Colossians 1.18, and he, Christ,
is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have
the preeminence. Now it's not difficult to know
what Paul is saying when he writes that Christ is the head of the
body, the head. The rest of the body is dead
without the head. And maybe even more to the point
here in the context is that while the body is alive, no part of
the body does anything without the head. You remember the analogy our
Lord gave of the vine and the branches. I am the vine, you
are the branches. Without me, you can do nothing,
except you abide in the vine. If you abide in the vine, you
bear much fruit. And this analogy is similar,
but such a really a complex and a beautiful analogy. The church
is the body of Christ. And Christ is the head, but we
do nothing without the head. Not only is your head involved
in the movement of your hand, but the head initiates it. Your brain tells your hand what
to do, just as Christ is the first cause of everything. Our brother just read, it is
he that giveth. You can just stop right there
for a second and think, what is it that it is he that doesn't
give it? What have you that you didn't
receive? The head controls the movement
of the hand. It not only initiates any work,
but it controls it. And the feet and the arms and
the legs, the whole body, a very helpful analogy, this. that the
church is a living body with Christ as its head. Not only
is Christ the first cause, but he's sovereign in all of it.
He turns us as the rivers of water, whithersoever he will. Proverbs 21.1, even the heart
of the king, the highest sovereign on this earth, is under his sovereign
control, complete and utter control. Without Christ, we can't see.
Without Christ, we can't hear. Without Christ, we can't speak.
And I'm glad it's that way. Because of Him, we, the church,
look to Him and we hear Him. We see Him as the Father commanded
from heaven. This is my beloved Son, hear
Him. Without Him, we can't hear Him.
And He's our message. When all of this adds up, as
our text declares, to Christ being preeminent in the church and in this world,
it's one thing to know what this is saying, to see the analogy, pretty clear,
pretty simple, And to understand that is one
thing and just the sense of getting the point of it. But it's another
thing to live with the consciousness of this. To live daily, to live
moment by moment aware that Christ is the head. To be aware and to be thankful.
To be aware of this is to thank Him always. Give thanks always. To give honor where it's due.
That's everything. That's why God has a universe.
Because He's honoring His Son. What about you? Are you in on
that? I'll tell you who is not confused
about this. Generally speaking, and of course,
by the grace of God. Not that we know anything as
we ought to know, but the preacher is not confused about this. We're talking about the church,
so we're assuming that the preacher is a true preacher of the gospel. The true preacher of the gospel
is constantly every aspect of pastoring a church
He is made aware that Christ is the head of the church Our own insufficiency causes
us to know it And we are Sensible of that at all times
The impossible task of bringing you a message from God causes
us to know it. The evident fact, the plainly
evident fact that if he leaves us alone for five seconds, this
entire church comes unraveled. Makes us to know it The pastor is not the head of
the church Christ is Praise his name It says he's the beginning The
beginning of what Chris Well, this took a lot of deep
thought for me to come up with this. Are you ready for it? Everything. He is literally, and people,
a lot of people say literally, I don't think they know what
that means. Literally, he's the beginning. He's the beginning
of beginnings. He's the beginning of creation.
He is the creator of time. He's the beginning of you. He's
the author and finisher of our faith. Do we live consciously
aware of that? He's the beginning of life. The
beginning of the world. He's the alpha and the omega,
the beginning and the end. Why is this important? Who he
is is all important. He's the beginning. All glory is due unto him. All
glory. And all trust is to be placed
in him. The gospel is a faithful saying
and worthy of all of your trust, all acceptation. He's the firstborn from the dead. Others were raised from the dead
in the Old Testament chronologically before Christ in time rose from
the grave, but not the same way he rose, not the same way he
lived again. If I'm raised from the dead like
the widow's son in our first King study, we just saw that,
didn't we? If I'm raised from the dead like that, I get a few
more years on this earth. If I'm raised from the dead in
Christ, I'm raised to immortality and life eternal. I'm raised worthy of eternal
life. I'm raised incorruptible. Corruptible
can't enter into the kingdom of God, but we can. Because in
Christ, we're raised from the dead spiritually, and he will
physically raise us from the dead when he gets good and ready.
And he will raise us, he's the firstborn. He is preeminent in
that. He's the reason for it. He's my life. He is my eternal
life. He was raised in glory and we
will be raised glorified and worthy to stand in the very presence
of the King. That in all things, he might
have the preeminence. That's the reason all of this
is the way it is. And that he is who he is, that
in all things, he might have the preeminence. Now, think about
how that applies to you. Religion's always talking about
the will of God. We just wanna be in the will
of God. We just wanna serve God. Better find out what God's doing.
You're gonna serve him. You know what he's doing? He's
exalting his son. How about you? What are you doing about that? All that God the Father has invested
in Christ. that is in giving him power over
all flesh, and in laying upon his shoulders
the government of all things, and in laying help upon him that
is mighty in the matter of redemption, and justification, and sanctification. All of that is such that he might
have the preeminence. That's why God does what he does. It is the preeminence. We might have preeminence in,
it means to be before others, to be primary, to be supreme. He gives father's preeminence
in his family, just from the standpoint of as a leader, as
a protector, as Christ is to the church. So we might have preeminence
in certain things, but his is the preeminence. He's the king of kings. He is preeminent over all others. And it's sadly true that most
so-called churches don't understand this. Most so-called religious
people don't understand this. Most religious organizations
are all about proselytes, converts. Now what's wrong with that? You
know, people to be converted to the gospel. Aren't we in on
that same thing? Well, here's the thing. In religion,
what are they being converted to? What are they proselytes to?
What is it that they're making decisions about and for and why? Religion is all about that. Numbers
proselytes converts decisions It's strange I guess to them
how that Christ managed to be preeminent on this earth without
having very many people believe on him at all Relatively very few Even if you counted the converts
to free will man-centered religion if Christ's preeminence depends
on that and It's a failure. In this world, it's an abject
failure. God help us to understand here that the whole point is
Christ's preeminence. Even if that means nobody likes
that. Does that make sense? We exalt
Christ We lift him up, may God make it so. We preach him, we
sing about him, we trust in him, we worship him. And even if nobody likes that, even
if there are no proselytes, I tell you who will join themselves
to that? Everybody who loves Christ or
is at least interested in Christ. Those who took up stones to stone
the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember why they did that? Because he being a man made himself
God. Preeminence. People don't like
that. They like to have that you see
for themselves. And those ones that did that,
they're representative of all mankind by nature. For Christ
to be exalted, for him to be given the glory is repugnant
to them. Regardless of that, Christ is
preeminent and is regarded as such and set forth as such in
his church. That's what a church is. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
2. This was Paul's business. He
said, we preach Christ. That's what Paul did. That's
what he was, a preacher of the gospel of Christ. And look at
how he describes that in 2 Corinthians 2.14. Now thanks be unto God,
which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest
the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. You see, what
he's saying is what God is doing What we're doing is what God
is doing. He's let us in on that. He's
making manifest the savor of Christ and the knowledge of Him
by us. He's using us. Imagine that. To make manifest the savor of
Christ and the knowledge of Christ in His glory, in His preeminence,
telling who He is, setting Him forth. in His redemptive glory,
in His sovereign glory, in the glory of His grace, in every
place, everywhere we go. For we are unto God, and he says
that's a win, that's a win, that's a triumph, that's a victory. For we are unto God a sweet saver
of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish. The Lord delights to show mercy He delights to show mercy. But
if Christ is exalted and honored, God is well pleased. To the one we're the saver of
death unto death, and to the other the saver of life unto
life. And who is sufficient for these things? Christ is preeminent
in the doing of that, and what the doing of that is, is showing
forth the preeminence of Christ. It must be, and by God's grace
it shall be Christ. And what I've noticed, the same thing
you have, not very many people want to see Christ have the preeminence. Not many people want to see that.
Sinners prefer the preeminence for themselves. God saves sinners,
for example, by the will and power of Christ. The leper in Matthew 8 said,
Lord, if you will, you can save me. You can make me clean. If
you will. All through the scripture, the
preeminence in the salvation of sinners belongs to the Lord
Jesus. Romans 9, 16, so then it is not
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. We're told in Ephesians 2, eight
and nine that we're saved by grace through faith in Christ
and that that is not of ourselves. It's the gift of God. Why? It's
not of works. How come? Lest any man should
boast. You're not getting any glory.
I'm not getting any glory. Christ is getting all of it.
The author of faith is gonna get glory for your faith. The one whose life and regenerating
power causes sinners to choose Christ over the riches of Egypt
is gonna get the deciding glory, not you. Yet free will man-centered religion
still insists that it's all up to you. In spite of what the
scripture says over and over and over. Why? Why do they do
that? Why do they insist on that? Preeminence. Glory. We've been robbing God of his
glory at least in our own hearts and minds since the Garden of
Eden. We're getting real good at it
by now, you reckon? We're getting pretty good at
it. That hasn't changed. We've just
gotten better at it over the years. We make it so that our
robbing God of glory is what most people think is worship. That's what people call worship,
a bunch of sinners getting together and singing real pretty and making
decisions for the Lord and letting go and letting God. That's what they call worship. And that don't change until Christ
arrests us on our self-willed road to hell like he did Saul
of Tarsus. He was all about the glory too,
wasn't he? Christ imposes his preeminence
upon sinners like he did Saul. So you see, Saul thought he was
persecuting the Lord. He thought he was destroying
the church. And the Lord said, I've been
goading you like a redheaded mule this whole time, like a
borrowed mule. And then what was Saul's response
to that? Lord, what would you have me do? Preeminence that's
got to be established right up front Preeminence has to be established
right up front And then verse 19 in our text for it pleased
the father that in Christ Should all fullness Dwell Oh
This word means completeness, abundance, and fulfillment. Isn't that amazing? Completeness, abundance, and
fulfillment. It's finished. It's perfect. Those are not just words that
Christ spoke at the end of his life on this earth, in a body, it's all that he did and was
up to that point. It's all that he accomplished
since the day he was born. And before that, it's finished. Work that was purposed before
there was a world is finished. I can try to use bigger and bigger
words to define this, but I believe it can only be defined by scripture.
All fullness in Christ, completeness, abundance, and fulfillment. Turn with me to Luke 3, 21. What in the world does that mean?
How can we even wrap our minds around all fullness in Christ?
Well, this might help. Luke 3.21. Now when all the people were
baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also, being baptized and
praying, the heaven was opened. And the Holy Ghost descended
in a bodily shape, like a dove upon him. And a voice came from
heaven, which said, thou art my beloved son, in thee I am
well pleased. Not only did God Almighty find
no flaw, no fault in him, but he was well pleased with him.
Think about that for a minute. All fullness? If we have any idea who God is,
and we only do if he's revealed himself, but whatever extent
he has, consider that for a moment. That God Almighty, holy, just, perfectly righteous, Said, I'm well pleased. Do you
understand that apart from Christ, God Almighty is never pleased? He's never, the only thing he
is pleased in is Christ, the only. If you're ever gonna get anywhere
near God, you better have Christ in you, the hope of glory. And
you better be in Christ who has made in us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. None of God's purposes are ever
fulfilled, ever accomplished apart from Christ. You don't
accomplish any of them. You might say, well, Christ,
you know, God purposed to have a son and there's a son. What
does that have to do with Christ? There's no son without Christ.
Without him was not anything made that was made. And more
importantly, that son exists. Why is there a son? To picture
Christ. And so that God's purposes in
Christ and the redemption of his people might come to pass
in this world. God has a universe because he
has a people, and he has a people for the glory of his son. How is our text defined? How
can you possibly get any inkling regarding the fullness that's
in Christ? Look at 2 Chronicles 20, 17. This sort of shows us the other
side of the coin, our complete uselessness. Unless the Lord
uses us, we're useless. Second Chronicles 2017, you shall
not need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves, stand you still,
and see the salvation of the Lord with you. Oh, Judah and
Jerusalem, fear not, nor be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them,
for the Lord will be with you. What a picture of salvation by
free grace in the fullness of what Christ is for us. He said,
you're going to see the salvation of the Lord. That's what you
need. You need to see God save you. How do you do that? By looking
to him. The Lord is going to be with
you by doing absolutely nothing. In order to see God's salvation
in Christ, you need to understand what it is to be nothing, to
have nothing, and to do nothing, to know nothing. And we're not talking about good
works now. The Lord ordained us unto good
works, and we shall do good works, but what we're talking about
is the salvation of the Lord. from which works and boasting
are utterly excluded. All of the completeness of what
God requires to save you is in his son. Stand still. You can't do it unless he shuts
you up. In Matthew 14, 14, if you'd turn
over there with me. All fullness in Christ, salvation
completely accomplished by him, all of God's purposes fulfilled
in him. Matthew 14, 14, and Jesus went
forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion
toward them and he healed their sick. And when it was evening,
his disciples came to him saying, this is a desert place and the
time is now past. Send the multitude away that
they may go into the villages and buy themselves victuals.
But Jesus said unto them, they need not depart. give you them to eat. And they
said unto him, we have here but five loaves and two fishes. And
he said, bring them here to me. I think about it. The disciples
are all in a fuss here. They need to, they've got to
eat. What are we gonna do? We're gonna have to send them
away. We're gonna have to, they're gonna have to go get something
to eat. And the Lord said, they don't need to go anywhere. And
this is true. in every situation we find ourselves
in. We think, we get into a predicament
of some kind. A need arises that we feel like
is on our shoulders. We're gonna have to do something
about this now. And look, in the normal way of
things in life, we all want to solve whatever our problems are.
We all want to get past hurdles and hills get things done, but
so many of our predicaments we can't do anything about. And
here's the important thing, in all of our predicaments, the
ones that we can do something about, by God's grace and design,
and the ones we can't, in all of them, what needs to happen
In that situation, in that problem, in that predicament, what needs
to happen is not the immediate problem being solved. That's not what needs to happen.
What needs to happen is for Christ to be glorified. And if that
means the solving of the problem, great. If it means it never gets
solved, great. as long as Christ, as His glory
and His power and His grace are seen. Is that clear? All fullness. He is the fulfillment of your
need. Not more this or more that or
different this or whatever. It's Him. Does that help define
it a little bit? God said, I'm pleased with him. It'd be one thing for God to
say, I don't see any problem with him. But he said, I am well pleased
with him. Are you? Is he all to you? That's the
question today.