Good to see you again in a couple
of years. I look forward to coming up here,
preaching the gospel. I can't think of a greater thing
to be doing right now than to open the Word of God, read it
as we have already. That's the reason I asked Clay
to read the whole chapter. We cannot, cannot make too much
of the Word of God. It's just not possible. Saturate
yourself in the Word of God. And I thank you for the invite. God has blessed you with a faithful
pastor. I listen to Clay on Sermon Audio
often. It's a real blessing to listen
to Clay and Darwin and other men. What a blessing it is to
have men like this to be able to listen to just at the click
of a button. Think about that. At the click
of a button you can hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. My, how blessed we are. And I thank you ladies for the
food and preparations you have made. Turn to Colossians chapter
1. I'm going to use two, three,
four verses in this chapter. I titled the message, The Preeminence
of Jesus Christ. The Preeminence of the Lord Jesus
Christ. When I think of His preeminence,
it gives me great comfort in this day and time we live, Are
you not glad that he rules and overrules all things? You know,
I think more and more as I get older of that scripture over
in the psalms that the earth is the Lord's, the fullest thereof,
and they who dwell therein. It's all his. It's all in his
hands. It's not a loose cannon out here
going, the Lord has control of it. Absolute control. And that gives me great comfort
to know that. You know, it says in verse 19
that it pleased the Father. And that ought to get our attention.
That word ought to get our attention. It pleased the Father. We ought
to get up on the edge of the seat and find out what it pleased
the Father. What did it please Him to do?
It says here, it pleased the Father that in Him, that is in
Jesus Christ, His Son should all fullness dwell. That being so, all fullness dwells
in the Lord Jesus Christ. The whole fullness of the Godhead
dwells in Him. That's why Paul could write,
and in Him you are complete because of His fullness. because of his
fullness. The whole Bible is about the
fullness of Jesus Christ. There's absolutely nothing lacking
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything you and I need to
stand before God, we have. It is provided in Jesus Christ. What a blessing. What a blessing. Now this word, preeminence, It means this, it means the state
of being preeminent, extremely distinguished. It means extremely
distinguished. It means this, outstanding or
superior to all others. The Lord Jesus Christ is extremely
distinguished. This is my beloved son. God never
spoke from heaven and said that about anybody else. This is my
beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Hear him. Listen to
him. Hear him. There's none to be
compared to the Lord Jesus Christ. None can be compared to him. There's none like him. He's superior
to all others. We can say to the Lord Jesus
Christ, your preeminence. It's like saying your majesty,
your preeminence. He's high above all. He is high
above all. Now, first of all, if we are
going to talk about the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
have to start with his person. Because if he's not who he is,
as the Word of God says that he is and reveals that he is,
we don't need to go any further. We need to stop. But listen to
this, in verse 15, who that is Christ is the image of the invisible
God. He is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of every creature. There's no one like him in person.
No one like him in person. Jesus Christ is truly God manifest
in the flesh. If you want to study God, study
Jesus Christ. He said, take my yoke upon you
and learn of me. I'm the lesson. He's the lesson. If we are ever to learn anything
of God, we will learn it through Jesus Christ. There is no knowing
God. It is impossible to know God
apart from Jesus Christ. No man knows the Father save
the Son, and He to Whomsoever the Son will reveal Him. It's
impossible to know God and not know Jesus Christ. It's impossible. It says there in verse 17, and
He is before all things. Now how can that be so? How can
it be so that this man Jesus Christ, this Jesus of Nazareth,
how can it be so that He is before all things? Because He's God. Because He's God. That's why.
He has no beginning of days, no end of life. He is the Ancient
of Days. That's who Jesus Christ is. He
is the Ancient of Days. He's the one that said, he's
the one that said, let there be light. And there was light.
He's the one that said that. He's the one that commanded light.
He's the one that commanded life. The Lord Jesus Christ did. Our
Lord said in John 14, he that has seen me, has seen the Father. I believe it's Philip says, show
us the Father. He said, you're looking at him. You're looking
at Him. He that has seen me has seen
the Father. We have to start here with the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ because who He is makes what
He did effectual. If He's not God, then He's an
imposter because He claims to be God, the Son of God, equal
with the Father. He is God manifest in the flesh. And if He's not God, then you
and I are yet in our sins. Because only, listen, only God
can satisfy His own law. There's no other creature that
can satisfy God's law but God. Only God can satisfy God. Listen to these scriptures. In
Matthew 1.23, Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall
bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which
being interpreted is God with us." God with us in the flesh,
God walking among us. God in the flesh walked on this
earth. God did that. Listen to Hebrews
in chapter 1 verse 2 and 3. God, speaking here of God the
Father, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. whom He hath appointed heir of
all things, by whom also He made the worlds, who bear the brightness
of His glory and the express image of His person." That's
who Jesus Christ is. He's the express image of God.
He is God in the flesh. And listen, our Redeemer is none
other than God Himself. That's why he can't fail. The
reason he can't fail is because he's God. It's because of who
he is. Listen to what Paul says in Acts
20, 28. Take heed therefore unto yourselves
and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you
overseers, to feed the church of God which he purchased with
his own blood. Which God purchased with His
own blood. Our Redeemer is none other than
God. And that being so, we are redeemed. If Jesus Christ died for me,
if He shed His blood for me, He has redeemed me, He has purchased
me, I am His, He cannot fail because the blood He redeemed
me with, Paul said, is the blood of God. It's the blood of God,
the God-man. That's who he is, the God-man. And then we see his preeminence
in this chapter in creation. It says in verse 16, for by him
were all things created that are in heaven and that are in
earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions,
principalities or powers, all things were created by him and
for him." He created it all. That one that
they said, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? That one they said was a blasphemer.
That one they said was a winebibber, a gluttonous man, that's our
creator. He's our creator. That one is
our creator. Everything we see was created
by Jesus Christ. And everything we can't see,
we can't see the angels. There is a world that you and
I cannot see with these physical eyes. He created that world. He created it. Turn over to John
chapter 1, the gospel of John chapter 1. It says, In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by
Him. Nothing evolved. Nothing evolved. All things were made by Him,
and without Him was not anything made that was made. The Father
never works independently of the Son, and the Son never works
independently of the Father. All things were made by Him,
and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was
life, and the life was the light of men. All things were created by Him.
He is, listen, He has preeminence in creation. In creation. It was all created by Him. And then we see in this chapter,
He has preeminence in power. In power. He has supremacy over all. Look
back in verse 16. For by Him were all things created
that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible. The things I said you can see
and the things you cannot see. He created them. Whether they
be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created
by Him. And listen, for Him. You know
the reason you and I exist? We exist for Jesus Christ and
no other reason. And the sooner you and I learn
that, the happier we will be. That we exist for no other reason
than the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only reason I exist.
I do not exist for myself. God didn't create me for me and
to go off on my own and do my own thing. I was created by Christ
and for Christ, for His glory. All power, listen, He has all
power, He has supremacy over all thrones. Don't get overly
excited. When you see these different
rulers or dictators, don't get overly excited that they're going
to do something that's out of control. They're under the control
of Jesus Christ, every one of them. There's not a power on
this earth that is not under the authority, listen, the authority
of Jesus Christ. He said in John 17, Father you
give me power over all flesh. There's not a human being on
this earth that he does not have power over. That's why he has no trouble
saving a sinner if he's going to save a sinner. I'm not a tough case for him. If his purpose is to save me,
he can crack me real quick. He can break my heart real easy.
He can lay me in the dust real easy. I was driving from North
Carolina going back home. This has been some time ago,
months ago. And as I was driving, I was close to this tractor-trailer
that looked like it was getting ready to come together. And I
thought, how easy it is to die. I thought, how many ways my life
can be taken out of here, if the Lord allowed it, if he allowed
it. But until that day comes that
he has purpose for me to die, and the way for me to die is
purposed. It's not going to just be, you know, whatever. He has purposed my time coming
into this world, my duration in this world, and the day I
will die to leave this world, and the way I'm going to leave
this world. That's all under his control. and everything that
will come my way in my life. If he said, not a hair of your
head will perish, and he knows all the numbers of the hair on
my head, that's how intimately he knows me. And he controls
absolutely everything. Draw me right down to the fly
buzzing in my face. He knows it. He controls it. You know, I want to live in the
reality of that. I want people I preach to to
live in the reality of the power and the glory and the lordship
of Jesus Christ. People that don't know Christ,
this is one of the reasons you know that men and women by nature
are dead. Because what I know now, I look
back and I think, how do you keep from going crazy? If when
you don't have Christ, when you don't have a solid foundation
to stand on, how do you not lose your mind? Well, the only way
you can not lose your mind is you don't have one. That's the
only way you can not lose it. You're dead in trespasses and
sins. And when you're dead, you're
spiritually dead, you don't really realize what's going on. You're
like that demonic man when the Lord cast the devils out. What
does it say? He was in his right mind. That's
when a person is really in the right mind is when God saves
them and they believe God. To call God a liar, not to believe
God. Now listen, not to believe God
is to call God a liar and that's not being in the right mind.
You've got to be out of your mind to do that. To call God
a liar to his face? Our Lord, listen, our Lord has
power over all thrones, all dominions, all principalities. Satan is
not out here running around at his will. Satan is not running
around at his will. He's running around at God's
will. You know, he answers to God. You know, when he came before
God concerning Job, And God said, I'm going to paraphrase, He said,
where have you been? He said, I've been running up
and down to and fro on the earth. Well, God's not asking for information.
But what He is doing, He's making Satan answer to his authority. Satan is under the authority
of Jesus Christ. He can't move a hair. He can't move a muscle towards
you without the permission of Jesus Christ. He couldn't touch
Job. He said to God, he said, you
put a hedge about him. I can't touch him. Remove that
hedge and I'll show you what Job thinks of you. He'll curse
you to your face. He had to get permission just
to touch him. He's under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 15.
1 Corinthians chapter 15. Look at verse 23. But every man in his own order,
Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ at his coming,
then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom
to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule
and all authority and power. Now listen, I know sometime you
turn the television on and you say, what is going on? You look
at the news, Don't look at it anymore when you have to, but
when you look at the news, you think, what is going on? Right
here is what's going on. Listen. When He shall have put
down all rule and all authority and power, that's exactly what's
going on right now. Jesus Christ is putting down
all rule and all authority and all power. And in a little while,
we will see it. We will see it. For He must reign. When? Right now. It's not going
to rain. He's raining now. I have learned
to quit looking horizontal and look up because that's where
the earth, that's where everything's being ran from is the throne
of heaven, where Christ sits at God's right hand. He must
reign till he has put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy
that shall be destroyed is death. I remember walking away from
the grave of a believer, a friend that Henry and I knew very well,
and as he and I were walking away from it, Henry looked at
me and he said, I'll be glad when we quit dying. We won't
do these funerals no more. The last one he's going to put
away is death, and we'll die no more. Can you imagine that?
You know, right now, I know there's one thing out there in front
of me. And there's one thing I know is out there in front
of you. It's appointed that the man wants to die. Now that's
coming. Unless the Lord comes right now
and puts an end to all this, that's coming down the road.
When? Only God knows, and I'm glad
only He knows, I don't. But the last enemy that shall
be destroyed is death, for He has put all things under His
feet. God the Father has put all things
under the feet of Jesus Christ. Because it says here, but when
he saith, All things put under him, it is manifest that he is
accepted. The Father is not put under him.
That's what he's saying. He's not under him, which did
put all things under him. And when all things shall be
subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject
unto him, that put all things under him, that God may be all
enough. That's what's going on right now. The Lord Jesus Christ
is subduing all things to himself. Look over in Colossians 3, verse
20 and 21. For our conversation, our citizenship,
our life is in heaven. This is what I realize. I live
here on this earth. You live here, I live here. But
our citizenship, It's really in heaven. It's in heaven. We live in the kingdom of God.
That's the one I'm concerned about. The kingdom of man, God's
gonna destroy. God's gonna destroy the kingdom
of this world. We live in the kingdom of God. Our conversation
is in heaven, for which also we look for the Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be
fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working
whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. He's able to subdue all things.
There's not one thing that exists that's not under the authority
of Jesus Christ. Now listen, and it says also
in Colossians, and by him all things consist or maintain held together. I'm not worried about this earth. I'm not worried about anything
falling apart. He's maintaining it. And when
you and I are gone, he'll still be maintaining it. If it stays
here another thousand years, he will still maintain it. It's
his. It's his. And then we have the preeminence
of the Lord Jesus Christ in the church. It says in verse 18, and he is
the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things, not some things, in all things,
he might have the preeminence. He is the representative head
of the church. He's the head, we are the body.
I'm glad that it's so. I'm glad to be a part of the
body of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's very real to me. Spiritually,
I am a part of the body of Christ. And that's a body that's not
going to die. He says He's going to change our vile body. This
vile body you're looking at, that's why the scripture speaks
of this body. You know, we get in the mirror, we dress it up,
you know, we do all kinds of stuff trying to make it look
good. especially as we get older, we have to really work on it.
The scripture says it's a vile body. It's just a vile, it's
decaying. You know what? I was here two
years ago. My hair's getting a little grayer.
You know what you're seeing? You're seeing decay. I am decaying
right in front of my mirror at the house, I'm decaying. But that body, That body of the
Lord Jesus Christ is not decaying. Hell no, no, no. It's forever
young. It's forever young. And what
a beautiful body He has. You know, you go over in the
Song of Solomons, and whenever He describes her, He describes
a beautiful body. Now I know on this end of it,
in this life, we see the sin and we experience the sin. But
now, in Christ, the church is beautiful. She's without spot
or blemish. You know, God created Eve. He
created Eve out of Adam. And right now, God Almighty is
creating the Church, the Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, out
of Christ. And when God brought Eve to Adam,
He brought Eve to Adam and she was spotless. She was righteous. Now how much more the Church?
How much more the Church, which He purchased with His own blood,
and He's created in righteousness and true holiness. How much more
His body? He's a representative head of
the church. The church began with him. Listen,
no one is above him or equal to him in the church. There's
no one equal to him in the church. He's the head. He's the head
of the house. He's the husband. He's the head
of the house. And the body is always subject to the head. If
you take this head off this body, It is useless. It's going to
just drop. The only reason I'm doing this
right now, you see me moving my hands, I'm thinking, because
of my head. My head is telling my body what
to do. We take our leadership from the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's where we take our leadership
from. And nothing supersedes and no one supersedes and no
law supersedes the law of God and the leadership of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the one we go to. He's the
one we follow. And then he's our economical
head in that he provides for us. Who's providing for us? You know, I tell my wife, you
know, if the Lord takes me before he does her, you know, he'll
provide. He's providing for her now through
me. He provides. Who provides for you, really?
Who provides? Who gives you your job? Who gives you the intelligence
to do your job? Who gives you the health to get
up in the morning and go do your job? Our Lord. Who gives you the breath that
you're taking right now? Our Lord. Every breath we take, He
gives it to us. Every breath. And he provides
us our daily need, he provides us our physical needs, he provides
us our spiritual needs. As Pharaoh said to all those
who came to him during that drought, he said, go to Joseph. And that's
what the father says. He says to every sinner in need
of mercy, go to Christ. Because there's where I can show
mercy. There's where God can be a just God and a Savior. It's
in His Son, Jesus Christ. No place else. No place else. That's the only place where your
sins can be put away. You can cry your heart out. You
can cry day and night. And your tears will not put away
one sin. Only the blood puts away the
sin. Only the blood. Only the blood. And we go to
Him for all our needs. And then He has the preeminence
in the believer. With the believer, He has preeminence.
Jesus Christ is not a part of my life. Jesus Christ is my life. If not, I don't have it. I don't
have it. He is my life. It says in verse
11 in chapter 3 of Colossians, where there is neither Greek
nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman
free, but Christ is all and in all. He has the preeminence. In our affections, He's first.
He that loves mother, father, sister, brother more than me,
He's not worthy of me. In our thoughts, He's first.
We're to bring every thought into subjection to the Lord Jesus
Christ. In our thoughts, He's altogether
lovely. There's no one who supersedes
Christ in our thoughts. No one. In worship, He's first. That's why we're here. That is
why we are here. If we are not here to worship
Jesus Christ, we don't need to be here. We
don't need to be here. There's no one like the Lord
Jesus Christ. In sonship, there's none like
Him. He's the only begotten. In election, He's the first elect.
You want to talk about election? Start with Jesus Christ. Not
start with the doctrine of election. Start with the person of election.
Behold, mine elect, God said in Isaiah 42, mine elect in whom
my soul delights. He shall not fail. God chose
him, then chose us in him. So if we start with election,
we start with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the covenant
of grace, if we want to talk about the covenant of grace,
he is the covenant. He said in Isaiah 42, I will
give thee as a covenant to the people. He is the covenant of
grace. In redemption, he's the one who
wrought it, he's the one who bought it. He worked it out,
and it's his blood by which we are redeemed. We are not redeemed
with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of
Christ. In life, he has life in himself. He said, no man takes
my life from me. I lay it down in myself and I
take it again. This commandment have I received of my father.
He's the giver of life. Because I live, you shall live
also. That's the reason I live spiritually.
He has commanded life. He has given me life. And that's
why I have life. I don't have life because I asked
for it. The very fact that I asked for forgiveness is proof I have
life. Or I've never asked for it. In death, he conquered death,
hell, and the grave. He took the sting out of death. I saw a person die one time that
was screaming on the way out. It was the most horrible thing
I ever witnessed. Begging me to pray for her. He's taken that sting out of
our death. We don't have to fear death. We can welcome it. It's just like death to the believer
is like going through that door. You're leaving this world and
you're going into the paradise. And that's the truth. That's
not some mythology, that's the truth. Death, he says, where's thy sting?
Grave, where's your victory? The Lord Jesus Christ took the
sting out of death and the victory away from the grave. In the resurrection,
Christ said, I am the resurrection and the life. Martha said, I
know my brother will rise in the resurrection. She was looking
for the event, she believed that. And there will be a resurrection.
But I tell you this, Christ said, I am the resurrection. The resurrection
is a person. I'm risen, listen, I'm risen
in Christ first before I ever come out of that grave. I'm risen
in Him. When He arose, I rose. When He
arose, the whole church rose in Him. Because the whole church
was in Him. I am the resurrection. He's the
first and the last. It begins with Him and it will
end with Him. There's 7 billion people on this
earth. I mean, it's hard to say how
many there have been since the beginning. Every last one of them will have
to deal with Jesus Christ. Every last one of them. We don't
have to deal with a lot of, there's a lot of people out there we'll
never know, never deal with, but everyone's gonna deal with
him. Everyone. And this being so, This being
so, chapter 3, verse 1. Set your affection on things
above. Set your heart on Him. Seek after Him. Don't get caught
up into this life and this world. Seek those things which are above,
where He sits at God's right hand. Our life, our citizenship
is above. It's not here. We are truly pilgrims. We're just passing through. That's
all I'm doing. I'm just passing through. My
home and my life is in glory. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, I hope that's a blessing to you. I hope that's a blessing.