The Center of the Christian Life

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A few years back, my dad and I were trying to put together a sunflower fort for the kids in the backyard. If you’re not sure what a sunflower fort is, it’s where you plant sunflowers really close together in a formation where it kind of ends up being like walls. It was something dad had seen on the internet, and we said, well, we’ll try it.

And basically what you want to do is until a circle in your yard, however big you want it, and then plant sunflowers really close together except an opening on one side where the kids can get in and out. And, you know, once it grew, they loved it. They were babies at the time, but they, not infants, they were about Charlie’s age, two, three.

They loved it, and it was great. But I tell you what, that was difficult to get started. Because for starters, Dad wanted to do it at his yard because the grandparents need to have someplace fun for the kids to play.

So we’ll build a sunflower fork along with the 50 bajillion other toys that they’ve got in their yard. So I took my tiller to Dad’s house and started trying to until a circle. I can’t even draw a circle unguided, let alone until one.

I mean, it’s a mess. I should have known better. Because I’ve heard people for years say how hard it is to even until a straight line, except for the fact that you put your eye on a fence post or some fixed point in the distance, and you just go constantly straight toward that.

You need some kind of guide. You need some kind of focal point. And so me trying to just freehand until in a circle was just a huge mess until I finally said, let’s get a piece of rebar or something, a stake, something that we can drive into the ground, And we’ll tie a rope, we’ll tie one end of a rope to this rebar, and we’ll tie the other end of the rope to the side of my tiller, and I’ll just plow around in a circle like that.

And that’s what I ended up doing. And I’m telling you, it works so much better. So whether you’re trying to until in a circle, or whether you’re trying to until in a straight line, you’ve got to have that focal point.

You’ve got to have that central point that you’re anchored to, whether you’re anchored by a rope, or whether you’re anchored just by the fact that I’m looking at it and I’m going toward it, if you don’t have a central focal point that you are anchored to that guides what you’re doing, it’s going to turn out to be a big mess. And it’s not going to be a pretty sunflower for the kids. But it turned out all right because we used that central focal point.

And that story came to mind this week as I was studying on Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1, if you want to go ahead and turn there with me, if you haven’t already done so. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at Colossians chapter 1 in depth.

Really, the point that it makes throughout the whole chapter is the preeminence of Jesus Christ over all things. He is, for the purposes of that analogy, He is that anchor. He is that focal point.

He is what we use to guide us. He’s the thing that we look to or anchor ourselves to in order to plow that straight line or plow that circle to keep it from being a mess. You see, just like it was a mess when I didn’t have that fixed point trying to plow or until, whatever you want to call it, it’s also a mess when we try to live the Christian life not anchored to Jesus Christ. As I mentioned earlier, the preeminence of Christ, that word preeminence, don’t be scared off by the big word.

The preeminence of Christ means that he’s above all things. It means that there’s nothing more important than Jesus Christ. And that is the central point that Paul makes throughout Colossians chapter 1. Folks, there’s nothing more important than Jesus Christ. And over the next few weeks, we’re going to talk about all the areas where we see the preeminence of Christ at work.

Because it’s easy for us to get distracted if we take our minds, if we take our eyes off of the preeminence of Christ. If we take our eyes off of that focal point, if we disconnect ourselves from that anchor point, we get into a real mess real fast. We try to live the Christian life apart from making Jesus the center of it. Say, well, why would we need to hear about that? Of course he’s the center of it.

Because it happens all the time. All we’ve got to do is take our eyes off of him for a second. Soon we end up way further away than we intended to be.

Reminds me of being eight or nine years old. swimming with my parents and grandparents down at Panama City in Florida, not Panama. Do they have beaches in Panama City, Panama, Greg?

Okay. I didn’t remember if it was inland or not. Greg’s our go-to expert on Panama.

It was in Florida, and we were, you know, swimming out there with our parents, and, you know, at 8 or 9, you think nothing can ever hurt you. You’re, you know, you’re invincible. Yeah.

Thank you. And we’d be out there with mom and dad and grandparents, and we’d be on our noodles or our wings, inflatable things, whatever you call them. But, you know, you’d eventually stop paying attention to what they were doing and take your eyes off for, you know, a couple seconds.

And before you know it, you’re 10 feet away from them, which doesn’t sound like much except there are currents. And, you know, it’s very easy to get further from your parents, further from the shore, further from anything quicker than you realized. Same principle applies when we can’t take our eyes off Charlie for two seconds or the house is just..

. Last night he was squirting water. And Charlie got on to him.

Two seconds later, she’s off down the hallway and I hear her squirting water again. Said, I’m going to let you talk to Mama about what you’re doing. Puts it back on the shelf real quick and says, I’m not.

Great. So we’re dealing with another one who lies. That’s good.

You can’t take your eyes off of him for two seconds or there’s no telling what might happen. Folks, when we take our eyes off of, you know, Charlie’s not Jesus in that analogy. But when we take our eyes off of Jesus for two seconds, we quickly get further away from him and further out of control than we plan to because what we do is we take our eyes and we put it on something else.

That can happen to us as individuals. It can happen to us as a church if we take our focus off of Jesus Christ for even a second. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more important than Jesus Christ. What ultimately matters for our church is not how many people we have here.

We do want to bring more people in because we want to reach more people with the gospel, but there again, the importance is not in the numbers but Jesus Christ. What ultimately matters is not that we’re full every week. What ultimately matters is not, you know, that we have the best people in town. What matters is not that we have programs coming out of our ears that meet every possible need and every possible want that everybody could ever desire.

What matters is that we’re focused on Jesus. Same is true for the individual. it ultimately doesn’t matter how many zeros I have in my bank account. It may just be one big zero.

I’ll probably end up closer to that one big zero than to having seven zeros at the end of the bank account. It doesn’t matter how many zeros I have in my bank account. It doesn’t matter how nice a car I drive.

It doesn’t matter how successful I am at climbing the ladder in my career. It doesn’t matter whether I have the nicest clothes or bought a suit off the racket. All of the things that the world looks at and thinks that makes a person successful.

Folks, what really matters is that Jesus is at the center of our lives. He’s preeminent in all things. That’s God’s desire for us.

That’s God’s design for us. I was listening to Adrian Rogers yesterday. He’s still a way better preacher than I am, even though he’s been dead for 14 years.

and he was talking about the Holy Spirit and he was talking about some of these movements that are focused on the manifestations of the Spirit and he quoted Jesus where Jesus said when the Spirit comes he will not testify of himself but he will testify of me he said even the Holy Spirit isn’t all about look at me look at how wonderful I am he said the Holy Spirit is about look at Jesus and if even the third person of the Trinity is pointing us to Jesus Christ folks what could be more important So if God’s agenda is the preeminence of Christ, then that ought to be the agenda of the church, and it ought to be the agenda of the individual believer. Colossians chapter 1, starting in verse 1, and we’re going to go through verse 8 this morning.

Paul, an apostle of Christ, Jesus, by God’s will, and Timothy our brother to the saints in Christ at Colossae, who are faithful brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints because of the hope reserved for you in heaven. You have already heard about this hope in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you.

It is bearing fruit and growing all over the world, just as it has among you since the day you heard it and came to truly appreciate God’s grace. You learned this from Epaphras, our dearly loved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and he has told us about your love in the Spirit.

And we see from this introductory passage to Colossians chapter 1, that as Paul goes into the letter to the church at Colossae, his main focus is on who Jesus is and who Jesus is to the church. And Paul’s point here is to make sure they understand that Jesus belongs at the very center of the Christian life. Folks, for us it’s not Jesus, you know, I can live my life however I want as long as I’ve got Jesus somewhere in the mix.

Jesus is not the parsley on our plate, alright? He’s not the garnish on our lives. The expectation here for us to live the Christian life the way God intended it to be requires that Jesus Christ be at the very center.

That he be at the center of our priorities, that he be at the center of our attention, that he be at the center of what it is that we’re serving and pursuing. Jesus belongs at the very center of the Christian life. And if you and I are centering our lives on anything else, then it’s going to be a mess.

It’s not what it’s supposed to be. if for the church our center is anywhere else other than the preeminence of Jesus Christ, it’s going to lead us into a mess. It always does.

I’ve told you stories before about the first church I pastored, and I shouldn’t have gone there except God told me to, and so I guess I should have gone there. But when I first went there, just to fill in, they’d had an interim pastor for five years, which is practically unheard of, I don’t think they’d had a steady pastor in about 10 years because of all the fighting and all of the backbiting and all of the we don’t like the preacher, we’re getting rid of him, and I don’t like this group, so we’re going to split off over here. And it was ugly.

And when I was going to fill in there, one of the men that I knew from my church who had also filled in there at one time said, if you’re going over there, you better take Jesus with you because he ain’t there. I’m like, well, that’s kind of rude. And then I realized what he was talking about.

And Jesus was not the center. The center was me, myself, and I. The center was my preferences.

The center was how do things look. And I tell you what, as long as that was the center, it was going to be a mess. I said, what do you mean by a mess?

I’m talking dozens and dozens of church splits. I’m talking a fist fight over who got the mail. I’m not kidding.

I wish I was I’m happy to say that church is in a much better place now years later but only because Jesus is back at the center see when Jesus was not at the center it was a huge mess if we as a church or we as individuals put our center somewhere else if we are focused on something else if we make something other than Jesus the main thing everything falls apart I know we all know of people who don’t particularly care about Jesus, and they seem like their lives are pretty well put together. They’ve got money in the bank. They’ve got all the stuff they want.

I’m talking about the Christian life. If you want to live the life that God has called you to, if you want to serve Him, if you want to please Him, if you want to bring Him honor and glory, if you want to live out the purpose that He created you for, then it does not work without Jesus at the center. And we see this from the very first verse in Colossians, when Paul himself places the calling of Jesus at the center of who he is.

He says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by God’s will. You see, when Paul wrote to the church at Colossae, he didn’t introduce himself and say, Hi, I’m the Apostle Paul. I’m an expert on everything you’re doing wrong.

I’m the smartest man alive. Haven’t you heard of me? I’m the great Apostle Paul.

And really, there were few leaders greater than him.

Paul was used incredibly by God to do things and yet Paul said what follows isn’t important because it’s what Paul said, it’s not important because I’m always right, it’s not important because my way is the only way Paul said all of this matters because Jesus Christ called me to tell you this have you ever seen people that are just a little bit full of themselves a few of you have some of you are either asleep or hopefully you’re not thinking it’s me and so you’re afraid to answer some of you just sat there like it’s a trap I think we’ve all met people who are just a little bit full of themselves I think we probably have all seen people in the pulpit who are a little bit full of themselves you need to listen to what I say because I’m the guy up here in the suit I’m the most important one in the room I know everything I’m the leader so listen to me that’s an example that’s not what I’m saying now that’s not what Paul’s doing here Paul’s coming at this from an attitude of who is Paul but a servant of Jesus Christ this doesn’t matter because I said so I have no authority just because I’m Paul any authority I have comes because Jesus, for whatever reason, in his grace, saw fit to call me into this ministry.

I’ve told you before, same applies to me. I’m not the first person. If I were God, I’m not the first person I would have called into pastoring.

When God called me to preach, I was surprised. I think I was the only one who was surprised, but I was surprised. I’m not the one I would have picked.

And that’s Paul’s attitude here. Paul, for all of his credentials and all of his attributes, was somebody that he looked on himself as the chiefest of sinners. The world is full of sinners and I’m the worst one, and yet for some reason God called me into this ministry.

So as I tell you these things, it’s not because Paul is so important, it’s because Jesus Christ is important. We see from the very first verse here as he’s introducing the whole thing that Paul makes no bones about the fact that it’s all about Jesus. And when you look at what he says to the church at Colossae, He brags on them.

He brags on this church. And yet everything that is praiseworthy, everything that’s admirable about the church at Colossae comes right back to Jesus Christ. Jesus was at the root of everything praiseworthy in their lives. Anything good they had going on was because of their focus on Jesus.

Wouldn’t you love to be a church that people in the community can’t help but brag on what’s going on here but for us to be able to say it’s just Jesus working in us. Wouldn’t you love to be the kind of Christian that people, even the people that don’t like you, have to admit the good things that are going on in you and through you? Wouldn’t you love to be able to give the glory back to Jesus Christ and say it’s just Him?

I talked to a lady last week and I commended her on her parenting. I know that sounds odd, but she’s a single mother and been doing it for a lot of years, raising boys. And I remember how tough it was being a single parent for just a few years to Benjamin and Madeline.

And it’s so much easier with Charla. So I remember, and I told her, I just admire the job you’ve done with your sons and pointing them to the Lord. And she said, it’s all about Jesus.

Where would we be without him? Yes, exactly. I want to get to a point where people look at us and they can’t help but be amazed by what’s going on, what God’s doing with us.

and we’re able to say, you know what, it’s all him. And I don’t mean in the fake modesty way, well, you know. It’s all Jesus.

I secretly know that I’m wonderful, but it’s all Jesus. I mean, in the real, I don’t know how this happens. It’s got to be Jesus.

But you look at some of the things that he praises them for. They’ve got a good reputation, he says in verse 4. We’ve heard of your faith in Christ Jesus.

My understanding is that Paul had not been to Colossae at this point. I could be wrong on that, but that’s my understanding of the history here. But he says, I’ve heard of the faith that you have in Jesus Christ. We’ve heard your reputation for what kind of Christians you are.

He says, verse 4, and the love you have for all the saints, the love that you have. Your reputation for that precedes you. That before he even knew them, before he ever met them in person, he had already heard of the love that they had for one another.

It’s hard to love other people in church sometimes, isn’t it? Because we’re not all perfect. Especially, you know, you might have been hurt in church before and you come in kind of tentative and you’re not sure about letting anybody in and it’s just kind of hard to get attached sometimes and love people.

They just loved each other. This word love here is not what we use for brotherly love. It’s not what we use for husband and wife love.

The word there is agape, if memory serves. The Greek word there is agape, which is God’s kind of love. It is a sacrificial and selfless, unconditional love.

And that’s how they loved each other. He said, you have a reputation for loving each other. You have a reputation for loving others the way that God loves.

Now, it’s hard enough sometimes to love other people in that brotherly love, camaraderie kind of way. It is impossible to love others the way God loves unless it’s God loving through you. unless it’s God putting that capacity for love inside you.

So why were they able to love one another in the way that they did? It was because of their commitment to Jesus Christ. It was because He was at the center. He says in verse 5, go back to verse 4, For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints because, verse 5, because of the hope reserved for you in heaven.

This was also a church that was possessed of a hope. It was that hymn that says, I’m possessed of a hope that is steadfast and sure. They were possessed by this hope.

They had this hope which was not like, well, I hope I find a good parking space, and I’m probably not going to. But it was the expectation that we’ve been talking about the last few weeks in David’s prayers, where David says, I’m waiting on something I know is coming. See, they were also in this place of hope because they knew, and they were waiting.

They knew that Jesus Christ was going to take them home. They knew that because he died and rose again that they too would rise and live with him. So they were waiting for him to return, and they were living like it.

I don’t really preach a lot on the second coming. I preached a lot on the resurrection of Jesus, but the resurrections in the last days, I haven’t preached a lot in my ministry over the things that are coming in the final days, but maybe I should because the more we remember that Jesus is coming, and eventually he’s going to come for all of us, and in the meantime he’s going to come for us one by one, that if we remember that he’s coming and we remember the hope that we have in heaven and we look to that with expectation, it changes the way we live day to day. It changes the way that we live.

Kind of like when I know that my yearly checkup is coming. I stop eating so much salt, and I try to hit the treadmill even though I hate it. Right?

Because I know that’s coming, and I don’t want to have another awkward conversation with my doctor. When we realize that Jesus is coming, and we really believe that he’s coming, and we look forward with that hope and that expectation, it changes the way we live our daily lives. So they lived differently.

They lived in hope of his coming, because every day they were thinking about Jesus, and the fact that he was going to come back soon. Jesus was at the center for them he commends their growth in verses 5 and 6 you have already heard about this hope in the word of truth the hope that they had in heaven they heard about it in the word of truth the gospel that has come to you so they knew this because they heard the gospel they received it they believed that Jesus died to pay for their sins and rose again and believing that he died to be their one and only savior and pay for their sins in full they asked God’s forgiveness and they were changed. And he says it’s bearing fruit.

This gospel is bearing fruit. You know what that means? They were growing spiritually.

They were growing spiritually because they didn’t take their eyes off Jesus Christ. He was at the very center of what they were doing. Everything praiseworthy that Paul has to say about the church at Colossae came right back to Jesus Christ. He was right there at the center because there was a moment for each of them, for each person in that church, where the whole orientation of their lives changed. Because each of them, they had received God’s grace, which is available only in Jesus Christ. They looked to Jesus Christ as the one who provided for God’s grace.

He says all of this happened in verse 6. All of this happened since the day you heard it and came to truly appreciate God’s grace. That word appreciate in the Greek means to acknowledge or to receive.

there was that point where they understood their sin, they understood the holiness of God, and the only way for them to be at peace with God, the only way for them to find a home in heaven, was for their sins to be forgiven. And the only way those sins could be forgiven is because Jesus paid for them in full on the cross. So there was a turning point for each of them that revolved around Jesus Christ and the grace that he died to purchase for us.

And since then, the gospel had begun to bear fruit in their lives and make them more like Jesus Christ. Earlier this morning I told you how God’s will for every believer is not just that he save us and leave us exactly as we are, but that he would save us and then change us to make us be more like Jesus Christ. It’s a process that’s ongoing throughout our whole lives, and yet that’s his will for us. He says in verses 5, 6, and 7, you’ve already heard about this hope in the word of truth, the gospel. that has come to you.

It is bearing fruit and it is growing all over the world just as it has among you since the day you heard it and came to truly appreciate God’s grace. He said, just like the gospel is taking root and bearing fruit all over the world, it’s doing it in your heart too. You know what?

We hear stories, especially when we have our missions emphasis months. We have the Lottie Moon offering and the Annie Armstrong offering and the Edmund McMillan offering where we take up collections for missionaries and we see the videos on the screen that talk about what our missionaries are doing and how lives are being changed. And I think we sit there and we look at that in awe.

If you’re like me, you love the stories and you’re thankful for what God’s doing in other parts of the world, did you know He’s capable of changing lives right here in Seminole, Oklahoma? Do we really believe that? In our minds, we know He can do anything.

Do we look in expectation for those lives to be changed? Do we believe that the gospel that’s taking root in these other countries and bearing fruit in people’s lives, and we’re seeing people dramatically changed by the gospel, do we believe that he can do that with our friends and neighbors, with our family members, with the people we don’t like? Wasn’t there a turning point for each of us who trusted Christ?

Wasn’t there a day when we received the gospel, when we first acknowledged the grace of God and our need for it, we came to Him through Jesus Christ, and we asked for that forgiveness of sins that Jesus paid for so completely on the cross and rose again to prove when we asked for it and God gave it to us, and He began to change our hearts from the inside out and praise God we are no longer the same as we were before. He’s done it for us. And that gospel still continues to bear fruit in our midst. It bears fruit in our midst. It bears fruit all around the world.

There’s no reason why he can’t do it with others around us. But one of the things that they need to see is that like the church at Colossae, that we’re making Jesus Christ the center of our lives. The book of Romans makes it clear that people can’t believe if they don’t hear.

They can’t hear if we don’t tell them. Not just with our lives and not just with our lips. Jesus should be at the center of everything.

I told you before, I don’t buy that old phrase, preach the gospel to all nations and if necessary, use words. I think that’s like, I’ve said it myself in the past, but I think it’s a lot like saying, feed the hungry and if necessary, use food. What else would you use?

And the idea behind that has been just live a godly life and people will see the difference and they’ll come to Christ. Now, Romans says they won’t believe if they don’t hear. So we need to tell them. Jesus needs to be so much at the center of our life that we not only live like it, but that we talk like it.

That when we have conversations with people, Jesus is right there at the forefront. Folks, we have no greater message we can convey to people than the message of Jesus Christ. So I want to ask you this morning, what message we’re conveying? What message are we conveying?

Now this can be for us individually. This applies to us as a church. What message do we convey?

What is our focus? If somebody were to step in off the street and attend one of our worship services with us, if they were to be around us for the day, if they were to hear the teaching, if they were to fellowship with us and get to know us, and they walked out of here and somebody were to stop them and say, what’s that church all about? What would they say our message is?

If the message we convey to the community is, look how good Trinity is, it accomplishes nothing. It momentarily glorifies Trinity and does nothing to move anybody any closer to Jesus Christ. Our focus should never be on how great we are. Our focus must always be on how great He is.

Let Trinity be centered around Jesus Christ. In everything we do, let the preeminence of Jesus Christ be our central principle. We won’t be able to help but point people to the salvation that He offers. for us as individuals.

Let Jesus Christ be the center of our everyday lives, and we won’t be able to help but tell people about Jesus. Oh, it’s so hard to have that conversation. It’s so hard to tell people.

It’s so frightening. Folks, if Jesus is at the center of who we are, we won’t be able to shut up about it. Oh, he just said, shut up in church.

Isn’t that what the disciples said? When the authorities told them in the book of Acts, stop preaching about the resurrection, and they said, I’m sorry, but we cannot help. We cannot but speak what we have seen and heard.

We can’t talk about anything else. Folks, we need to think long and hard about who has preeminence in our lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at this idea of the preeminence of Christ. We’ll see his role and his sovereignty over the church.

We’ll see his sovereignty over creation. We’ll see his sovereignty over the preaching of the gospel. And I hope we learn some things that help us to fall in love with Jesus Christ all over again.

I hope we learn some things. I hope we discover some things out of Colossians chapter 1 that make us excited about Jesus Christ again. That make us stand in awe of Him like we did when we first believed.

Because He deserves it. He deserves 100% of our devotion. And He deserves that we would glorify Him with our lives.

and glorify Him by leading others to find salvation in Him.