Our reading is on the second page of the Hemsheet. The reading is Colossians chapter 1. We'll read down to verse 23.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus, our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colossae, grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which ye have to all the saints. for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which is come unto you, as it is in all the world, and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth.

as he also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ, who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.

For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that he might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us made to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.

who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. 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 or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him and for Him.

and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have their preeminence.

For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell. And having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself. By Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.

And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. If ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister.

Thus far the reading of God's holy word.

I want to speak to you from the latter part of verse 18, that in all things He, that is Jesus Christ, might have the preeminence.

And when we think of preeminence, it is the highest position, that no person, no one, no God, nothing can come anywhere near the position of that person. If someone has the preeminence, they are the uppermost, Everything is looking towards them and hoping them alone.

And so it is the Lord Jesus Christ here that is to have, that in all things He might have the preeminence.

Now, throughout the Scriptures it is the Holy Ghost that gives Christ the preeminence. He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. The Holy Ghost always, He does not speak of Himself, but speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Father does, and we look at those points here, although of course this is inspired Word of God and through Paul, yet it is the Father that is spoken of here.

and please the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell. And the Church of God, if we have a true Church of Christ, then Christ will have the preeminence, not the choir, not the minister, not the congregation, but Christ will be the one that is uppermost. The Apostle Paul desire to preach and to know nothing among men save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And so an individual believer as well, may this be an encouragement as it were to set things in the right order and preeminence in your hearts and in mine, my life, that Christ might have the preeminence

Remember the Apostle football said for me to live is Christ and to die is gain and what I am, I am by the grace of God and it is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. So an individual believer must realize that they are not their own, they are bought with a price and therefore they are to glorify the one who bought them which is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now I want to have a look, and I'll highlight it, I'll put an underline in some of the verses here on your reading as to how Christ has the preeminence. Now we could break it up even more than that, I'll just put 5, we could even have 10 that go in before our text, that are before verse 18.

But when we think of verse 14, in whom we have redemption, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Redeemer. There is no redemption or setting free by payment of a price, except through the Lord Jesus Christ. He testified Himself, if you believe not that I am He, you shall perish in your sins. And we are told by Paul, there is none other name given among men whereby we must be saved. And so He must have the preeminence in redemption.

Then we have in verse 16, for by Him were all things created. In the creation, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And it is by Him that all things were made. He spoke and it was done. And the Apostle Paul He sets forth that in Him we live and move and have our being. And so, again, Christ in the creation, we should, in looking at the creation that we see, we should think this reminds us of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was through Him that the world was created.

And then we have thirdly, all things were not only created by Him, but they are created for Him. They are for His use, for His honour, for His glory, and of course for His people. This people have I formed for Myself, they shall show forth My praise. The Church of God is Christ's Bride, He is the Bridegroom and it is being shaped and formed and fashioned and made ready for him for glory. He is to share his inheritance with them, they are to share with him, they are to be with him forever. And so those things that were created, they are created by him and for him.

Then we are told in verse 17 that He is before all things. So in this, the preeminence of Christ before the world was, often He spoke of the fellowship that He had or the time that He had with the Father before the world was. And God's people are chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. And so we directed to where our Lord has that preeminence is before every man and before any were created. He was the creator and He alone was with the Father. Thine they were thou gavest them me. The covenant of grace, that covenant is made between the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost and God's people are the beneficiaries of it. It's like the covenant It was between David and Jonathan. Mephibosheth, probably not born at the time that agreement was made, he was the beneficiary that David showed kindness to the house of Saul, or Jonathan, and Mephibosheth benefited. And so God's people benefit from that which was done in the covenant through our Lord Jesus Christ, the covenant of grace.

And then we have later on in verse 17, and by him all things consist. Very few realize that, like Paul said to those at Mars Hill, in him we live and move and have our being. He it is that gives us our life and maintains our life, and especially that is in a spiritual way. where God has quickened a people, he will keep that soul alive. He says, because I live, ye shall live also. And he exhorts to be united to that living vine. I am the vine, ye are the branches. The branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, neither can ye except ye abide in me. Our life is bound up. with the Lord.

So don't be surprised, dear friend, if sometimes the Lord makes you to feel lifeless and cold, no appetite for the Word, a hard heart, cold to the things of God, and you realize what you are in yourself, but be reminded that the Lord has that to revive you again, quicken you again, and raise you up again. Sometimes it's good for us to be reminded, though it is painful, that we cannot keep alive our own soul. We need the Lord to do it for us. Sometimes our prayers can go far off and we fail to recognize the grace and help that the Lord has given us until he takes it away for a while and then we realize our need of it again.

Then we are told that he is the head of the body, the church. What a beautiful picture that is. It's the head being Christ and then all his members. Paul pictures it very beautifully. Each member has a different function and a different part. But if one member of our bodies, if our little finger feels a pain, the head feels the pain. And we have to remember that. Some of you hear pains and afflictions and trials and you think, well, no one understands. They don't feel what I'm going through. They don't feel my pain. But Christ is your head. He does. He does feel for you. He does know his people's infirmities and weaknesses. And so there's that beautiful illustration of him being the head.

We think of the oil that was anointing the high priest and how it flowed down to all of his garments. And so with the Lord Jesus Christ, the anointing that he has, it flows down to all of his church. They all receive that benefit and that blessing. Then we have in verse 18 as well, the firstborn from the dead. He is the first one that rose from the dead, rose from the dead with his own power. And as the first fruits, he's spoken of as like a grain of wheat that is put in the ground. It's one grain of wheat that it dies in the ground, but then it springs up and it brings forth a hundredfold. And this is the picture that Christ dying and rising again, we are risen with him, and it shall be the life of all the people of God. He has given assurance unto all men in that he has raised him from the dead, an empty tomb. I always remember years ago, a dear member that I had in Melbourne Chapel, And I took her funeral, I was 25, she died at 81. And we walked in fellowship for several years since I was called by grace. And I took her funeral and then quite some time afterwards I went through the large cemetery looking for her grave. and you actually drove on roads through the cemetery. And as I was driving through, looking at this map where to go, the words dropped in, why seek ye the living among the dead?

And you know, I still went to see where her grave was, but I've never forgotten that, just the sense of it, that she was not there. She was in heaven, she was with the Lord, her body was there, waiting for the resurrection. but she was alive with the Lord. Paul says, absent from the body, present with the Lord. And one day our bodies united with our souls, so shall we ever be with the Lord.

So he is the firstborn from the dead. Get pleased the Father, verse 19, in him should all fullness dwell. What a beautiful pleasing of the Father. Everything that we need. in a spiritual way, in a temporal way, everything is all in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no lack at all, no lack of the provision in Him.

Then in verse 20, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself. That is really the sum of the Gospel, isn't it? A reconciling. Those that are far off, they're brought nigh. Those that are enemies, made friends. You think of the Apostle Paul or some of us, we can think of ourselves. And we can think the difference that the Gospel makes is to bring those alienated from God by wicked works to be not only the friend of God, but to be partakers with him on his throne.

It's a beautiful thing to realize that reconciliation and it's put with the Jews and the Gentiles They that were sometime afar off are being nigh by the blood of Christ. So this chapter, as I meditate upon this chapter and those verses, I've highlighted those aspects, but the whole idea is this, that in all things He might have the preeminence. And may then the Lord Jesus Christ be in preeminence in our hearts and in our souls, and we rejoice that it should be so, that the crown be placed upon his head.