The Supremacy of Christ: Lord of Lords and King of Kings

Prayer

Good morning my brothers and sisters. It is good to see you all. Before we turn to God’s word let’s turn to the Lord in prayer.

Our Heavenly Father, we pray this morning that it would please you to open our eyes that we might behold wondrous things out of your law. Please Lord, satisfy us this morning with good things from your word. I pray that you would give us ears to hear and eyes to see and hearts to believe and I also pray that you would be with me now as I proclaim your word. Please Lord, magnify your Son this day. We praise you and we honour you. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

The real Jesus

Now you may have heard of that story about the church that had a beautiful stained-glass window right behind the pulpit and it was a depiction of Jesus Christ on the cross. One Sunday there was a guest preacher that happened to be much smaller than the regular pastor of the church. And as she listened to this preacher, this little girl that was seated in the front row, noticed the depiction of Jesus behind him. So, leaning over to her mother she asked, “Mom, where is that man who usually stands there so that we don’t see Jesus, because I can see him today!”

Now that little girl’s question is a sad parable of the fact that in our country there are many conferences and churches whose pulpits are occupied by men who obscure Jesus – the real Jesus – every day when they stand to proclaim the Word. But I’m so glad that in this conference the men who have gone before me have not stood here to obscure Jesus but to reveal Jesus to us. And therefore, it is my desire with God’s help, to play my part also this morning in putting this Jesus before you in his unmatched supremacy, in his unparalleled preeminence. So, let me ask you now to join me by turning in your Bibles to Colossians 1.

While you’re turning there, let me rush to express my sincerest gratitude to the organizers of this conference. Pastor Musini, Pastor Ken. Thank you so much for this gracious invitation. The privilege of being here this morning. It is not lost on me so thank you so much, brothers.

If you found your place in Colossians 1, I would like to read into your hearing what I believe to be the highest Christological passage in all of the Bible, and we’re going to read Colossians 1:15 – 20. Colossians 1:15 – 20. I’ll be reading from the ESV. It says,

“He (meaning the Son) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

And that is the word of the Lord.

The Colossian heresy

It is about 60 A.D and Paul is serving his term there in a Roman jail when the pastor of the Colossian church, Pastor Epaphras, pays him a visit. It must have been a happy reunion until Pastor Epaphras began updating Paul on how the church back in Colossae was doing. The truth is things were not at ease in the city of Colossae. False teachers had infiltrated the church and they had begun teaching that angels were to be worshiped.

Now, to be sure, these teachers had the sense to teach a bit about Jesus, only that instead of teaching that Jesus was central to the Christian life, they taught that he was merely supplemental to the Christian life. And, like many false teachers, they were smart and subtle enough not to eliminate Jesus completely, so instead they incorporated him into this angel worship by assigning him a prominent place among their panoply of angels as an angel. Effectively, they had demoted Christ from a place of absolute pre-eminence to a place of mere angelic prominence. The section we just read is basically Paul driving the daggers of truth through the heart of this heresy. And when Paul is done, it will become clear to the Colossians, and to you and I this morning, that there is nobody like Jesus. There is nobody like Jesus.

Expressions of the Preeminence of Jesus

So, in a bid to remind us that there is nobody and nothing like Jesus, Paul presents four expressions of the pre-eminence of Jesus, four expressions of the preeminence of Jesus, and this will make for our four headings. So, here they are. Number 1: we’re going to see the preeminence of his person, the pre-eminence of his person. Secondly, the preeminence of his power. Thirdly the preeminence of his position in the church. Fourthly and lastly, we’re going to see the pre-eminence of his passion, the pre-eminence of his passion. So, let’s take this one at a time. Let’s begin with the preeminence of his person in verse 15a.

The Preeminence of his Person

Here you’re going to notice that Paul speaks of the Son in relation to the Father, as if to remind us who the true Jesus really is. Paul begins at the apex; he begins at the highest point. He says, Colossians 1:15a,

“He (the son) is the image of the invisible God…”

The fact of God’s invisibility is beyond dispute. In 1John 4:12 we are told that no one has ever seen God. In John 1:18, “No one has ever seen God.” In 1Timothy 6:16, “He is the one whom no one can see or has seen.” But we read here that Jesus is the image. Notice “the.” It doesn’t say that Jesus is an image, because that would leave room for another one. So, he says, “He is the image of the invisible God.” This word “image” here is the word from which we get our English word “icon,” so it carries the idea of an imprint, likeness, a representation, a manifestation. In fact, Hebrews 1:3 sheds light on this by saying that, “The Son is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature.” In other words, the Son is of the same substance with the Father.

So it makes sense, beloved, does it not, that in that conversation with Philip, Jesus, in John 14:9, tells Philip that, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” You see if that is not true, then Jesus is a lunatic. How could he possibly say that, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father?” But you and I know that Jesus is not delusional. You and I know that Jesus is not bluffing, because the Jesus of John 14 is the Jesus of John 1, the one that we looked at yesterday. And so, Jesus alone is the exact, accurate, perfect, representation and manifestation of the invisible God. In Colossians 1:19, Paul makes this even clearer. He says, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell…” And later on in Colossians2:9, he’s going to say, “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily…”

So, Jesus is the invisible God, made visible. At the risk of sounding irreverent, might I say that all the “godness” of God dwells in Jesus; his attributes, his character, his will, his personality, his essence – everything about God is present in Jesus. Now this, beloved, is the kind of person that Jesus is. You see, Jesus was not merely a godly man. No, Jesus was not a man become God. No, Jesus was God become man. He was the God-man. He is the God-man. Yesterday, we saw that he is the eternal Word become flesh.

So, Jesus so images and reveals and mirrors the Father to us, that to see him is to see the Father. And the implication here, dear saints, is very clear: that anyone who pretends to seek God outside of Christ never finds him. There is nowhere else to find him. Think about it: how can you find God apart from the person in whom God has revealed himself finally and fully? So, do you see the absurdity of the Colossian heresy? They were trying to seek God where God could never be found.

And do you see also why it is so dangerous to diminish Christ to anything than what we are seeing here? Because this spells the difference between who gets eternally saved and who gets eternally damned. You see, a Jesus that is anything less than this, is a Jesus that cannot save and is a Jesus that cannot sanctify. And hence, the Dr Luke writes for us in Acts 4:12 that, “There is no salvation by anyone else (meaning except by the God-man) for there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved.”

Now, let me just give a footnote here before we move on. You and I, the Bible says we are made in the image of God, so there is a sense in which we image God. But you and I are not the image of God because only Jesus is the exact imprint of his nature. Even the highest angel cannot make this claim to sameness in nature and essence with God. To do so would be delusional and it would be blasphemous. Only Jesus can make this claim about himself because it is true.

So, dear saints, Jesus has no equal except God himself because Jesus is God. Jesus is one of a kind. There is nobody like Jesus. He is the most preeminent person you’ve ever heard of. And so, you notice here that in one fell swoop, Paul destroys the heresy, the Colossian heresy.

The Preeminence of his Power

But you would think Paul would stop there. He doesn’t so he’s just getting started and this conversation is over. So notice, secondly the pre-eminence of his power, the preeminence of his power in Colossians1:15b – 17. Paul says, “He is the firstborn of all creation…”

Notice how Paul moves here. He is talking about very big categories. So, he’s begun with God and now he’s talking about creation. He says, “The Son is the firstborn of all creation.”

Now this word “firstborn” is a landmine that has caused many casualties, as we see in sects like the Jehovah’s Witness. In truth, this word may be a little tricky, especially to us who are reading the English translation because of how we normally use the word. So, when I say I’m the firstborn in my family, I mean that I’m the firstborn as opposed to the second born, or the third born, or the last born. So, oftentimes, when we use the word “firstborn,” we use it in reference to time and to birth order, but in using this term, Paul is not saying that Jesus was the first to be made in God’s creation. He can’t possibly be saying that because that would be self-defeating. That’s the very heresy that he’s trying to destroy.

Rather, Paul is talking about the exalted position of privilege that Jesus has in relation to all of creation. He’s the one, according to Hebrews 1:2, who possesses the rights of the firstborn son, namely the right to inherit all of creation. And therefore, all that belongs to the Father belongs to his one and only begotten Son. In that sense, Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. No one is above him. Nothing is above him. He is above all and he is beyond all. He ranks highest.

Now, why is this the case? Colossians 1:16 tells us because, “…he created all things.”

Now, notice the sweeping scope of his creative work. “He created all things” Can you think of anything that is not captured in that phrase “all things?” “Can you?” Neither can I. There is nothing. So, whether you’re thinking plants or planets. Whether you, whether you’re thinking seas or space or matter or molecules – whatever it is. Jesus made all things. Notice he made things in heaven and on earth. That means things everywhere: so, everything, everywhere and he made things that are visible and invisible, meaning all kinds of things. He had the power to make all things.

But dear Saints, it’s not just the fact of creation that is astonishing. I’d want to draw your attention to the “how” of creation. How did Jesus make all things? Jesus did not make everything the way you and I make anything, because in that account in the book of Genesis 1 we discover that, when Jesus was about to create everything- because Jesus is the agent of God’s creation – Jesus looked into nothingness and Jesus spoke to nothingness and when Jesus was done everything that was not – became.

Most of us have gadgets and a lot of things in this country have been made in China level. So, even though it was made in China, the Chinese have never ever made anything the way Jesus made all things. Because when Jesus made everything, he had nothing to work with. The Chinese have raw materials that Jesus made to work with. That is what they use to make. So, you and I have never ever made anything out of nothing. Only Jesus possesses the power to create “ex nihilo,” out of nothing. And so, Jesus uses nothing to make everything there is. You have never seen this kind of power.

But Jesus didn’t just create all things. To be specific, Jesus created all angelic beings. Notice how he says it. He says, Colossians 1:16, “…whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities…”

Now these distinctions that Paul makes here, many commentators just take them and go to town with them. I don’t think it’s important to make the distinctions. What Paul is saying here is in the spiritual world, in the world of spiritual beings, there exists some hierarchies. Now, to be honest, I do not know how the hierarchies look like exactly, but this is to say that Jesus made everything including prominent, elect angels like Gabrielle and Michael and the most powerful evil angels like the devil. Jesus made all of that.

And so, it is very absurd that the Colossians were deciding to worship angels, even though powerful, because even powerful angels were made by one that is more powerful, so it didn’t make sense that they would decide to worship angels.

Now in Kenyan churches and homes we do not worship angels per se, only that we revere the devil and his demons in a manner that is worshipful. We seem often to forget that the devil is not self-made. The devil is not self-existent. Jesus made him. How liberating it would be for us to remember this. Now, the devil may be imposing, to be sure, but if the devil is that imposing – how much more the one who made him?

Could it be the, the reason the devil looms so large in our minds is because we often make the mistake of comparing the devil to creatures like us instead of comparing him to the Creator? If you only think about the devil in relation to you, of course he is going to intimidate you. But think about the one who made the devil and then remember that the Bible tells us that he that is in us, who is the one who made the devil, is greater than he that is in the world – namely, the devil. And it is this reality of the pre-eminence of Christ’s power that begins to expunge the irrational fear of spirits and demons and the devil that most Kenyans live with.

You see, an elephant may be big and powerful compared to an ant but there is no basis for comparing the biggest, most powerful elephant with the one who made it. They are not in the same categories. You can’t even begin to compare them. So, beloved, be very, very careful about thinking that Jesus and the devil are in competition. Jesus is the preeminent one. He doesn’t compete with his creatures. What creature could possibly compete with him?

He is preeminent. He is unrivalled in his power. But then, Paul goes on to say that he made all things, but he made all things for himself, by him and for him. Everything Jesus created, he created for his pleasure, he created for his praise, and he created for his purposes. And that includes you and I. You and I are creatures, are we not? So, Jesus made us for himself and that is why we say that, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” And if Jesus be God, and he is, then Jesus made you to glorify him.

So, this tells us that sin, what we call sin, is first and foremost a rejection of the preeminence of Christ and his lordship over your life, because he made you. Sin is when the creature looks at the Creator and says “Utaloo!” That is what sin is in all its manifestations. So, whether you’re talking about gossip or grumbling or gambling, whether you’re talking about adultery or idolatry, sin is the creature defying the preeminence of the Creator and defying his laws. That is what sin is. So, every time you and I sin, that’s what we are doing.

Again, you’d think that Paul is done here but he goes on to show the pre-eminence of Christ’s power, not just in making what he made, but also in maintaining what he made. Jesus is not just the source of creation, he’s the sustainer of creation. He’s not just the producer of everything there is, he’s also the one who preserves everything there is. Colossians 1:17, “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Jesus is the reason, as one commentator has said, the universe is a cosmos not a chaos. Jesus is holding everything together. Everything consists in him. He’s the super glue that binds everything together and how does he do it? Hebrews 1:3 tells us, “…by the word of his power.”

So, think about it: in Genesis 1 when Jesus said “let,” everything that was not started striving to become. He said, “Let there be…” and everything became. But you know, Jesus has never said “let there not be,” because if Jesus created everything by saying “let there be,” Jesus would uncreate if he said “let there not be.” If Jesus says, “Let there be light.” and then he says, “Let there not be light,” light becomes nothing. So, the very word that formed all that there is, is the very word that sustains all there is, because that word has never been retracted. Jesus has never said, “Let there not be,” and so, in that sense, he is sustaining everything by the word of his power. That is why Paul reminds us in the book of Acts that it is in Jesus, who is God, that you and I move and live and have our being. Jesus is the one who is preserving you right now.

Jesus is the one who is preserving nature right now. So, you see the question is not even why we have disasters and hurricanes and tornadoes. The question is why is it that we don’t have those things all the time, every day? Because Jesus is keeping them at bay, by the word of his power.

This is the kind of power that we are looking at. This is the preeminent power of Jesus. Now this has implications for, for example, your prayer life. Is it any wonder that in Ephesians 3:20, Paul talks about the fact that God is able to do far much more, abundantly, exceedingly above all that you could ever ask or imagine. Do you know why? It’s because this is the kind of power he has. The kind of power he has is the kind of power that you could never think of or imagine. You cannot conceive of just how powerful Jesus is. And that’s why we come to him with great requests, with big requests, because we believe in the pre-eminence of his power. Nobody has this kind of power.

The Preeminence of his Place in the Church

So, we have seen the pre-eminence of his person, the pre-eminence of his power, thirdly the pre-eminence of his place in the church, the pre-eminence of his position, if you will, in the church. So again, big categories: God, creation and now church.

My dear friends, you need to understand that in Paul’s mind, the church is no small thing because it is through the church that God shows off his multi-coloured, multifaceted, manifold wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the Heavenly places. That is Ephesians 3:10. So, the church is God’s arena for displaying his power, his grace, his mercy. The church is glorious, more glorious than most of us think. Yet as glorious as the church is, Jesus is still preeminent in the church. He holds a position in the church that no one else does. Paul says here that,

“…he is the head of the body (verse 18), the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead…” (Colossians 1:18)

The church is often depicted as a body in the New Testament and if the church is a body, we are told here that Jesus is the head of the body. He is the living head of the body and that means, dear saints, that the church is not a lifeless organization, the church is a living organism because Jesus Christ is the living head of the church. But that is to say that he is the source of life and vitality. He is the source of instruction and wisdom for the church. But we see here that he’s not just the source of the life of the church, this idea of the head also implies that he is the sovereign, singular, head of the church.

And so, this is what it means for us here today: there is no Archbishop, there is no Reverend, there is no church council, and there is no pastor that is the head of the church. That is a position that belongs to Jesus alone. That is why he doesn’t say that he is a head in the church. It says he is the head of the church. So, every true church is headed by Jesus. Paul continues to augment this point farther. He says, Colossians 1:1 “He is the beginning…”

Now since the church, as we sang a couple of moments ago, is the community that is called in 2 Corinthians 5:17, a community of new creatures, a new creation if you will, Jesus is the beginning of that new creation. And that is another way to say that Jesus is the Covenant head of the church. My brothers who pastor churches, these have serious implications for us, because this tells you and I that only Jesus rules in his church, by his word and Spirit.

This is to say also that the authority of the pastor of the congregation is derived authority, it is not inherent authority. Only Jesus possesses inherent authority above the church. His is not a derived authority. Jesus is the beginning. So much of those men of God called “Papas” and “daddies,” who ruled the church of Christ by fait – only Jesus Christ gets to rule his church like that. And therefore, for those of you who are members of churches, may I encourage you to be greatly suspicious when the headship of the Christ in your church is minimized by the exaltation of men, because only Jesus is the head of the church.

Now another reminder for us all here as we think about the church, is that since this is true – he’s the head, he’s the beginning – it also means that he’s the one who decides what the mission of the church is, and he’s the one who determines what the means and the methods of accomplishing that mission are. So, we don’t get to be creative when it comes to the Church of Christ. He has given to us a book and he tells us how to do his Church. And that is how pragmatism dies, when we agree that only Jesus gets to tell us how to do his Church.

But lastly in Colossians 1:18, there is this clause that he is also, “…the firstborn from the dead…” And this is to say that he is the one who rose from the dead to never die again, and in so doing, he conquered death and the dread of death, on behalf of his church. It is this preeminence of Christ in the church that puts death in perspective for you and I. Dear saints, you’ve got to love how Jesus speaks about this. Do you remember that account in John 2 when the Jewish leaders come to him and they scornfully tell him, “What sign will you perform? You know, we have heard these things, but what sign will you do in order to prove yourself a little bit more?” And you can almost see Jesus with a sparkle in his eye and Jesus is thinking, “Ah, you guys want to sign, huh?” So, this is what he tells them, John 2:19, “Destroy this Temple and I will build it in three days .” Now if you read further in that account it says that when Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered what he had said.

So, Jesus is thinking, “You guys are looking for a sign. I’m going to give you anything you’ve never seen!” Now, the Bible does say that God raised Jesus from the dead. The Bible also says that the Spirit raised Jesus from the dead but in that account of John 2, Jesus says, John 2:19, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it in three days.”

You see, when Jesus rose from the dead that Easter Sunday morning, it is not as if he was a man awakening from a nightmare; sweating and panting and scared because of how, how fierce the battle with death had been. No, if you’ve read John 20, this is a very little interesting detail there. It says that when Peter got to the tomb – the empty tomb – the clothes that Jesus had been wrapped in were there. And then he says and the head clothes that was on him, was folded and it was tucked by the side. Jesus had the time to fold. Jesus was not running away from death. Jesus emerged from the grave with a bounce in his step. It is not as if he had spent the whole night wrestling with death like Jacob with the angel of the Lord. No, no, no, no, no. Even death was no match for Jesus. He is the one who is preeminent and his power over death is.

You see, it is this reality that really helps us, especially those of us who pastor as we pastor our people through losses. Death can cause a lot of devastation in the church. You do know that, don’t you?

About a month ago today, a couple in our church lost their baby eight hours after birth. Now you need to know that that was their third baby in three years. So, if you’re a pastor like me, what do you tell them when you show up to their house on that morning when they have just lost their baby? Do you tell them, “You know, God loved… you loved your baby, but God loved your baby more.” Or you tell them, “You know, God was walking in his garden of roses, and he just saw a beautiful rose and he decided to pick the rose.” Or another one is, “You know, God was wanting another angel in heaven and he decided to call that little angel to himself.” Is that what you tell people? Is that what you encourage them with? When you’re faced with the tragedy of death, what better encouragement is there than to point people to this kind of Jesus: the Jesus who delivers all of us from the dread of death, the Jesus who is the firstborn from the dead.

You see, my dear brothers, who are pastors, we fail in our call to encourage people in the face of death when we neglect this glorious preeminent Jesus. He shows up everywhere. So when our people lose their loved ones, we tell them about the Jesus who conquered death. We don’t tell them those things that people keep saying. So, to obscure the pre-eminence of Jesus in our preaching is to take away the only hope that our churches have in the face of tragedy.

The preeminence of Jesus puts death in perspective for us. The preeminence of Jesus reminds us that one day death will die forever because it has been defeated and the reversal will happen and those who have died in Christ will be raised to never die again like him. And then he concludes by saying that in everything he might be preeminent. In everything in the Church, Jesus deserves to be preeminent. He deserves the first place. He deserves all the airtime in the church and that is why we make Jesus the theme of our songs. That is why we pray to Jesus. That is why we preach Jesus. That is why we can’t stop talking about Jesus because he deserves first place in everything in our churches.

But because you’re members of churches this also means that Jesus deserves first place in your life, in your marriage, in your finances, in your relationships, in your entertainment choices. Jesus deserves the first place in everything. That is the pre-eminence of the position of Christ in the church.

The Preeminence of his Passion

Fourthly and lastly: the pre-eminence of his passion in Colossians 1:19 – 20. So, if you think Jesus can be demoted, consider his person, consider his power, consider his exalted place in the church, and then consider the passion that we see in Colossians 1:19 – 20. It says, “(and he is the…) For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

The keywords here are the word “reconcile” and the word “cross.” You do know that in Genesis when man fell creation, creation was dislocated, if you will, everything became out of sync. In the words of Romans 8, “everything was subjected to futility” and we know that right now the whole creation groans under the weights of God’s wrath because of man’s sin. But this verse tells us that Jesus is the one who can pacify God on behalf of creation because, as we have seen, he is God. And notice it says that “he reconciled all things.” So, God through his preeminent Son reconciled all things.

Now the word “reconcile” here has a double meaning. It means to restore things to a previous state of harmony, but it also means to move from a, from being an enemy to being a friend. Now both of these meanings presuppose the existence of hostility and that is why, in verse 20, it is called “making peace.” Making peace. So, Jesus is the reconciler of the world to God and the object of his reconciliation is his cross. This idea of cosmic renewal and restoration is a kind of reconciliation. You see, it is the effects of the work of Jesus on the cross that causes blessings to flow. In the words of Isaac Watts, “Far as the curse is found. Far as the curse is found.”

And so, when the book of redemptive history closes, when the book of all history closes, Jesus Christ will usher in eternal shalom. Peace will permeate all of creation. There will be no disharmony in the new creation. There will be order. There will be rest and there will be the pristineness that existed before the fall. When Jesus is done doing this work, there will be no death, there will be no struggles, there will be no scorching sun, there will be no strained relationship, there will be no pain in your joints, there will be no conflicts, there will be no tears, there will be nothing like that. But reconciliation is not just cosmic, reconciliation is personal. Christ is the one who mends this ruptured relationship between God and creation generally, but between God and man specifically. This is the pre-eminence of his passion. This does not exist anywhere else. No one has ever done this. No one can ever do this, and no one can ever do it the way Jesus does it.

And because Jesus is reconciling sinful men like you and I to himself and to his Father, he is able to take those who are estranged from God and make them those that are endeared to God. He’s able to take us – we who were once foes of God – and make us friends of God. He’s able to take us – we who are strangers – and make us sons of gods. All the “Hoi polloi” of this world, all the nobodies of this world, can become somebody’s in God because of what Jesus is doing.

Now, no one has the power to bring you and I to full and final salvation except Jesus. And how does he do it? The cross. The cross. When you read this passage, you almost get the sense that that word is misplaced. The one who’s preeminent as a person, the one who is preeminent in power, the one who is preeminent in the church, goes to the cross. And when Jesus goes to the cross and he dies, and he raises himself, God exalts him, and the Bible says that all authority now has been given to him in Heaven and on Earth. And hear how it ends in Philippians 2. This is what Paul says, Philippians 2:8-11, “…being found in appearance as man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

You see, this reconciliation that Jesus is working, we need to understand it in diverse ways because if Jesus is going to reconcile everything to himself, in what way will he reconcile the devil to himself? Does it mean that in the end the devil and God become friends? No. No. But this is what it means: that when all is done, even the devil himself, by subjugation, will bow his knee and confess that Jesus is Lord, and then Jesus will damn him. Every wicked person who refuses Jesus, will on that day confess that Jesus is Lord and then Jesus will send them to hell. That, beloved, is reconciliation, because at that point, everything is under his feet. No one will be kicking, nothing will be kicking, even the devil himself. So, when Jesus is done doing what he’s doing, and he already started it at the cross, there will be absolute shalom.

Submit to Jesus

You see, a Jesus this big is the kind of Jesus you don’t want to be warring against. This is the kind of Jesus that you don’t have to wait for him to subjugate you. You want to come and submit yourself to him because even if you don’t do it right now willingly, he’s going to subjugate you. So, instead of waiting to be subjugated, how about you come to him in humble obedience and submit yourself to him and say, “Jesus is Lord. Jesus, you’re my Lord.” And you do that by his grace and through faith, by despairing of all your good works and trusting in the means that he has provided. There is nobody like Jesus.

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this reminder about this staggering, overwhelming, pre-eminence of our Lord Jesus. Father, would you help us to take this truth to heart and leave us those who fear and love this preeminent Jesus. Blessed be your name. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.