference to Jesus Christ. Obviously he is the theme of what Paul is writing in this ancient him. Look at the beginning of it and you will see immediately his desire that the reader understand that Christ is God, begins with the name Christ. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God is.

Stop right there and you have a mouthful you have a head full of things to think through God, though invisible has made visible.

His attributes, his characteristic is power, his knowledge through Christ and because Christ has a body as a result of his birth at Bethlehem conception in Mary's womb, and birth in this town of Bethlehem, because he has a body he is in visible form truth of the invisible God, look at chapter 2 in verse nine, you will see a reference to this for in Christ lives all the fullness of God.

The Greek word fullness is Clay Romano playroom on. He is the play role model of God in a human body. In other words, the summation of all God's attributes can be seen in the person and in the work of Christ. This is a slap in the face of the cult known in that day as the Gnostic.

The Gnostics came with their false teaching that there was a higher knowledge. There is a greater learning and it comes from the philosophical realm and there are hundreds of emanations from that higher learning.

One of them.

Yes, Jesus, but he is among the lesser gods they were teaching and some of the Colossians were swept up in the Paul's teaching. We sit in this place and we think II would never and I would never get sucked into teaching like that. Don't talk too fast, don't say that to quickly. The cults are very subtle. They come with great charisma and incredible logic if you will a very appealing message when some they have a following and little by little, they have to weigh at your trust in Christ and your faith in the son of God as deity.

Paul rose up her sleeves.

In verse 15 and takes all the cults without once calling them by name, declares Christ is the visible image of the invisible God, to prove that he is deity.

He adds, he existed before anything was created.

Don't go any further. Think about all the way back as far as your imagination can take you into eternity past, before there were the galaxies, the planets, the world as we know it before there was matter before there was time the back all the way. As far you can go when you arrive at the Godhead and the eternal councils of the Godhead. Christ is among the Godhead, the father planning the redemption that would follow on this earth. The father with a plan for creation in the in the sun was chosen to implement the plan. Many feet people don't think of Christ as the creator more than once we read here. In fact, he was the one whom the father had created all things.

He is coequal, coeternal coexistent with the father and with the spirit in the form of the Godhead before any of what we call today's world or the surrounding galaxies around us existed. He was there he existed before anything was created, and he adds he is supreme over all that's been created. Not only was he there, but he is supreme over all. And why would he say that the little letter are the little word for that begins verse 16 is a it is an explanatory connecting if you'll allow me it's an explanatory connected that says this is the reason I'm able to write that so this is a word because middle of verse 15 he existed before anything was created. He is supreme over all creation because through him. That's Christ, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see in the things we can't see.

In other words, he made the things that are in the expansive stellar spaces as well as the matter that is about us. He made it all, as well as the microscopic cells and organisms.

We can't see with the naked eye.

He made it all put together in a way that would honor and pleasing after all the supreme over all of he made things we can see in the things we can't see and then he names the realms of the thrones and the kingdoms of the rulers and authorities in the unseen world. Perhaps you didn't know that exist, Satan dwells in one of these rounds his demons and one of those rental activity goes on in the unseen realm of the unseen world about us the influence of it is certainly felt would you do not see the throne. You do not see who reigns over them, for they are invisible, which makes them all the more insidious and the temptations and in their approach to us in life everything. However, he adds at the end of verse 16, was created through him and for him understand that, except that in creation. He is supreme. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together in a statement. Gravity doesn't hold it all together.

Mother nature doesn't hold it all together case some of you were still thinking of mother nature. She's gone. She's not around the earth is not to be worshiped, the creator of the earth is to see how everything is become twisted in this post-Christian era which we live.

Paul takes us right back from the solar spaces right down to the microcosm.

I found this last week when I was doing study of the small things that there are 800,000 cattle insects.

You know that most of them were in our home in Houston when we live. As I recall my mother turn the light on, it might look like a rodeo was going on the floor whole conduit but they were mainly one species.

It reminds me of what you do you know what cowboy boots have pointed toes to kill the roaches in the corner.

That's why you need him everyone who species everyone of those insects even the cells of every one of them cells of everything. He is made is made a guide.

I read took a group of people through an atomic laboratory and explained how all matter was composed of rapidly moving electric particles. The tourists study the models of molecules and were amazed to learn that matter is made up primarily of space during the question. One of the students asked if this is the way matter works. What holds it all together. What keeps it from disintegrating. The Godhead absolutely no answer. No answer. That's what makes to the end of this verse so significant universe 17. He holds all creation together. Now, having said that about his role in creation is being supreme.

He goes to the church and he says, verse 18.

Christ is also the head of the Trinity is an interesting when you get to it in context not as difficult to believe until you get there. People are taught, the pastor is the head of the church. The pastor is never called ahead of the church is harassing the Pope is not the head of the church is harassing Christ is the head of the church. What Scripture says here and elsewhere is the exalted one. He is the one who is to be worshiped. No man, no woman is ever to be worshiped. No office that's held in the church is ever to be an office of worship is all about Christ that takes all the politics out of the church, which ruins many churches is no place for politic.

There's no place for competition were not competing with each other were exercising gifts for the glory of Christ and for his purposes alone when you begin to see this it it it is remarkable how much of life reminds you of Christ. I came across a magnificent polling I have to memorize by Joseph Plunkett it goes as follows. I see his blood upon the Rose and in the stars, the glory of his eyes. His body gleams amid eternal slows his tears fall from the sky to see his face it. Every flower the thunder and the singing of the birds are, but his voice and carved up by his power.

Rocks are his written word hold pathways by his feet are warned his strong heart stirs the ever beating.

See his crown of thorns is twined with every foreign is cross is every tree whoever Joseph Plunkett was his life was Christo centric. I know a man who came to Christ out of a pagan background any he fell in love with the Lord, and he said I want every waking thought to be of Christ. I want everything I do to remind you said you know what I word Chuck about every time I get to an intersection. I'm able to think of the cross is that great so Christ centered that even north-south east-west intersection with traffic lights.

I focus on the cross. The cross, the apostle Paul was the things that made them so great was a man who was consumed with adoration. Christ over to be like the right of it in such a way that you can't miss it. He puts these documents together so that you can understand all of the things that happened in the church and for the glory of Christ. Every musical instrument played is to be played for the glory of Christ. Every voice that sings is to be something for the purpose of magnifying Christ never to display one's own voice, or one's own skills. Every sermon preached is to magnify the person of Christ back.

I made a list when it says here that he is first in everything. Along with being supreme over all rise from the dead. As we read the end of verse 18 first, and resurrection read first Corinthians 15 for verification of that takes us.

The fear out of the grave takes the sting out of death. Why because he's been raised to supreme over did you have to fear dying during Christ.

You have him and he's led the way you just follow him into victory beyond this life. And then he says he's first in everything in every decision we make prices to be sent in everything we do and every word we say he is to have the think of how that would revolutionize you would never begin the day with the words I'm worried about the price to supreme world is not the day he's got the very moment you're sitting on the side of your bed in his he's leaving you his child.

If you price you belong to him. He is protecting you. Nothing to fear. These are the promises they make a study in Colossians such a rich experience. Paul's eloquent letter to his friends as a celebration of the supremacy of Christ you're listening to Insight for living the Bible teaching the pastor and author Chuck Swindoll. He titled his third message in his 10 part series crowning Christ as Lord of all and to learn more about this ministry. Visit us online@insightworld.org. Over the years we discovered that our listening audience has a healthy appetite for studying the Bible on the wrong. So in addition to these daily programs we have developed a wide variety of resources designed to help you learn more about God's word every since Chuck is written a commentary on Colossians. In fact, this hardbound book includes his commentary on Philippians and Philemon as well, as you'd expect, the commentary is academically sound, but equally important. It's designed to help you integrate what you learn into every aspect of your life that makes sense because Christ is our all in all, that means his truth should become evident in the daily choices we make will to purchase a copy of Chuck's commentary on Colossians go to Insight.org/offer or call us if you listening in the United States dial 1-800-772-8888 and one more thing as a complement to your worship experience in your local church this coming Sunday morning. Remember you can also celebrate with Chuck Swindoll by viewing the worship service@insight.org/Sundays just a few weeks ago, Chuck presented a miniseries that was delivered on this lifestream.

One of those messages was designed to help us look back at the prior year.

The other was designed to help us look forward into the future.

Chuck reassured us that God's fingerprints are all over our past and his fingerprints are all over our future as well. What we decided to offer both audio recordings free of charge. These two messages from Chuck are offered under the title pressing on in faith. So download the free audio files online@insight.org/pressing on Swindoll continues his brand-new study through the book of Colossians right here on Insight for living.

The preceding message.

Crowning Christ is Lord of all, was copyrighted in 2014 and 2022 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2022 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. all rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited