R1655 Looking to Jesus, Pt.2

We all could use some encouragement, and we'll find it together today in the Bible-based teaching of Dr. Don Wilton here on The Encouraging Word. Today we continue in a message Dr. Wilton began called, Looking to Jesus. You'll hear more in just a moment about the way we can grow in our focus on Christ. You'll also discover more on our website, www.tewonline.org. The Encouraging Word.

And now, Dr. Don Wilton. I want to read to you what he tells these believers, and the bottom line is he says, Look, I get all of that, and I realize the battle that you face, and I'm using a word you, what I want to tell you right out the hatch is look to Jesus. Just look to keep your eyes on Jesus. Verse 15, this is why, because Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He's the firstborn over all creation. For by Him, all things were created, things in heaven, on earth, visible, invisible, where the thrones, or powers, or rulers, or authority, all things were created by Him.

And watch the next part, for Him. Verse 17, He is before all things, and in Jesus, all things hold together. Jesus is the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything, Jesus might have the supremacy. For God was peace to have all His fullness dwell in Jesus. And through Jesus to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth, things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, which was shed on the cross. Once you, believers, were alienated from God, and were enemies in your minds because of your sinful, your evil behavior. But now, Jesus, but now God has reconciled you to Himself because of all things.

This has been done. Look at this verse, guys, I'm breaking it down here in the middle of reading it. Look at how this happens, verse 22. Through Christ's physical body, which through death was the only means by which to present you holy in His sight, without blemish, and free of accusation, so that if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel, this is the gospel which you've earned, and that has been proclaimed of every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, who wrote this, have become a servant. Now, I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of His body, which is the church, believers. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the Word of God in its fullness, the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages, but is now disclosed to all believers, made known to all the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which Christ in you the hope of glory. We proclaim Jesus, verse 28, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end, Paul says, our labor struggling with all of God's given energy, which so powerfully works in me. Now, look, there's a lot of things we can say to each other in our world.

There's a lot of things I, like you, like moms and dads and teachers and coaches and everybody, we all want to give advice. I'm telling you, the greatest thing we can ever say or know is to point everyone in all things to Jesus. That's what Paul's saying here. So here's the question, why? Paul gives seven major reasons why Jesus. I'm just going to give them to you. I want you to know, pray for me, because every one of these seven is a humdinger, all right?

I mean this, can you imagine? So here's point number one, why Jesus? Why would he tell these people who are facing pagans and religious people and the cruelty of the Roman Empire and who are suffering with diseases and who are struggling with their children and who are struggling financially and need to find something to eat and all the things that we go, why would he point them to Jesus? Number one, because Jesus is the image of God.

Now, I mentioned this if you were here last week, so I'll just say it quickly. Verse 15, look what he starts with. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He's saying here, believers, let me tell you how you're going to be strong. Look to Jesus. Number one, because when you look to Jesus, you're actually looking to God, the image of God.

By the way, the word there is the word icon. He is the exact representation of God, but he's not only the representation of God, he is the manifestation of God, which means that Jesus is the full, final, and complete revelation, the making known. That's the word revelation. Revelation is to take back the covers, to make known. The book of Revelation, which I got a lot of people asking me to preach on the book of Revelation again, because it's in times. It's so critical.

What is that? It throws back, right, the cover, and it shows us what God is thinking, what God is saying about the end of the world. Jesus is the full throwing back all that we need to know about God. You want to know about God?

Look to Jesus. He's the image of God. He's the exactness of God because he is God. Okay, so number two, second reason why Paul tells them to look to Jesus, because Jesus is the creator of all things. Now, guys, watch this, don't look to anybody else, look to Jesus, because he created everything, even you. And Paul here says, look, look to Jesus, he is in the image of God, he is God, and he's creator. And number three, he's the sustainer of everything.

He's the sustainer. I mean, look at verse 17 here, guys, it jumps out. He is before all things and the second part. I think this is a fantastic verse. And in Jesus, what?

I've just spoken about this. Jesus holds all things together. The heavens declare the glory of God and the expanse of the heavens declare the works of his hands because he sustains it all, everything. He maintains this delicate balance necessary for life's existence that we talk about in God, creator, but it's specific to God, Jesus, sustainer. He is the power behind every consistency in the universe. He is gravity and centrifugal force. He is Jesus. He is the one who keeps all entities in the universe. Jesus, he is the one who keeps all entities in motion. He is the very energy of the universe. So take Jesus out of what you're doing right now.

You don't stand a chance. Jesus is God, made the universe, he existed outside it, he existed before it, and he exists living in it, sustaining it by the might and power of his grace, love, and wisdom. And here these people like you and me, they've got school to go to, they've got decisions to make, money to earn, they need to put bread on the table. They, listen, man, how many of our people are we praying with right now that are on the edge? I've had numerous calls, I've got numerous, we've got numerous friends who are hurting badly today. Number four, here's the fourth one, this is just piling on top.

Now you've got to keep tally here. So he's the image of God, he's the creator of all things, he's the sustainer of everything, but I love the fourth one, he says, look to Jesus because he's the head of the church. You know the word here, not just a matter of building, he's talking to a local congregation of believers, but he's talking to believers, we the church, the body of Christ, believers. Let me tell you why you can be strong, that's what he's saying. You are strong because Jesus is the head of the church.

Look at verse 18, I didn't say this, God said it. And he is the head of the body, the church. So if he is the head of the church, think of your own head, again, here I'm getting into dangerous waters, but you know that this little thing here, this head, can be a little dangerous because it controls your whole body. So I'm going to put it in, I mean, some of you are going to croak over this. Your head keeps telling the rest of your body what to do, how to respond.

Hey, get this one, you ready for this? Your head is the only means by which your body cooperates. I've got a couple of good friends who have suffered strokes. When a person suffers a stroke, it affects the coordination of their body, because it affects their brain, do you see that? Paul looks at believers at the church, he said, church, you don't have to be a believer, it's at the church, he said, church, you don't ever want to suffer a stroke.

You want to become problematic, just mess with the head. And who's the head? Jesus. Forgive the interruption, we're going to keep our focus on Jesus, the head of the church. We'll be back in just a moment, but Dr. Wilton wants me to remind you, we're here for you, ready to pray with you and for you anytime at 866-899-WORD, that's 866-899-9673, or we'd love to connect online as well. If you haven't been to our website lately, it's wonderfully refreshed, tewonline.org, that's the address, tewonline.org, a myriad of resources as we head into the holidays, wonderful gifts like the book Dr. Wilton wrote about Dr. Billy Graham, all sorts of resources, and the free daily devotional.

It's easy to sign up for at tewonline.org. Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. So when you understand that, here's what you understand about the headship of Jesus, means number one, Jesus controls everything. Number two, Jesus energizes everything, and get this one, Jesus coordinates everything. He coordinates the diversity of gifts, so if you take us meeting like this and you look out and you think about all the gifts, all the abilities, even in one audience, people, you're so gifted, so how do you bring that all together to bring glory to the Lord? The head does it.

The head does it. He coordinates, so he controls, he energizes, and he coordinates. He's the very source of the church. So number five, look to Jesus.

All right, now we've got it. He's the head of the church. Look to Jesus.

Why? Because he is the fullness of God. All right, let's go to verse 19, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Jesus.

Oh, wow. Look, go down to chapter two, chapter two and verse 10, which at this rate we're never going to get to. Chapter two and verse 10, look what he says here. All right, let's read verse nine. For in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given the fullness of Christ who is the head.

Is it all coming together here? Okay, now listen to my question. How many of you just right now would say, you know you've given your heart to the Lord Jesus. You're a Christian man, a Christian lady, boy, girl. You've given your heart to Jesus.

Raise your hand. All right, here's what Jesus says to you. You, my friend, believer, you've been given all the fullness of God. You know, when you get married, one of the things married couples say to each other is what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine. And then we spend the rest of our lives trying to do that.

It's hard. Can you imagine when you give your heart to Jesus that this great God says, because of Jesus, everything that I am is yours. That's strong. That's church strong. That's why you can say, greater is he that's in me than the devil that's in the world. I am in Christ. And when he talks about all the fullness, he is the fullness of God. Here, these people at Colossae were in a community where there were so many pagan gods and religious beliefs, and they believed that divine power was assigned to different deities. It was kind of spread out among the gods. You get a little dab of it over here and you get a little dab of it over there, and if you do this and you don't do that and you wear this and you don't wear that and you stand up or you sit down or you this and you that, this fullness comes to you from Jesus before Jesus said, look to me, because this is what I've given you. I am the fullness of God. Number six, why look to Jesus?

This could be my favourite point, but I've got one more after that. Because Jesus is the reconciler for all sinners. So how many of you, I'm really getting carried away with this, but how many of you right now would readily say before God that you're a sinner? Raise your hand.

Thank you. And, yeah, you've heard it before, if your hand wasn't up because you're just too big to do it, you just sinned. All of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Anyone here today that in a sense you are living a life under accusation? Are you feeling accused? Are you living in bondage because of something you did? Listen, my friends, listen. Paul's saying look to Jesus because He set you free.

You are no longer accused. Some of us go through life dragging this thing behind us. It's all the stuff we did. All the sin, all the mistakes, all the wrong things we said. And we messed up. We made the wrong choice. We went to the wrong place. We did the wrong thing. We sinned against God. I once was.

And what Jesus does is He just cuts that dirty old box. You don't have to go through life dragging all that stuff anymore. You're free.

You're without accusation. It's fantastic. It's unbelievable. And so He closes with one more. What's the number seven? He says, look to Jesus in verse 27 because Jesus is our hope and our glory. It's right there in verse 27, right at the end. He said, to them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles, glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, our hope of glory. Our hope.

Where would this life be if we didn't have real hope? You know, I've been with our young people for years. 27 years, we went to prisons all over America and always remember, I mean this happened many times, but I always remember a man one time in a big old ugly prison and he had a life sentence and we shared Jesus and the young people sang and it was just fantastic. And I remember my brief conversation with this man because he talked to me afterwards. He gave his life to Christ and we were able to talk to the young people.

We were able to talk to the inmates and never forget that particular man. He said, you know, pastor, he said, I've got consecutive life sentences. In fact, he had three life sentences. You want me to roughly translate that for you?

He was 40 years old. He was telling me, which he did, he said, I will never get out of prison. I'm in prison paying the price for the rest of my life. And then he looked at me with tears running down his cheeks and he said, you know, whether I'm on the inside or the outside, today I gave my heart to Jesus and I have been set free.

Guys, that's our hope and our glory. It speaks to me now, but I'm going to go ahead and say this. It also tells me that I can look forward to eternal life with Jesus.

That big mystery, that thing called death, that's going to happen to everybody. The Bible says when you're absent from the body, you're present with the Lord. Isn't that fantastic? Would you just bow your heads with me for a minute as our band comes and joins me? Just for a few seconds here today. Just before anybody leaves, I know you've got to go and pick up beautiful children and get lunch ready and we've got all the things. We've got life. We're going to leave here and we're going to go back out there into this wonderful, crazy, challenging, exciting, not-so-good, sometimes flat-out awful.

I don't know where you are. We all have a life to live, but that will soon be past. You know what Paul was saying? It's only what's done for Jesus that will last. Would you give your life to Jesus? Have you trusted Him?

Have you trusted Him? I can only tell you I've given my heart to Jesus. In this little world that we live in, He's made all the difference to me. And He'll do the same thing because He treats us all the same. He doesn't do something for one of us and not for another.

He loves you. And I want to invite you today to put your faith and your trust in Jesus. That's the starting point. Would you pray this prayer with me today? And I'm telling you, if you are right on the edge, just do this. Pray this prayer from your heart because Jesus will save you and He'll reconcile you to God.

Your life will never be the same again. You pray this prayer. Dear God, I know that Jesus is God, and I believe that Jesus died for me on a cross because of my sin, and that He was raised from the dead, that He's alive. And because of that, I can be saved from my sin and reconcile to God. I confess my sin to you, Jesus, right now, and I put my faith and my trust in you. And I pray this prayer in Jesus' name. I'm going to ask you with every head bowed, if you've prayed that prayer, would you lift up a hand to me today? God bless you and you and you too. God bless you and you up there. Perhaps moments ago, as Dr. Wilton was leading out in that decision to say yes to Jesus Christ or to rededicate your life to Christ, you made a decision, or right now you're ready to make a decision.

Let us talk and pray with you about it. Our phone number is 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. We would love to put resources in your hands absolutely free if you've given your life to Christ or rededicate your life today, listening to the encouraging word. As a matter of fact, we have wonderful resources that you can connect with us on our website, TEWONLINE.ORG is the spot.

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