Christ Above All

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. God is the Creator of all things, and He holds His entire creation together. Today's podcast brings an encouraging message from Chapter 1 of our series on Colossians.

I'm Charles Stanley, and welcome to another episode of Colossians. ...and face our situations and problems in us and bring us through victoriously. Well, in the first chapter, I want you to turn, if you will, to verse 15, and Paul is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ in this first chapter, beginning in verse 15 and 16, 17, 18, as the Creator. That is, he's the one who is the all-sufficient one. And I believe the reason he spends this time in these verses, and the reason that I want to spend them here, is to remind us that when you have Jesus Christ, you really have everything you need for your life. Well, beginning in verse 15, let's read 15, 16, 17. He says, And he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn, that is, first in his elevated position, not first in time, because he is the Creator, the firstborn of all creation, for by him, that is, by Christ, all things were created, that is, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Then he said, He is also head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself might come to have first place in everything or in all things, for it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him. Now, it's interesting when you begin to look at the Scriptures in the light of what he says about Jesus being the Creator, beginning, if you will, in John chapter 1, that Gospel.

Look how John the beloved began his Gospel talking about Jesus Christ. He said he was the Word and was in the beginning with God, but verse 3, look at that, all things came into being. Now, some things, most things, all things came into being by him, that is, by Christ, and apart from him, that is, apart from Christ, nothing came into being that has come into being. That is, what he's saying is simply this, that Jesus Christ is the Creator of all things. If you look in Hebrews chapter 1, so we go all the way from John to Hebrews chapter 1, notice how he says it. In the second verse of Hebrews chapter 1, in these last days, he has spoken to us, that is, God has spoken to us through his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. That is, Jesus Christ is the one who has created all things.

Then I want you to ask the question. We ask the question, how did he do it? Now, some folks get in all kinds of arguments as to Jesus made everything out of nothing. There was nothing and he made everything.

Some other folks would argue, well, he had something and he made everything out of something. Well, I want to answer that question this morning and I want you to turn, first of all, to Hebrews chapter 11. Notice what he says here about the creation. He says in Hebrews chapter 11, now you remember that's the faith chapter. He says in verse 3, by faith we understand this. By faith we understand that the worlds, not singular but plural, worlds were prepared by the Word of God. They were formed, created, prepared by the Word of God. So that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

So that whatever God made all this out of, he made it out of something the Bible says is invisible. Turn, if you will, to Romans chapter 4. Because here he tells us how he created everything that is in existence because everything that is in existence is the handiwork of the person of Jesus Christ. Verse 17, he says, as it is written, a father of many nations have I made you.

Now, in the sight of him whom he believed, even God who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. How did the Lord Jesus Christ create all things? Go back to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1 tells us this and these other passages have just commented on what Genesis chapter 1 says. We think in terms of the creation, the creation story in Genesis chapter 1.

You remember what the first chapter verse 26 says, let us make man in our image. So we're talking about God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. But listen to what verse 3 says, then God said, look, he said, let there be light and there was light.

God said in verse 6, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters and the waters. And God made the expanse. And so he says again and again, and God said, and God said, and God said, do you know how all of this creation came into being? God spoke it into being. That is the creative power of the word of the omniscient, omnipotent God. Jesus Christ spoke it into being.

He didn't have to find some heavenly matter and begin to multiply it and pray over it and bless it and work it over. He spoke it into being. Let there be light and there was light. Let there be plant life and there was plant life.

Let there be a sun, let there be a moon, let there be stars, let there be an atmosphere, let there be man. God spoke us into being. And what he is simply saying in this passage is this, and that is in the whole idea that Jesus Christ is creator, what I want us to understand is most of the things that you and I worry about and fret about and trouble ourselves about is because our idea and concept of Jesus Christ is miniscule, that it is totally inadequate. When our view of Jesus Christ becomes adequate, when it becomes as God intends for it to be, when we begin to see him in the light of who he is, all of a sudden, we're not going to see God as somebody we can put in our back pocket and when we need him, we call him up. Jesus is bigger than your back pocket. Jesus is larger. Jesus is greater. Jesus is above and beyond all things. And the truth is there is not anything that contain him because not even the human mind can contain the reality and all the realms of all the expanse of all the personality that Jesus Christ is.

And you see, he came to tell us who God the Father is all about. The Holy Spirit is our teaching apart from a living spirit which you receive when you were saved, you wouldn't understand. Is it any wonder that your lost friends say, I pick up the Bible, I don't understand it?

Naturally, they can't understand it. First of all, their spirit is dead to the things of God. And the Holy Spirit comes into our life when we're saved in order that having regenerated us, given us a new spirit, which is the spirit of God, now we can be able to begin to think a little bit the way God thinks. We see things from God's perspective.

We begin to see him in the reality of who he is and therefore we respond to life on the basis of that. Well, let me ask you a question. If I should ask you, given you a sheet of paper, write down everything that you absolutely know for sure about Jesus Christ, could you fill up two sides of one sheet of paper? Well, most of you probably could.

I certainly hope you could. Well, let me ask you this. We think about how big, how great, how grand, how powerful Jesus is. Now I've always loved looking up at the stars and trying to pick out the constellations and I love being out in the wilderness where there are no lights, no sounds but nature and looking up and often times when we go on our trips, I like to sleep outside and just look up all night long. Because you see when you first look up, especially if you live in a big city, you don't see much. There are too many lights that just block it all out. But out there where it's dark, out in the countryside, the woods, when there are no lights, you look up and at first you see a few stars here and there. Then the longer you gaze, the more you see. And before long, on a good dark night where there is no moon shining, the sky just begins little by little to just fill up with all these luminaries we call stars.

Let me ask you a question. How do you suppose they got there? Did they just suddenly appear? You see, if you start at dusk when the sun is setting and you just sort of lie there or stand there and look, after a while, as the light grows dimmer, what happens? You say, ah, there's the north star, evening star, I see that.

Then you begin to pick them out and before long, the sky's black and then it's all lit up. How did it all get there? And you see, here's part of our problem. Our little minds can't contain who this is.

Now listen to me. Who is this Christ who is living on the inside of you? The Bible says that Jesus spoke. He didn't draw. He didn't write. He didn't paint. He didn't nail. He didn't hammer. He didn't saw.

He spoke. And when he spoke, there came into being the atmosphere and the galaxies and the clusters of the stars and the millions and the billions of all the things that God has created. And remember this, that he didn't expend any energy at all doing that. He is always the same yesterday, today, and forever, and therefore he expends no energy. The energy which he gives to us is that which he releases within us through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

And he goes one step further, if you'll notice in this passage, and he says, back to Colossians now chapter one, notice what he says. He says, not only has he created all things by him, but they are created for him. That is all of creation is for the glory of God. It is for God's pleasure. The creation is an expression of God's infinite power. It is an expression of God's concept of beauty. It is an expression of God's love. It is an expression of God's goodness, is an expression of his infinite divine supernatural power that's totally beyond the mind of man.

But he goes a step further and he says, not only has he created for him, but he says that he is before all things and in him, all things are held together. That is they stay, they remain in their orbit. Why is it that the sun doesn't just take off in some other direction? And the moon doesn't begin to travel in some other direction? Why does the earth not whirl in a fast and why has it been on its axis in the perfect relationship so that we have all the seasons that we have?

Why is there the right proportion of water to landmass? Why is it and how is it because God has created the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the creator, now holds everything together perfectly. Now think about this for your life. He says not only has he created all these things and he would have to be before them to create them, but he says he holds them all together. All things created by him, all things created for him, he was before all things and by him all things consist all, all, all, all, all.

And what Paul is saying here is that Jesus Christ is superior above and he is the supreme one above and beyond all now. The creation is wonderful and I'm grateful for all of God's beauty and all of his power and all the manifestations of it, but there's something else Jesus did for you and me that beats the creation. And that is he came into your life one day and recreated your spirit and gave you his own life.

Now here's the problem and I want you to listen to this and I'm going to say it again and again and again because I want you to get it. Think about who this is, this Christ who absolutely cannot be explained in all of his infinite power and all of his majesty and all of his glory and all of his infinite wisdom and knowledge. Everything in existence was born in the mind of the Christ. It all began with him.

Condescended upon infinite upon infinite, no way to describe it. All came from one mind, spoke it into being. And now he has condescended to come and live on the inside of you and me and to be our life.

I'll tell you, that's beyond me. I believe it because the Bible teaches it. That is that, listen to this, your life, now that you're saved, your life is of the same quality in terms of eternity as that of Jesus Christ because now you are a possessor of eternal life because he's become your life. This infinite, indescribable, incomparable Christ, creator and sustainer of all things, was willing to be born as a tiny babe, willing to grow up and be crucified on the cross in order that human beings, that creation, that we might, listen to this, we might become like him. And knowing that in our own strength and we never would, so what did he do?

He came to live on the inside of us. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians, we have the mind of Christ. That doesn't mean we understand everything he understands. It doesn't mean that we can even comprehend what he comprehends.

It's totally beyond our comprehension. But this infinite, indescribable, incomparable Jesus is now dwelling in every single believer and the eternal life of Christ is now your eternal life. And as long as Jesus Christ is going to last, you are going to last. And that's forever and ever and ever when time is all over. In the infinite, indescribable, immeasurable future, you and I are going to be with him.

What in the world are we worried about? Can you imagine coming to Jesus Christ and saying, well, I don't know if you're going to be able to handle this or not? When he created light that moves at 186,000 miles per second and he has billions of stars and galaxies and clusters of them out there hanging in their perfect orbit. And every single thing he has created knows exactly. Mother birds don't teach baby birds how to build nests. They know how to build nests. Mother squirrels don't tell baby squirrels, winter's coming.

They just start getting ready. Every single aspect of creation is one more illumination in our minds of how great and infinite God is. But think about this Christ living on the inside of you. If he can hang stars and multiply millions of them in space, if he can keep the ocean waters within their allocated space, can he not deal with your problem?

You see, the Bible says the same yesterday, today and forever, always the same. You know what our problem is? Our problem is we either don't understand who he is or we don't believe he's who he says he is. Jesus Christ and all of his creative power and all of his sustaining power living on the inside of you and me, what does that say to us?

That I'll never face a problem. Jesus can't handle pronto in a split second. He can deal with anything. Do you understand in whose hands you live? You and I sing, he's got the whole world in his hands.

But once in a while the way we act, we think, oops, God's dropped me, what's happened? And remember what he says, we're not holding on to him. He has an eternal grip on your life. Listen, if he can keep the sun, the moon, the stars, the galaxies, the constellations, if he can keep all the clusters, if he can keep this earth twirling at the right speed on the right axis, the right amount of oxygen in the air, the right amount of water and land, I'm not worried about whether he can hold on to me or not. If he can resurrect his son from the dead, he can handle you and me. You know what he wants us to do? Rest in him, stop worrying and fretting and fuming and just look to him and trust him to meet your needs, amen? Thank you.