Col No.6 Hail the Chief

The first chapter. Do you remember from the ninth verse, the Apostle starts to pray for the Christians who are gathering in assembly at Colossae. By the power of the Spirit and the relevance of the Word of God to the 20th century, we believe that this prayer and what follows has meaning for all of us.

So we're going to read together from the ninth verse up to and including the 19th. Will you please then come in on the even-numbered verses. Colossians 1 and I commence at the ninth verse.

For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, strengthened with all might according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. For it pleased the Father that in him, our Lord Jesus, should all fullness dwell.

Amen. Now I'd be grateful if you'd turn in your Bibles to Colossians and the passage that we read together from the first chapter. Now you will recall that Sunday ago when I was here ministering from this same passage of Scripture, we were in straightened circumstances inasmuch as we had no heat.

And as a result of that I curtailed to some extent what I wanted to share with you from this very important passage of Scripture. So I make no apology at all for coming back to these 15 through to the 19th verses of this particular chapter. And we shall look at them together and pray God that he shall enable us to grasp the significance of this particular passage of Scripture.

Revision is a very good principle for any teacher in the educational world. It's also a good principle shown so clearly by our Lord Jesus who often returned to subjects that he had preached on before. So we come back and at greater length we look at these particular verses.

And we shall find things, I believe, that will encourage us and challenge us and help us to be informed as to who Jesus is and as to what our discipleship and its quality should be offered toward him. You may or may not know that when Jimmy Carter comes to any official function in the United States of America, often there will be played an anthem, a sort of American folk song, and it's entitled, Hail the Chief. Hail the Chief.

And I suppose it's very appropriate indeed for Carter is the leading citizen of that great country and it is helpful to recognize when he is on official business what his standing is before the rest of his fellow Americans. Now, if your memory is good, you will recall from two weeks ago that I was arguing from what scholars have to say that these particular verses that we are looking at at the moment really constitute an early Christian hymn. Here the Apostle Paul, who has been praying for the Christians at Colossae, in the middle of his prayer, as sometimes we do, he starts to quote from a hymn, an early hymn which was being sung about the Lord Jesus Christ only a few years after his death and mighty resurrection.

And you discover, as you may have noted in all the hymns that we've been singing so far this morning, that the focal point is none other than our Lord Jesus. The Bible speaks very much of the centrality of the Christ. When the Holy Spirit comes into the heart of a believer, he quickens us, he informs the mind, but most of all he leads us to the Lord Jesus and all worship must revolve around the Savior.

And here, in these verses, which speak of the early church praising the Lord God, you find central to their worship the Savior, the one sent from God to deliver men and women, like the Colossians, like you and me, from the bondage of sin. And therefore, in the last part of the 18th verse, you find the focal point of attention mentioned, that in all things he might have the preeminence. In the Old Testament, references prophetically made to the Lord Jesus, he is called the chiefest among ten thousand.

He is, as I mentioned in my prayer, the altogether lovely one, the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley. And when you move over into the New Testament, all this prophetic anticipation is made very, very clear indeed. And we're told of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is the founder of the redeemed community, he is the firstborn amongst many brethren, he is the firstfruits of those who slept.

In a word, he is the one who is preeminent, he is the chief. And I wonder if you can say that in your life, that the Lord Jesus Christ is your chief. And when you were singing, Jesus, you lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly.

When you were saying that you have no other refuge, you have no other help but him, you are going beyond mere words, you are expressing the emotion and the conviction of your own heart. For him singing that bypasses the intellect is unacceptable before God. It is reduced to the level of a parrot that says things in mimicry, but does not really understand the sounds that are coming from his mouth.

Nor, says the apostle Paul, when he is sounding out the glories of the Christ, when he is quoting from New Testament hymnology, Jesus is the chief, he has preeminence. And there are four ways, you will recall, in which the apostle underlines, if you please, the chieftainship of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the chief, first of all, inasmuch as he has created the world.

That is the immediate thing that the opening stanza of that hymn in the 16th verse has to say. For by him were all things created. This world has not come about, my friend, whatever a contemporary BBC program might be saying, as a result of some evolutionary fluke.

I can think of nothing more absurd than this. Science has many principles, but very often in the interest of science and at the disadvantage of religion, those principles are bypassed. And we are told to imagine that something one day came out of nothing, for no reason at all, for no cause at all.

In any laboratory in this country, around this world, the very idea would be ruled out of court as being nonsense. If there is something that exists, then there must be something that brought that into existence. And here the Bible gathers together all that the Old Testament and the New Testament has been saying about creation, and it says that by Jesus Christ were all things created.

And in the 18th verse, language is very much like the first verse of the book of Genesis and the first verse of the Gospel of John. He is the beginning. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

In the beginning was the Word. Who is the principle behind creation? It is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the chief.

The Greeks had certain theories which they used to demonstrate or to try to demonstrate the existence of God. These theories, these so-called proofs, were further redefined in the Roman Catholic Church by Thomas Aquinas. And one of the evidences given was known as the teleological argument.

And the idea, and it's a very simple one, is this, that everything has a purpose. And because a thing has a purpose, then there must be a designer. There must be someone who actually placed it there.

Now let's consider this argument because our Lord Jesus gives us the right to do and so does the Old Testament psalmist. Here is, let's take the latter, here is David. He's scanning the heavens and he sees the stars and the sun and the moon.

And he said, when I consider the heavens, I'm mindful of the greatness of God and the creatureliness, the smallness of man. Jesus said, consider the lily of the valley. It doesn't toil.

It doesn't spin. But there's purpose. There's design.

Every petal indicates this. This is no fluke. Consider a flower, says Jesus.

And there you've got evidence of the imprint of God upon the world. The whole of science, I tell our young people, rests upon certain abiding principles which demand for the regularity of scientific law. The lawgiver.

The creator. The one who was in the beginning. And this is what the apostle has to say and he's gathering up, as I've mentioned already, other Old Testament and New Testament teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is chief because he is the creator. The creator. Who holds all things together.

And that is precisely what the 17th verse says. He is before all things and by him all things consist. That means to say what? This.

And I put it bluntly so that you'll grasp it. If Jesus Christ were to abdicate his authority in the world of creation, the whole of the universe would just crumble and become one chaotic mass. What holds the molecule and the atom together? The neutron and the proton? Have you ever looked down a microscope as well as looked out from a telescope and seen there the variety and the form and the order even in the smallest thing? If it were not for the Lord Jesus Christ, the universe and you and me as part of that universe would fail to have symmetry and design.

There would be no cosmos. There would be chaos, disorder. So the apostle says Jesus is chief.

He is preeminent because he created the world. But furthermore, he is chief in as much as he controls cosmic forces. Again, stay with the 16th verse.

For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth. Visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him.

You know, there's more to this world than what the eye can see. The Bible gives us a world view which makes room for unseen forces and powers. The forces of righteousness and the forces of evil.

Of course, there are those who dismiss this idea. Oh, we don't need this non-scientific jargon in these days. We're so sophisticated.

We reduce the whole phenomena of the universe down to certain principles that we can understand. And they don't understand them. They can no more understand the fact that man behaves in a bestial fashion as witnessed those boats, those ships that are crowded with refugees coming away from Vietnam who can't find harbor or a country to accept them.

They can no more understand that than what they can understand the regularity of scientific laws and the cause of that regularity. There is within the heart of men and women a bias towards sin. And there is within sin itself evil forces which are at work in this world today.

And I tell you, you cannot understand the story of history unless you admit to this. When Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, he said that this was the hour of darkness. And the prince of the power of this world would be exhibiting his own limited authority.

The Bible makes reference to fallen angels and to good angels. It says, for instance, of little Paul that we have just dedicated, or his parents that we have dedicated to the Lord this morning, that every child has a guardian angel. Did you know that? This is what the scripture says.

It also says that there are forces of evil at work within this world and influencing men and women, manipulating them, so that the very purposes of God might be frustrated. But the Bible tells us this. Whether these forces are described in terms of thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, whether these terms refer to angels or archangels, cherubim or seraphim, whether they refer to demons or not, it does not really matter.

Inasmuch as Jesus Christ is chief even of alien forces. Look at the second chapter and you get reference to the work of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. Verse 14.

It gathers up all that Jesus has accomplished. He has blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. But, go on.

And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. What does that mean? That though the devil and his evil forces have power, Jesus Christ has superior power. Though the devil seems to be having a feud in the world and in the lives of many people, nonetheless, the authority of Jesus Christ is still supreme over against that power.

And one day all men and women shall recognize, when Jesus Christ comes back and establishes his government, that he is indeed the chief. Chief inasmuch as he created the world. Chief inasmuch as he controls cosmic forces.

And chief, thirdly, because he constituted the church. You remember we made reference to this last time. He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.

According to the Bible, there is one organization in this world today that is of supreme importance. It is not the United Nations. It is not international communism.

It is not Freemasonry. It is the church of Jesus Christ. You say, what do you mean by the church? Well, I mean this.

Every man and every woman who has confessed that Jesus is Lord, every man and woman who, to employ Paul's language in that second chapter, has come to the cross and has seen that the Lord Jesus, through his blood, has cancelled the effects of their sin and has admitted to his saving grace, is a member of the church. Those people I was referring to in Zaire, that small group of people in Nepal, those in Iran, a larger number in this country, an even greater number in the United States of America. Thank God there are many also in the USSR and in China who have confessed Jesus as Lord.

They are part of the church, part of the body of Christ. That great, did I call it an organization? No, my friend. Not so much an organization as an organism.

You say, what is the difference? Well, there are many organizations in this world. There are many international industrial bodies such as EMI and similar countries and similar companies. And there they are around the world like some great jigsaw, all interlocking.

But there is no real relationship, no organic relationship between one group and another group. But here is the church and she is completely different. In what way? Well, in this way.

She is the body of Christ and he is the head. Through his body, he allows his life to go. He grants his Holy Spirit.

In other words, the church of Jesus Christ, this organism that he has brought into being shares the very life of Jesus. And in that way, Jesus is chief. I gave you last time, and there is no need to repeat it, an analogy between the head and the body, literally, to show you the way in which Jesus controls his church.

My head, believe it or not, is a vital part of my body. I don't think I could get along without it. There is so much that is locked up in that little space, even if you question it sometimes, which is absolutely vital to my well-being as a body.

We are one whole. I haven't got my head separate from my body yet. And as far as the church is concerned, she is not separate from Jesus.

The organizational church may be. The establishment may be. But those who are members of the redeemed community are members because within their breast has been placed the Holy Spirit.

The very life of Jesus pulsates through his church, and in that fashion, he is the chief. No one else could constitute the church. No one else controls cosmic forces.

No one else is responsible for the creation of the cosmos. Only Jesus. He is preeminent.

He is the chief. But fourthly, and for our purposes this morning, finally, he is the chief because he correlates with God. He correlates with God.

The word correlate means that when two things are taken together, they imply one another. They imply one another so that Jesus can say that he is God. Philip, have I been so long time with you and you never knew me? We read in the 15th verse that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.

That means to say that Jesus has revealed God. We needed someone to reveal God. We're told that God dwells in inapproachable light.

According to Paul when he's writing to Timothy. And in the Old Testament, we're told that God is so different from ourselves, he's so holy and so pure that it's impossible for us to come close to him unless God, by a magnificent act of uncommon mercy and grace, should reveal himself through a person, through his own son, and that is precisely what he has done through the Lord Jesus Christ. He correlates God.

He corresponds to God. What God is, Jesus is. Perhaps the teaching is expressed a little more clearly in the first epistle, or rather in the epistle to the Hebrews, when we read of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is the brightness of God's glory, the third verse, and the express image of his person.

And we're back again to this scientific understanding of the creating and the holding together of the universe and upholds all things by the word of his power. Jesus is the exact image of God. Come to the 19th verse of this first chapter of Colossians.

It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. What is meant by that? Well, if you want your understanding to be quickened, then turn to the 9th verse of the 2nd chapter. For in him, the Lord Jesus, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

And at one fair sweep of the teaching of the Holy Spirit, the whole basis of the watchtower society crumbles, and even our friends the Christadelphians are completely and utterly embarrassed by this particular pronouncement from Scripture. Jesus is not a man who assumed divinity, who worked his way into the position of a God. Jesus is not the man who is simply at the zenith of humanity.

He is God. In him is poured all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Outside of creation, he steps into time, having made the heavens and the earth.

And he reveals to you and to me who God is, what he is like. And therefore, if you follow this through, there is no problem, as I was arguing a week or so ago, about the miracles of Jesus and the teaching of Jesus. Have you noticed the great difference between the miracles of Jesus and everyone else who worked miracles? Go back to the Old Testament dispensation.

Here is Moses and he works miracles, but how does he do it? By asking God for power. Here is Elijah, he too brings down miracles or shows, reveals miracles through his own personality. But how basically does he do it? By asking God.

But never does Jesus ask God's authority for performing a miracle. Why not? Well, he needs not to. You see, because innate within him is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

Do you understand what I mean when I say that miracles were natural to Jesus? Miracles were natural to Jesus. Take his great pronouncements. Here the Old Testament seers, the Old Testament prophets, they speak for God and they say, Thus saith the Lord.

But Jesus never says, Thus saith the Lord. What do you find him saying? Verily, verily, I say unto you. He puts his word on the same level as the God who has revealed himself in the Old Testament dispensation.

What is he doing? He is demonstrating this truth, my friend, that he is in the image of God. All the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells within him. He is the place where God resides.

The very Shekinah of God is encapsulated within the Lord Jesus Christ. And because of this, and the reasoning is tremendous if you followed it through, he is the chief, the chief, because he created the world. The chief, because he controls cosmic forces.

The chief, because he constituted the church. The chief, because he correlates with God. Ah, but you have listened well.

And yet you could have listened all this time and given me acquiescence to what I've been arguing from the word of God, and I would go away a very sad man. You see, it's not just your acquiescence that I'm after. I want to go deeper than that.

It's not intellectual understanding that I'm angling for. I want the ascent of your will to the preeminence of Jesus. I want you to say, not in the words of Wesley, but in your own words, Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly.

I want you to deny any other loyalty than that which would cause you to be captive to the lordship of Jesus Christ. I want you to be able to say with Thomas the doubter, who, unreceiving an experience of the resurrected Lord, confessed, my Lord and my God. What was Thomas, in effect, saying? Jesus is the chief.

He is the preeminent one. Is he the chief, my friend? Not just in your mind, but in your heart. Not just here in this tabernacle, but in your home.

Is he the chief that controls the relationships that you have with your husband or with your wife, with your children? Is he your chief as a man who is in business in London or here in Worthing, as a teacher in college or school? Is he your chief? Is everything in your life directed and controlled by him? For this is what he is asking. He is asking a voluntary submission to his lordship. The laws of science are dependent upon the authority of Jesus Christ.

Of that there can be no dispute. But these laws are immaterial things. They're not soulish things.

They're not living things. And he gets that authority because he is the creator. But not with you, not with me.

The authority, the submission that we make is a voluntary one, prompted by the Spirit of God. And I'm asking in the area, the deepest recess of your life, is Jesus the chief young fellow? What thoughts went through your mind during this past week? What thoughts were accepted in your mind? Those which glorified Jesus or those which pampered to your own fancy and your own desire? Is he the chief of your brain? Is he the chief of your habits? Is he the chief of your lifestyle? Is in everything Jesus Christ the preeminent one? For this is what Paul was arguing. No, this is what Christians were saying about Jesus.

Some 10 or 15 years after his death and resurrection, they'd come together, and one of them, inspired by the Spirit, wrote one of the first Christian hymns. And in that hymn, they made much of Jesus. And they said, yes, he's the chief.

He's the preeminent one. Jimmy Carter goes into one of the public halls of the White House, and the musicians start to play Hail the Chief. Jesus Christ is present in this sanctuary.

From your heart, are you saying not to someone who's like the President of America, one who is infinitely greater, are you saying of Jesus, yes, he's a chief, the chiefest amongst 10,000, the altogether lovely one, the first of many brethren. He is the chief. He is my chief.

Have you submitted to his lordship? Have you acknowledged that he died to save you? This great creator became flesh and blood so that your sins might be forgiven and the problems of your life might be unraveled as you bow your knee to him. And as you say, yes, Lord, I acknowledge who you are, not only the creator of the world, the controller of cosmic forces, the constitutor of the church, the one who correlates with God, but I acknowledge you're the chief of my life.