Let s jump in today to Colossians 1:15, and let s see how and why we believe that Jesus Is Better.

Introduction Lord, You are indeed better; You are better than our plans. We have plans and You say, That s cute. Let Me show you who I am. Lord, I confess that oftentimes I fall prey to thinking as the world thinks, and Lord, I want our church I want my own heart to be one that openly declares that we do not put our ultimate faith in anything other than Jesus, the King. So Lord, I pray that right now as we open Your Word that You will speak to us, You will move in hearts, and Father, I pray that You will draw close to those who have moved away. I ask this in Jesus Name. Amen. This morning, if you have a Bible with you, I want to ask you at this time to take it out, open it up, and go to the Book of Colossians. If you don t have a Bible with you but you have your device, that s fine. Take it out, turn it on, and get it over to the Book of Colossians. We are going to be starting in chapter 1, verse 15. We are starting a new series today entitled, Jesus Is Better. We had this great idea that we would make T shirts that say Jesus Is Better on them and that we would sell them for a five dollar donation at our media desk. So we announced that in the last service and we sold out. So, I m going to show you this shirt, and then you can all rush the stage here in just a moment I m just kidding! We do have some sizes left in XL and XXL, but we are going to order more, and we ll have those next week. I m just letting you know in case you see other people walking around, and you re not tempted to beat them up to take away their T shirt. We also finished our series last week entitled Make Believe talking about the important doctrines of the faith. So we purchased some copies of this book called Rooted. It s a very brief introduction to those core doctrines. It s 140 pages about the core doctrines of the Christian faith for a five dollar donation. You could get that as well, back at our media desk. If you say to me, Steve I don t have five dollars to my name, then please go and get that book anyway. If you really want that, we would love for you to join us in that. Let s jump in today to Colossians 1:15, and let s see how and why we believe that Jesus Is Better. 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. 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, 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. Do you remember the first time you went over to your friend s house and they had an HDTV, and you had never seen an HDTV? You had been at home squinting, trying to follow the football whenever you were watching the game, and then you go to your friend s house and they have an HDTV. You say, That s not fair I want one of those. Then, through hook or crook, somehow you managed to get one of those TVs, and finally when you had it you felt more satisfied because you finally had your HDTV. In fact, some of you probably even said in certain situations, I m never going back I m not watching that old, fuzzy, whatever kind of TV that that was. We are creatures that like to have what s better. We see things that we believe 1 P a g e

are an improvement over our lives, and we say, I m going after that. That s the thing that I want. And we go and we run after it so that we can have whatever that is. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says about Himself that He will be lifted up from the earth, and then all people will be drawn unto Him. Now Jesus, in that particular situation, is talking about the end of days when He will be lifted up from the earth, and people will see Him in His full radiance and His full glory. In that moment they will go, Wow Jesus truly is the Son of God, and they will be motivated to follow after Him. But until then, I still believe that the principle in that verse holds true, which is this In any situation that we hold Jesus up, that we exalt Him or lift Him high, then people will be drawn to Him. You see, here s the thing. I believe that Jesus is the spiritual equivalent in this analogy of an HDTV, and you, if you truly see Him and understand His character, will be drawn to Him. If you today are here and don t believe that Jesus is indeed the thing that you ought to be drawn to, or if you think that you know Jesus and you have out-ofhand rejected Him, I would submit to you today that if you will allow me to lift the character of Jesus high, today and over the next several weeks, I believe that He will begin to draw you unto Himself, and you will say, Any god that I have ever created in my own image, and any situation that I have attempted to solve by my own power, is not superior to the God that has been given us in Jesus Christ. So today, I want to tell you, Jesus Is Better. I want you to understand that it doesn t matter what you ve done, what you ve experienced, but Jesus is better. He is better than a fat bank account, He s better than sex, He s better than a buzz, He s better than any addiction that you ve ever had Jesus is better than your best friend, He is better than your wife, He s better than your husband, He s better than the person that you hope to marry one day, He s better than the promotion that you hope to get at your job... Jesus is better. He is better than anything than you could ever possibly hope to have. This side of eternity, the other side of eternity the best thing you could ever have is Jesus Christ. I want to demonstrate to you why, through Colossians chapter 1. 1. The Power Of Identity (v. 15, v. 19) First of all, we read that He is better because He has power that I could never have. Start in verse 15: He is the image of the invisible God. Paul is, most certainly here, referring back to the Ten Commandments, reminding us that we are not to have graven images. We re not to make things that are supposed to act as gods to us. Here he reminds us that Jesus is not a graven image, but He is a living image. The word there is basically the word prototype. He says that if you look at Jesus then you are seeing God. If you take a look at Him, then you are really seeing God s character up close. A little bit later on, he says this that Jesus is not only the image of the living God, but in the second half of verse 15 he says, He is the firstborn of all creation. That does not mean that He was the first created thing because Jesus is eternal. John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. What is he saying? He is saying, Not only is Jesus my image, but he s also saying that He was there, active and present, prior to creation. He is my image and He was active and present. In other words, whenever you look at Jesus, you are seeing God up close. He is a front-row seat for you to see the very character and nature of God. If you ve ever wondered if you could truly love God if you ve ever wondered, I don t know if I could buy into the idea of God, but you ve been enamored with or captured by the presence or person of Jesus Christ, this is what I want you to know. When you look at Jesus, you re not seeing a part of God or a portion of God; you are seeing the most complete revelation of God that has ever been given to the world. Jesus Christ is the same essence, the same DNA, the same organism; He is in the Godhead He is God. You look at Him, you see God s character. 2 P a g e

Later on in the passage, in verse 19, we read this: in Him (in Jesus) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. In other words, Jesus doesn t have just a little bit of God; He has all of God s fullness. He s not just part of God, a little piece of God; He is every single bit of Him. Why does God do this? He wants you to be able to experience and know His character. God knows that if you can see who He truly is, what His heart is truly like, then you will be drawn unto Him. 2. The Power To Create (v. 16) He wants to show you this through various acts of His power. Let s look at a few of these acts of power right here in chapter 1. First of all, we read this in verse 16: For by Him all things were created How many things? All things. All things are created. in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. J.R.R. Tolkien who wrote The Lord Of The Rings novels he was a Christian, and he said this about the human desire for creation: Fantasy remains a human right. We make, in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made. And not only made but made in the image and likeness of a Maker. You see, Jesus has a power that is beyond our power. It s the power to create. Tolkien was consumed with the idea of sub-creators the idea that every person out there you like to cook, to make a garden, to build something in your house, to go and start a new business. We are always people who are looking to make things to start things. That s something that has been embedded into us. Why? Because Jesus Christ is someone who is a creator. He is someone who has always been creating. Right? So if we re created in His image, we have the same desire. But now, what Jesus wants us to see in this passage is that all things have been created, whether visible or invisible, principalities or powers. Maybe Paul is even tying this back to the Ephesians 6 passage, but this is what he is letting us know: When Jesus makes something, it s different than whenever you or I make something. Did you ever make something and it didn t turn out the way you wanted it to turn out? You see, this passage tells us that whenever Jesus has made something, He has made it through His power and for His power. If you look back at this passage here; this is what it says: He has made all things through Him (into verse 16) through Him and for Him. Everything that you have ever seen has been made through the power of Jesus: canyons, crevasses, mountains, mole hills every song, music is out there. All of these things: beauty, justice, love, truth all of those things have been made through the power of God. Now certainly, humans have taken many of those things and perverted them and used them for purposes that were not God s intended purposes. But all things that have ever been made all things that have been created have been created through Him. But then he says, all things are created for Him. I don t know about you, but I have a tough time just managing the little things, like my family. Just trying to come up with one agenda in my family is tough. Maybe your family is better than that. Let s pretend that I m running a biker gang. I mean you guys can see that, right? Me running a biker gang? Let s pretend I m running a biker gang. As I m running this biker gang, I am really struggling because the bikers have their own agendas, right? Some of them want to join the Banditos; some of them want to be part of another organization. Maybe some of them are still mad about that time that Billy shivved Bobby, or whatever. Maybe other people are upset about the time that we got into a fight with the people at the thing. There s all these competing agendas and everyone is upset, and everyone has an idea of where we ought to go or what we ought to do. There s all of these competing agendas within that. It s tough for me just to 3 P a g e

manage something like that. What if then somehow we could zoom out and we could see at a macro level, giant crowds or perhaps we could even zoom out far enough so that we could see all of the network of relationships represented in the entire globe. I want you to ponder all of the agendas that would be present in all of the relationships all around the world. I want you to think about that for just a little bit. All of the different things that people are working toward and working against and how all of those things manage together. Now I want you to think, Okay you re in charge of them. Get them all to move in one direction. I m not even going to try. I mean man it s going to be impossible. Scripture says, though that s Jesus. He created all of these things through His power and then are you ready for this?... for Him. This is the thing that blows my mind: Right now, people are doing the very opposite of things that Jesus wants them to do, yet, according to Colossians 1, they are still for His purposes even if they don t know it. He is able to use them to do things that they don t even know that they re being used to do, and He says, Because I am King over all of Creation I ve made all of this so they ve been created through my power and they will be used for Me, whether they know it or not. You see, Jesus has made these things through His power and for His power. 3. The Power To Sustain (v. 17) But then, even beyond that it says, not only has He created them, then, look at this in verse 17: And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. So, in other words, there are things that naturally would fall apart that Jesus just keeps saying, No I m not ready for it to fall apart yet and He brings it back together. Apparently my grill is not on that list right now. I mean, it s been sitting on my back porch for a while. It started to rust out; it s starting to fall apart. You guys know how this is, right? I mean, you have things for a season, they last for a while, but everything eventually breaks down and falls apart. But there are certain things the universe, the planet, relationships that ought to disintegrate, yet Lord Jesus has said, I want to sustain that. I want to keep that together. I don t know about you guys but, for me, maintenance wears me out. Do you ever just think about all the stuff that whenever you re an adult you re supposed to have to do? This is just expected. I just wrote a few things down: - Go get your oil changed every 3000 miles. - Go to the dentist every six months. - Make sure you get a checkup every year. - Really make sure you are getting a checkup every year once you turn 40. - Work out at least five times a week. - Get at least eight hours of sleep. - Walk at least 10,000 steps a day. - Make sure to take in less calories than you burn. - Spend a little bit of time, at least, each day in prayer and in the Word. - Take your wife on a date every single week. - Write thank you notes to people who give you gifts. - Spend quality time with your children. If you could do that individually, that would mean you really love them. - Also, be sure to find a mentor. 4 P a g e

- Don t forget that you ve got to coach those people who need a mentor. - Always be reading a book because leaders are learners. - But at the same time, you ve got to keep up with TV shows so you know what everybody is talking about out there. - You ve got to be relevant with pop culture. You re starting to get the point, right? (Laughter) Did you notice that I never even got around to going to work in this list? We could keep going, right? Because everyone has all this stuff. I don t know about you, but maintenance just kind of wears me out. This week I had to do the deal where I pull the attic door down, I go up into the attic, take the cup of bleach, pour it into my air conditioner so the drain doesn t get clogged up. And if you don t do that, you come home from vacation and you find out that there s a giant puddle of water in the closet, that has gone through the ceiling, that has gone through the attic. Those are little things you have to do. Maintenance matters. At the same time, maintenance is hard. But Scripture says that all things right now, your body is not exploding into mist right now because Jesus is sustaining you. Right now, the government of our nation is not disintegrating because He has decided to sustain it. You see, over and over, whenever you look at things and you see that they ought to fall apart because, by all logical reasoning, they shouldn t hold together they stay together. Jesus is sustaining. There s this thing called entropy the second law of thermodynamics. Maybe you know about it and maybe you don t. Basically this is what it says: Things tend toward chaos naturally. They don t get better on their own. Yet, sometimes things get better. Why? Because Jesus let it get better. Created through Him, created for Him, and sustained. 4. The Power To Resurrect (v. 18) But Jesus doesn t just create and Jesus doesn t just sustain; He also resurrects. You read here, in verse 18: He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead That means, whenever Jesus was resurrected after three days, He was resurrected that means that one day everybody else who has placed faith in Him, they will be resurrected as well. But He was the first one. He was the first one to demonstrate to you that He has power over sin and power over death. He is the very first one who will be resurrected has been resurrected and yet He also lets you know that one day others will be resurrected as well. You see, whenever I read this I realize that I can t create, at least not like Jesus and I can t sustain, at least not like Jesus. And I certainly can t keep things from dying, and I certainly can t raise things back to life. You see, Paul keeps adding to this list. He says, Jesus is this and He s this and He s this and He s this and He s this And He has this effect on all things and this effect on all things And what he s trying to do is he s trying to build things up higher and higher and higher and higher so that finally you go, Wow He has power that I ll never have. When we get to resurrection, what Paul is saying is that Jesus is the firstborn from the dead... He rose from the dead. And then that power, that resurrection power He looks at your life and He goes, Hey you know that thing about yourself that you hate that character flaw that sin that brokenness I have the power to take that, crush it, destroy it, and then resurrect and change you. There s a song I ve been scream-singing in my car a lot lately. Do you guys ever scream-sing? You know, the song is so good that you just roll down the windows and you re like, I hope nobody sees me. And you just go for it. And you pretend like you are the greatest singer in the world. I ve been scream-singing a 5 P a g e

lot lately this song that has a great line that says, The resurrected King is resurrecting me. You see, because it s not just in the future that one day we ll be resurrected, but it s also the fact that right now Jesus has His hand on you, if you ve placed your faith in Him, and He says, I am going to resurrect you and I will resurrect you right now. 5. So That He Might Reconcile (vv. 21-22) Now I want you to stop and think about this for just a second. Jesus has the power to create from nothing, to create things that we could never create. Jesus has the power to sustain things that ought to fall apart they don t. Jesus has the power to resurrect me, even now before I m even fully dead. He takes the spiritual deadness in me, He resurrects me, and one day whenever I physically die, there will be a promise that one day He will fully resurrect me. I want you to think about this. Why does He do that? Why would Jesus go to the trouble to create, to sustain, and to resurrect? Let s see what the Scripture says verse 19: 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. Jesus wants to reconcile everything back to Him. He wants to take everything that s broken, everything that s a problem, and He wants to reconcile it back to Him. You guys don t know this about me because you ve never played a board game with me but I m kind of competitive. I was competitive whenever I was an athlete which was kind of unfortunate because I wasn t very good, but I really wanted to hurt people, you know, if they were trying to beat me. So, I was just competitive. My philosophy at my house, If we re going to do this, let s do it and if you re a loser and you can t hang, then don t play. That s kind of the way that I approach it. Anybody else out there like that? Okay. You all probably need to get saved today. (Laughter) So here s the thing. That s the way that I approach games. What I ve noticed about this is that sometimes, whenever I m being competitive, I will begin to look at the people who are my opposition and I ll actually begin to view them as an enemy kind of in that moment. I m like, I ve got to take these people down. It s just time. What s amazing is I ll be competitive, and then it turns into this hostility and then it kind of turns into this idea that Okay they have to be destroyed. That s just kind of the way that my brain works. What s interesting is that, I think, competitiveness is not that it s only an American quality but I think it s a thing that s really strong within American culture. We love to compete. And more than competing we really like to win. Right? Have you noticed that whenever you compete and you don t win, or whenever you compete and you feel like the game was rigged against you, the emotion that comes up within you? It s called anger. (Laughter) There was this movie that came out in the 70s. I don t know if you saw this movie or not. It was a movie called Network. There was this quintessential classic scene there was a character on Network that came on TV and there was this news broadcast He was wearing his raincoat and he had his pajamas on underneath it. Basically, he encouraged everyone on this live news broadcast to go to their windows because everyone was angry. He says, I want you to go to your window, I want you to rip your window open, and I want you to stick your head out of the window. And I want you to start screaming at the top of your lungs, I m mad as you know what and I m not going to take it anymore. What s funny is that I think as I look at our country right now and as I look at us as a society in this culture, do you know what I ve noticed? We re pretty angry we re pretty competitive we re pretty hostile. 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. You see, here s the thing that I m beginning to notice. It s that we love to get angry because we like to compete. But I ve also noticed that even though sometimes anger will motivate us to do something like a 6 P a g e

job or maybe a task Anger rarely changes the world. Have you ever noticed that? Very rarely do angry people make things better. John 3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Why does God create? Why does God sustain? And why does God resurrect through Jesus Christ? I think that God does those things because He wants you to know that His desire is to reconcile. Reconcile. I want to beat people; He wants to reconcile. I don t know what your particular political persuasion is. I don t know what your particular economic persuasion is, but this I do know: that most likely you believe that you have some enemies right now. Right? And, in fact, right now, if I let you just think for a few minutes, you would come up with a list of who those people are and why it is that they have to be eliminated. What s the desire of the Father? What s the desire of Jesus? He wants to reconcile all things back unto Himself. You see, that s the thing that really I ve begun to notice about the Church of today. It s that if we become more and more of a minority within our culture, we begin to buy into the fact that the way that we re going to win is that we re going to become more angry and fight harder. What I m actually beginning to realize, is that the tool of the Father is reconciliation. And the thing that the Father wants more than anything else is for His people to have His heart. You see, this is the thing that as I read this passage I began to recognize is that everyone loves the idea that God might bring them into a reconciling relationship with Him through the work of Jesus Christ, but we re not really all that crazy about Him doing it with people we don t like. Think about all of the enemies that you have. Just think about politically, economically, business, family, relational people that just get on your nerves. I want you to think about this. God s desire is to reconcile all of those people and for you to sit at a banquet table at the wedding supper of the Lamb for all of eternity, and for you to spend eternity with them. Now, if you re thinking, I don t like that idea then you don t understand grace. You also don t understand how good it is that He bought you. Here s the thing. Whenever I read in this passage that you were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds He s talking about me. He s talking about you. He brought you to the table and now He wants you to go to the people that you despise and bring them to the table as well because that s the heart of the Father. You see, God doesn t sign off on those things that people in the world do. He doesn t say that they re right, but He also says, I still want them. God despises racism, but He wants to reconcile racists. Wrap your brain around that. God despises abuse but wants to reconcile abusers. God despises thievery yet He wants to reconcile thieves. God despises those who engage in slander and gossip, and yet God wants to reconcile people with those same hateful speech patterns. You see, the Lord is somehow able, in His infinite wisdom and His love, to look at all of these people that we declare are enemies and He says, You look at Muslims and you see an enemy you look at transgender people, and you see an enemy you look at whatever and you see an enemy and I see people that I want to know My love, and I want them reconciled. It s hard for us, right? Because we want to win. What if the way that you win is they come to know Jesus? You see, as a church, sometimes we will stand up and we ll say, We don t care what color you are; we want you to be here. We ll say, We don t care what your past is; we want you to be here. We ll stand up and we ll say, I don t care if you re feeling that you re attracted to people of the same gender, I don t care if you re sexually confused, I don t care if you ve got crime in your past. I don t care if you say, I ve got an addictive habit that I have not told anyone in my family about The truth is that when I read this passage, this is what I know to be true; I don t care who you are, I don t care what you ve done, the Father s heart is that He wants to reconcile you because He wants to reconcile all things to His Son Jesus. (Clapping) 7 P a g e

Church, here s the other thing. Are you ready for this? He wants us to be His vehicle. So I want you to think, Who are the people that the Father wants to pursue? Go get them. Go love them. Go hug them. Go have a cup of coffee with them. Invite them into your home. Tell them that you love them. They are not your enemy because we who once had been alienated through hostile deeds have now been reconciled. How does that happen? He creates, He sustains, He resurrects but how does it happen? Back in the passage, how does it happen? Verse 20 and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross. If you re here today and you came in thinking, I don t even know why I m going to church today; I m only here because my grandma made me come. I m only here because I m going to see friends and they want to go to brunch later, and I like omelets. If you re here because you re saying, I m only here because I had a really bad week. I don t even know why I m here. Listen to me I want you to hear this. I m going to drop a bomb on the playground of your life that is going to wreck everything in the best way possible. This is what I want you to hear: God the Father sees you right where you are. All the stuff that you re trying to hide, the things that you look at online that you think nobody knows about the stuff that you sneak and hide under your bed so that your family won t find out about it the texts that you delete. All of those kinds of things He sees them and guess what? He still wants you anyway. He still wants you anyway. He doesn t care what you re addicted to, He doesn t care what you said when you were drunk last night, He doesn t care what you ve done in the past He doesn t care how you ve cheated. He says right now, I want you in spite of that because all things have been made by Me. All things have been made for Me. And all things I want to reconcile for Me. Now say Yes because He wants you. And this is how He did it. He became flesh, as a Son. He allowed His Son Jesus Christ, who is better than all things, to be hung on a cross. Why? Because He said, You you cheater you thief you liar You deserve to be broken, but I ll be broken for you. Why? Because more than anything else, I want you. (Clapping) That s what He wants. Now, today if you re the Church, go and declare, I don t care who you are, I don t care what you ve done, My God wants you. If you re here today, I want you to hear me loud and clear. I don t care who you are, I don t care what you ve done, my God wants you, today, for His own He declares, You are His. Jesus Is Better. He is better because no other god goes after the broken. No other god goes after those people that are supposed to be wasted away. No other god goes after the people that are cheaters. No other god does that. Other gods say, You do good, get your life cleaned up, and then come and see me. Jesus says, I want the broken trash heaps of the world, and I am going to make them great because I forgive them. I receive them. I redeem them. That s what He wants. Jesus is better than any moral system, He s better than any philosophy, He s better than any god. Come and see Him because Jesus is the King. That is why He is best. So today, you get to decide. Let s take this out. Take out your worship guide with me right now. I want you to do this. I want you to take this info tab, and I want you to tear it off with me. Here s what we re going to do. I m going to give you an opportunity now to think how you ought to respond to this truth. In case you haven t heard it, this is the truth today. Jesus made you, He has sustained you, He is even currently resurrecting you, but He is not done with you. He wants you to be His. I have shown you the beauty of a God who made you and loves you, and He calls you and He wants you to be His. Who s ready to say Yes? On one side it says Info Tab you can give us whatever info you want to give us. But on the back it says, Respond. If today you re ready to respond, fill out this card. Check the top box I would like to talk to someone about trusting Jesus as my Savior and Lord. Think of it this way: If you check the top box, 8 P a g e

you re saying, I want to talk to someone about what it means that Jesus Is Better. There are other things there that you can check and other ways that you can respond, but what I want ask you to do today is for you to say Yes to Him. I m going to pray right now and I m going to give you an opportunity to reflect on this, and then we re going to respond. Let s pray. Lord Jesus, the criminal, the cheater, the thief, the doubter, the abuser, the gossip, the slanderer, the person who judges by appearance, the person who believes themselves to be prideful and better than the other people that they re around, the people who look at themselves in the mirror and consider themselves to be worthless You made them all, You have sustained them and brought them to this place, and You want them. Lord, I pray today that they would be drawn to You and that they would say Yes. I love You, Father; I praise You. In the name of Your Son Jesus Christ. Amen. 9 P a g e