Preeminent in the Church

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Some of the most divisive arguments in Christian history have revolved around the question, who is the head of the church? One of those arguments started a thousand years ago when the bishops couldn’t decide who was going to be the head of the church, the bishop of Rome, the pope, or all of the bishops together. And that incident was the split between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy that still persist today with people arguing over who’s going to be the head of the church.

In the early 1500s, Martin Luther and the other reformers rejected the idea that the Pope is the head of the church. That wasn’t their only area of disagreement with Roman Catholicism, but the question of whether or not the Pope ought to be the head of the church was one of the things that contributed to the split that we now know of as the Protestant Reformation. and one of the most, one of the ugliest arguments over who would be the head of the church was the argument between King Henry VIII of England and Pope Clement VII.

See, Henry was desperate for a son. He was desperate for a male heir who would carry on his family line and bring some stability to his kingdom and he was willing to do just about anything for a son. Now the problem was his wife, Catherine of Aragon, had only given him a daughter, and now she was too old to bear him any more children.

So Henry, being a terrible husband, decided that he needed to marry somebody younger. But the Pope stood in his way. See, the Catholic Church didn’t allow divorce, and the head of the church, the Pope, refused to grant him an annulment so that he could get rid of her and remarry.

So Henry decided maybe the Pope shouldn’t be the head of the church. Maybe I should be the head of the church. So he caused England to break away from Rome, and he made himself head of the church of England so that he could have what he wanted.

And this led to decades of bloodshed over the question, who is the rightful head of the church? Is it the Pope or is it the King of England? And most of us, I think, can see how silly these arguments are, but unfortunately, even in many of our Baptist churches today, there’s an undeclared war that rages over the same question.

Who is the head of the church? Is it the pastor? Y’all are real quick to say no on that one.

Is it the deacons? Is it the members of the congregation expressing their will through voting? Is it somebody who’s given a lot of money so they should get their way?

Is it a family that’s been there longer than anybody else? Now, just to clarify, I haven’t seen that kind of dispute here. So I’m not trying to call anybody out this morning.

But the sad reality is that I hear these stories frequently. These disputes go on all the time. And even though few people would express it in those terms, people in these situations are really arguing about who gets to be the head of the church.

Who gets to call the shots? Who’s in charge? Whose preferences do we follow?

Who gets to decide what we’re supposed to do? See, being the head of the church means calling the shots. It means being in charge.

And when these arguments happen, because everybody’s trying to be the head of the church themselves, it always distracts us from God’s will for the church. It always undermines the mission of the church and our effectiveness in serving him. So you and I have to fight hard against the fleshly human tendency to want to elevate our own will and preferences to the point where we begin to make church all about us.

I know of one particular church that split 20 plus years ago for a really ridiculous reason. The argument began because a couple of people were upset over a change to the Sunday school schedule, and they decided to try to oust the pastor over it. It’s funny, but it’s not.

See, they were determined to get their way. they were determined to get their way at any cost. And when our will becomes the most important thing in the church, we are effectively trying to crown ourselves the head of the church. Again, I don’t know of any issues like this going on in our church right now.

I’m just making a point to lead us into our study of Colossians chapter 1 this morning to help us appreciate what it says about the head of the church. And the best time to address a problem is usually before it becomes one, right? we have to be on guard against the desire to be the head of the church these squabbles do not end well and they don’t help the church and what’s even worse they’re unnecessary they’re totally unnecessary because God’s word is clear that there is one and only one head of the church and his name is Jesus Christ so if you haven’t already turned to Colossians chapter one would you turn there with me now you should find it about three-fourths of the way through your bible right after Ephesians and Philippians and right before 1st and 2nd Thessalonians.

And we’re going to continue looking at this chapter that we’ve been studying for the last few weeks because it was written to clarify our understanding of Jesus Christ and his greatness. The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church at Colossae because they were being challenged by the ideas of their Gnostic and pagan neighbors. They were immersed, much like we are today, in a culture that had little respect for Jesus.

They were being hammered with ideas and teachings and innuendo that constantly tried to undermine their understanding of who Jesus is. You see, their pagan neighbors worshipped false gods, and if they considered Jesus at all, they just saw him as one of their lesser gods, maybe. their Gnostic neighbors also saw Jesus as being somewhat less than God.

He was less than God, he was more than a man, he was kind of somewhere in the middle, but certainly not Lord of all things. And so while the culture was trying to minimize Jesus in their eyes, Paul wrote to the Colossians to try to elevate Jesus to his proper place. So throughout chapter 1, Paul consistently wrote about the preeminence of Christ. That’s what we’ve been studying, the preeminence of Christ, the superiority of Jesus in all things.

And in verse 18, he began to explain the preeminence of Christ in the church. He wrote, he is also the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. So Paul began this portion of his letter by laying out for them in no uncertain terms that Jesus Christ is the head of the church. He’s not just an addition to the church.

He’s not just one of many influences that we ought to consider. He is the head of the church. And Paul went on to explain why Jesus is the head of the church and why it’s so important that he is.

First of all, calling Jesus the head of the body tells us a couple of things about his importance. That word head is something that would be applied to somebody who’s the chief or who’s the the leader. So by calling Jesus the head, Paul was pointing out that both his power and his authority as the one who by right gets to lead the church and dictate what we ought to do.

See, his role is to lead, and our role is to follow him and obey him in all things. But on top of that, his reference to Jesus as the head of the body tells us that Jesus is indispensable to the church because the head is indispensable to the body, right? The body does not live and cannot function without the head.

I once heard a doctor say that there’s really only one cause of death. There are many factors that contribute to death, but there’s really only one direct cause of death, and that’s when blood flow no longer carries sufficient oxygen to the brain. Now, a gunshot wound can cause blood loss so that the oxygen can’t be carried to the brain.

A heart attack can stop blood from being pumped to the brain. Drowning can fill our lungs with water so that they can no longer deposit oxygen in the bloodstream to be transported to the brain. It’s all about getting that blood to the head, to the brain.

The brain, the head of the body, is so vital that once it dies, the death of the body is inevitable.

the body cannot survive without the head the body of Christ, the church needs its proper head in place to be able to function and the head gives the body life but the head also provides the body with a purpose that your feet don’t just randomly run around to places without you telling them to right if that’s happening to you you need to go see a doctor immediately this is not normal now your feet go where your head says to go your feet are supposed to obey the orders that your head gives them your head told your feet to walk in here this morning so your head could go to church your head tells your feet to walk into the store so your head can find the things that it needs the feet are directed by the head to carry out the mission that the head has decided the same thing is true of the hands they shouldn’t just act independently of the head that’s the biggest laugh I’ve ever gotten in here no our your hands carry out the commands and the mission that are given to them by the head our brains send signals and tell our hands what to do so when we prepare a meal when we play the piano, when we steer a car, when we hammer a nail, the hands are carrying out the mission assigned by the head.

And in Paul’s analogy, the church is the body and Jesus is the head. He’s the one and only head. So what we do as the church here on earth should be all for him to carry out the mission that he’s given us.

For us to act otherwise means there’s something drastically wrong with the body. And folks, even by calling us the church, God’s word reminds us that Jesus is the head and that he’s in charge. The word church in the Greek New Testament is ekklesia, which means assembly.

Stay with me, this is more than a grammar lesson. It means assembly. The church consists of his people assembled into one body, but ekklesia comes from two other words.

Ek, which is a preposition that means out of, and kaleo, which is a verb that means to call. So as the church, our very existence and identity comes from the fact that Jesus Christ has called us out from the world to do his bidding. We are the assembly of the called out.

Those who’ve been plucked out of the world and set apart to work together for his purposes and his mission. The very name of the church tells us that we work for him. And in this passage, Paul also made it clear that Jesus deserves to be the head of the church.

And that he deserves for the church to acknowledge him and follow him as our Lord. He deserves it. He deserves to be acknowledged as the head of the church, both because of who he is and because of what he’s done.

Now the rest of this passage lays out some of these actions and attributes that make Jesus Christ the only one who deserves to be the head of our church. Verse 18 says, He is the beginning. Now all throughout the New Testament, He’s treated as the starting point of everything that matters.

Revelation 22, 13 calls Him the Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end, the first and the last. Hebrews 12. 2 calls him the author and finisher, or source and perfecter of our faith.

And the word used here for beginning is the same word used for beginning when John 1. 1 says of him, in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Or when Genesis 1. 1 says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. See, Jesus is the beginning of all good things for us.

As we looked at last week, Jesus is God the Son. He’s uncreated, without a beginning or an end. And He participated fully in the creation of everything that was created.

We exist by Him and for Him. As verse 16 of this chapter told us, we exist by Him and for Him. He is the source of our earthly existence.

He’s the author of our faith. He’s the beginning. He’s the beginning.

And verse 18 also calls Jesus the firstborn from the dead. Now, last week I told you that when verse 15 calls him the firstborn over all creation, it doesn’t mean he was created. It couldn’t mean that.

Because that would make him less than God. And that would contradict Paul’s entire point throughout chapter 1. Firstborn over all creation, in verse 15, refers to his position of prominence over creation.

But firstborn from the dead, here in verse 18, not only points to his position of prominence, but also to the fact that his resurrection is the basis for all future resurrections. Being born from the dead refers to the fact that Jesus came out of the grave, that he was raised again from the dead. And firstborn implies that there will be others.

Now who are those others? It’s you, it’s me, it’s every person who’s ever believed in Jesus Christ as their Savior. See, because of the power of his resurrection, his resurrection will only be the first of many resurrections.

now the end of verse 18 end of verse 19 it also says so that he might come to have first place in everything for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him now this means that Jesus is not just kind of like God they’re not just kind of alike as we read in verse 15 last week it says he is the image of the invisible God he’s the icon of God he’s the exact representation and the clear reflection of God’s nature. So when we look at Jesus Christ, we don’t just get an idea about God, we see exactly who God is through Jesus Christ, because the fullness of God dwelt in Him.

That means, hear me on this, that means that every single attribute of God without exception belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether it’s His holiness, whether it’s His love or His justice or His almighty power or any other attribute of God, Jesus has all of it and He has all of it to the same degree that the Father has it. Saying that the fullness of God dwells in Him means that He is of the same nature as God the Father. They are two distinct persons but they share one nature as two persons of one God.

Now verse 20, verse 20 adds another thing that God was pleased to do. It says, and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. See, Jesus was nailed to the cross to reconcile sinners to a holy God.

And the church itself is made up of those sinners who have been reconciled to a holy God through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Our sin is the only reason why we needed reconciliation in the first place. You see, by His nature, God is infinitely holy.

He’s sinless. And He’s perfect. And by his nature, all sin, all sin is loathsome and offensive to him.

God created us for perfect fellowship with him. Yet mankind rebelled against him. We rejected his ways.

We embraced wickedness and evil. In fact, we embraced everything that is the opposite of who God is. and we told God that we would rather have our sin and its consequences than to have fellowship with Him.

And man’s decision to sin corrupted the world, and that corruption was passed down to each of us. We’re all sinners, and we sin against God because of it. And so we’re all separated in this life and in eternity from a holy God because God cannot change who He is and suddenly become okay with our sin.

All right, holiness is part of who he is, and justice is part of who he is. Some people want God just to chill out and be okay with their sin. But what they’re really asking is for God to stop being God.

He can’t. He can’t stop being God. His justice and holiness are part of who he is, so sin has to be punished.

And we could incur the punishment of dying and spending eternity separated from God in the fires of hell. We could accept that punishment if we wanted. But God loved us enough that he didn’t want to see that happen.

Instead, God made a way of escape. God made a way for us to be reconciled to him without compromising his justice or his holiness. See, that way of reconciliation involved sending God the Son, Jesus Christ, to take on human flesh.

He has always been fully God, but he became fully human as well. You see, he had, and he still has, all of the attributes of God, but he added to that all the attributes of a sinless man. He came to earth to live a perfect sinless life so that when he died on the cross, He wasn’t just paying the price for his own sin.

Instead, he was a perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins. And so he was nailed to the cross, and he took on himself the responsibility for our sins. He bore the full weight of our sins, and the wrath of God was poured out on our sins in Jesus Christ. Every drop of blood that he shed when he was nailed to the cross was for our sins, And the life that he laid down was for our forgiveness.

And we know that he was able to pay for our sins because when Jesus Christ died, he didn’t stay dead. No, he rose again three days later to prove he wasn’t just some guy who managed to get himself killed, but that he was God in human flesh, that he was able to forgive sins, and that his sacrifice had been wholly acceptable to God the Father. So why does he deserve to be the head of the church?

why does he deserve our devotion why does he deserve our obedience why does he deserve that we would spend our lives glorifying him and carrying out the commandments and the mission that he’s given why does he deserve all of that he deserves it first of all because of who he is who he is is god it’s god in human flesh he’s god the son he’s he’s our creator and he’s the very reason for our existence. And he deserves all the glory that his church can ever give him just because of who he is. But he also deserves to be the head of the church because of what he’s done for us.

See, he died to save sinners and there would be no church, no assembly of the forgiven if it weren’t for Jesus Christ. None of us could have been reconciled to God. None of us could have been forgiven. We could never have been called out to follow Him and sent out to serve Him if it weren’t for the fact that Jesus Christ paid for our sins in full.

In one act of sacrifice and love, He did for us what we could never have done for ourselves. And He did it willingly, just so that we could be forgiven, so that we could be part of God’s family, so that we can have eternal life and hope in Him. He deserves to be the head of the church because he’s the one who died for it.

Folks, on top of that, he deserves to be the head of the church because he is the firstborn from the dead. It was God’s plan all along that he would die for our sins and that he would rise again, not just so that he alone could rise again, but so that he could be the first of many to be raised because of his sacrifice. See, the Father sent him to conquer death, to conquer sin, to conquer hell, to conquer the grave so that we could be raised with him.

Any hope that the church has comes from Jesus Christ alone. Our eternal life, our future with God, none of it comes from anything that we’ve done or anything that we are. It comes solely from the fact that Jesus Christ died to be the firstborn from the dead so that you and I could one day follow him and be raised to live with him forever.

The bottom line here in this passage is that the church is not about you. The church is not about me. It’s not about some anointed religious leader somewhere.

It’s not about a majority vote. You see, what I want is irrelevant. My preferences aren’t the reason why we’re here.

The church is about Jesus and what he’s done. It’s about serving Him. It’s about glorifying Him.

It’s about helping others to experience the forgiveness that He offers us freely because He paid for it on the cross.