Supreme!
About this series
Obviously we are always focussed on Jesus, but in our first series - Just Jesus - we’re going to look, over 13 weeks, at some of the high points in the New Testament that show us who Jesus is, why he’s so wonderful, what he’s done for us and what it means to live in the light of all that.
Sinclair Ferguson wrote, ‘We need to expend our energies admiring, exploring, expositing and extolling Jesus Christ’ - that is precisely our aim in the Just Jesus series. The more we see of Jesus, the more we’ll have to be delighted in and the greater will be our motivation to live for him in our everyday lives.
So, come with great expectation that the Holy Spirit will be powerfully at work leading us to know and love our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
About this talk
Scripture: Colossians 1:15-20
To counter some false teachers who have infiltrated the church in Colossae, Paul paints a picture of the supremacy of Jesus Christ. The false teachers have been promoting a Christ+ theology: that to really know fullness and freedom they must, in addition to faith in Christ, seek special wisdom/knowledge, enquire of angels and add in some special rituals. The answer to all this is a truer and grander vision of Christ - that he really is enough and that nothing needs to be added to wholehearted trust in him alone.
The number of ways in which Jesus is described here is astonishing. At least these 11 things are stated: he is the image of God; the firstborn over all creation; all things were created in him, through him and for him; he is before all things; all things are held together in/by him; he is the head of the church; the firstborn from the dead; he supreme in everything; all God’s fulness dwells in him; he is the means of God reconciling all things to himself; his death on the cross has brought us peace with God.
See also what Paul says about Christ and his achievements in 2:6-15 and about who we are and how we should live because of Christ in 3:1-17.
As there won’t be time to focus on all the descriptions of Jesus given here in detail, it may be helpful to focus on some of them, or to group some of them together - eg. Christ is supremely the image of God, he is supreme over creation, he is supreme over the church, he is supreme in salvation.
We look through the following questions:
What are some of the Christ+ dangers for us in our context? What are we tempted to trust in addition to Jesus? Can you give some personal examples/testimony?
What are the practical implications that Christ is the creator of all things and that he holds all things together (vs 16-17)?
What are the practical implications that Christ is the head of the church (v 18)?
Watch it here
Audio only
In Revelation 1, John sees a magnificent vision of Jesus. This chapter presents us with the magnificence of Jesus Christ - the Lion, the Lamb, the one of whom all in heaven and earth forever cry “Worthy.”