Sermon Tone Analysis

Approximately 90 days ago the terrorist group Boko Haram stormed a school in northeast Nigeria and brutally kidnapped 100 teenage girls.

These girls in their early teens were kept in captivity until mid-March the terrorists returned most of the schoolgirls after negotiations with the Nigerian government.

However still as of this morning...90 days later one of these girls remains in captivity...if she is still alive…her name is Leah Sharibu.

Rebecca, Leah’s mother, can remember clearly how each parent celebrated the sudden and unexpected return of their daughter as she waited patiently as one-by-one the young girls were reunited with their families.

Then as it became clear that no more girls were coming it suddenly dawned on her that Leah was not among the group of girls released.

"Where is Leah?" she asked anxiously.

One of the freed girls told her that Leah was not release because...

She loves Jesus…and would not convert to Islam.

She would not even say the words…I denounce Jesus Christ.

This 15 year old girl would not turn her back on Jesus…not matter what the cost.

Jesus is everything to her.

Why?

Why would she not just say the words?

How could she do this at 15 years old?

Because she knows Jesus is Lord.

She knows the love of Christ that saved her is also the power of the risen Christ...that is holding her in His hands.

Jesus Christ is her all in all…her everything.

Or as Spurgeon was once quoted as saying.

“If Christ is not all to you He is nothing to you…if He be something He must be everything, and if He be not everything He is nothing to you.”

Jesus Christ is Everything to Leah…and...

As we continue to study the Church and ask what are the foundational necessities that make a Church a Church…today we will see that...

Jesus is EVERYTHING to the Church.

Colossians 1:15–20 is one of the high points of New Testament.

It is one of the most important paragraphs in the history of the world.

Here is the heart of why we are here to worship…why we live the way we do…the heart of the Church…here is why Jesus is worthy of all of our praise…our time…our honor…our decisions…our lifestyle…our commitments…our heart…our mind....our soul…why a radical commitment to Jesus the only logical option…

Why do we give our very lives to Jesus…Why is Jesus everything to the Church?

Here it is in one short paragraph.

Open to...

Amen!

Jesus is everything…in everything…created everything…was before everything…and holds everything together…because He is everything...He is God…and eternal peace…eternal joy....eternal salvation…only comes to anyone through Him…because of the blood of the cross.

Jesus is everything to us…and we are His people…and His people are the Church…so...

Jesus is everything to the Church.

This is why we worship.

This is who we worship.

The primary thing Christianity is…the primary thing the Church is...is not a meeting…or even a group of people meeting in a building…or even the acts that we do…singing…sermons…serving...

The primary thing Christianity is…is a people set apart by God to live like Jesus is everything because they have been shown that Jesus is everything to they now believe in their minds AND hearts that Jesus is everything…so they lay down their old lives and receive Jesus as everything…and live a new life that shows and tells the world that Jesus is everything because Jesus is everything.

So what does that mean for the Church?

Jesus is everything to the Church.

Why?

1. Jesus Is the Lord of All Creation (verses 15–17)

Did you notice how many times the word All is in that paragraph?

Have we said all or everything enough yet?

Count the ALLS...five just in the first three verses:

Jesus is firstborn of all creation

In him all things were created

All things were created through him and for him

He is before all things

In him all things hold together

Let’s jump in with the first “all.”

What does it mean that Jesus is “firstborn of all creation”?

To our ears, two thousand years later, that sounds simply like he was born first, or created first.

Jehovah’s Witness actually use these verses to say that very thing…that Jesus is created not the creator.

That is not what it means…Jesus was not the first created thing because He was there at the beginning and is the God who created all things…it says that in the next verse and in John 1.

Jesus was not made…He is not part of creation…He is the creator.

The term “firstborn” is used throughout the Bible, firstborn has the meaning of most significant or, as we’ll see in verse 18, preeminent — “firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent” (verse 18).

Supreme…the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Jesus is without comparison…in His power and glory and beauty and holiness…because Jesus is everything.

Jesus being “firstborn” here also has some time significance to it…technically before time.

Verse 17 “he is before all things.”

He is the most important thing in all of creation because He is also…the image of God...

So what does it mean to say he IS the Image of God?

Jews and Christians use this “image of God” language quite often, because of the creation account in Genesis 1:27

How often do we pause to ask what this really means?

You were created in the image of the invisible, creator, Holy God…you were created in the image of the creator who created you.

You were created to show this world what God is like by showing them what God means to you by imaging or displaying His Glory…by showing the world God’s glory…not because of your glory…but because of how the glory of God has changed you and is everything to you.

By living for Him and through His power and loving Him the creator…you show the world who He is...

One letter makes quite a bit of difference here…in to is...

We are in the image and therefore live for His glory.

We ind our satisfaction…our direction…our joy...our everything in God when we live for His glory.

Because we are created in the image of God...

Jesus however is the image of God.

We are in the image.

Jesus...although all human…IS the image of God.

Before God created the world…the Father and the Son and the Spirit…the one and only God of the universe...planned what it would be like for he himself to enter into His creation and for His people as a creature in the person of the Son....Jesus.

Jesus, God and man, is the visible image of the invisible God…because He is the great I AM.

He is the one God...who foreknew before the foundation of the world what it would look like for Himself the eternal Son to enter in as a creature.

Humanity was created on the sixth day, but God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) did all his creating with the plan to show His glory and grace by one day entering into His created world.

All creation is by Jesus, through Jesus, and for Jesus.

Which means everything in your life and all of life relates to Jesus because it is about Jesus and for Jesus.

Who made the world?

Who created the universe?

Who scooped out the oceans?

Who built the mountains?

Who flung the stars into space?

Who created Jupiter and the milky way and the Rocky Mountains and the Grand Canyon and Volcanoes and butterflies and you and me?

Every created thing in all the universe (including you and me) bears the stamp: “Made by Jesus!”

He is the originator, architect, and builder of all things.

Jesus created everything.

Therefore all things were created for him.

So Jesus is the most important thing in creation…but not because He was created...

Because He is the creator of All things…and

Jesus is author of Creation and the goal of creation:

He is the point!

All things were created through him and FOR HIM.

The point of Creation is to give God glory…and therefore the point of our lives is to Glorify God…by trusting Him and living for Him and Enjoying Him…in Jesus Christ.

For the Glory of God.

Whatever questions you have in life.

Whatever fears you have.

Whatever doubts you may have about the utterly extensive sovereignty and power and control of Jesus in this world...

Know this....this you can know…there is not a square inch in the universe where Jesus does not right now look upon it and say “Mine!”