Hope Church LV Sermons
The Incomparable Christ :: Colossians 1:15
A couple of months ago, my wife and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. And you may or may not, unless you're really close to me, you probably don't know this about me, but I'm kind of a hopeless romantic, all right? So I'm about to make some of the guys in the room really sick, so just prepare yourself. But for our 20th wedding anniversary, we had saved up, and I'd put this plan together, I actually put it together a couple of years ago, so I kind of had the plan in motion, started saving up to be able to go overseas, and we were going to take a cruise together to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary, and I'd so planned it out. What's funny is, I'm the romantic, my wife really could care less. My wife's idea of a night out is to go to the Waffle House. I mean, she really doesn't care at all about these kinds of things, but I do. So we got on the boat, and I had it planned out because the cruise that we were taking, the night of our 20th wedding anniversary, we were going to be docked off the coast of the city of Ephesus, where Paul wrote the letter in Ephesians chapter 5, come on, yes, and you know where I'm going, right? Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church again. So we read that, so I went through all this to make the plan, and we had a really special time, special moment, special night together. And then the next morning when we woke up, the plan was, I had signed us up for what was called the biblical tour of Ephesus. It was the city where Paul had planted the church where a lot of his ministry was headquartered from, and so we were going to go on what we thought was the biblical tour of Ephesus. Now, if you don't know this, Ephesus is located in modern day Turkey. Now Turkey today is 99.9% Muslim. It's a country that is not very open to Christianity much at all, but we signed up for the biblical tour and thought that's what we were going to be getting on, so we get on the bus with about 30 other people to go to this tour and to my shock when I got on the tour, the tour guide was a Muslim. So we're going to get the biblical tour of Ephesus from Ahmed, right? And not only that, what they call the biblical tour of Ephesus is really the tour of the important Catholic sites that have been set apart there in Ephesus. So I wound up kind of giving us our own tour as we were walking through the different things and pointing out stuff that I knew from biblical history about the city of Ephesus. But we're sitting on the bus at one point, we've been on the bus, we've been in Ephesus there touring around forever and we get back on the bus to come back and the tour guide and the lady in the seat across from me are having a conversation. Now you got again the tour guides, devout Muslim, the lady in the city across from me, devout Catholic from New York City, and they begin having this conversation that is this kind of what you hear today, don't you wish we could all just put aside these differences because you know we all really believe the same things and we all really have the same basic convictions and you know if we just stop being so narrow minded, so they're going back and forth having this conversation. Now here I am in a country that's 99.9% Muslim listening to this conversation between this Muslim and this Catholic and I'm just, all I can do, right? I'm just, and I'm sitting there and I look at my wife and she's looking at me doing this. And I knew, I knew she knew what I was feeling and I knew immediately what she was feeling so I restrained myself and did not engage in their conversation. I did get to have conversations throughout the day with our tour guide is we would, he would share some things that just biblically weren't accurate and so I'd pull him aside and we'd talk about it, we'd have some, but we had some very friendly conversations. It was really a great, great day but that's the culture that we live in. We live in a very pluralistic world that would say, you know, we really all believe the same things, it doesn't matter what faith journey you're on as long as we're people of faith, that's what really matters now and I don't misunderstand me, okay? I do understand that there are some things that as people of faith in general, we all agree on. All people of faith would believe that there is a God. All people of faith would believe that we should love and serve that God and that because of our love and service to God, we should also love and serve one another. You can look at any faith you want to look at and at its core, they all teach a belief in God and a response to a belief in God that looks like worship and service of that God and love and service to other people. Just about all people of faith would also agree that we all in some way need the forgiveness of God. No person of faith that I've ever met in cultures and societies around the world has declared themselves to be perfect in their own expression of their faith. Every person that I've ever encountered on any continent and I've been on many of them around the world and had these conversations, I've never met anybody who denied the fact that they were in need of God's forgiveness. Most people of faith would also believe that there is an eternity that all of us will at some point have some kind, and this is where it varies a lot, but some kind of a reckoning day before this God and our lives on earth in some way impact what that day an eternity will look like. And even most people of faith would believe that not everybody is going to spend eternity with God. So I understand when people say there are many things that we all agree upon. There is a fabric of truth in that that there are many general principles that regardless of the person of faith that you are, we would all say that we could hold to. However, there is a vast difference between what we as Christians believe and the beliefs of other people, of other faith communities would hold to. And it is no small difference, I'm going to say that again, it's no small difference. The difference, the dividing line for people of faith that separates true Christianity from everything else is what we believe about who Jesus Christ is. You want to end a pluralistic conversation really fast. All the warm and fuzzies will evaporate out of the room very quickly. When you began to move a conversation toward the person of Jesus Christ, he's the dividing line. And as we as a family of faith are studying together through the book of Colossians, if you have your Bible, I want you to open to Colossians chapter 1. It is that very issue that is the motive behind Paul writing this New Testament letter. It is that very issue that was on the heart of the Apostle Paul as he sat down and penned these words. You see in the church at Colossae, there were false teachers that had come in and they had begun to twist and distort the teaching about who Jesus is and don't miss this, who they were because of who Jesus is. You see, the reason this is so important is our identity as Christians is completely wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ, the only security that we have, the only hope that we have, the only future that we have is wrapped up in the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is not a peripheral issue, this is not a sidebar issue, this is the main central issue of what we believe as Christians. So Paul's writing about it here and we two weekends ago began to dive into a section of the scripture where Paul specifically begins to roll out the truth about who Jesus is and what He's done. If you have not been here the last two weekends, let me encourage you to go online and catch up. We have been uncovering some major doctrinal truth about what Jesus has done for us. But this morning, we shift gears just a little bit. For the first two weekends, Paul has been writing and unpacking truth about what Jesus has done for us. But over the next several weekends, we're going to focus on verses 15 through 18. And over and over in these verses, as you read them, Paul says, "He is." He's now not talking about what Jesus has done for us, the work of Jesus. Because there are even those who would claim to believe what we believe, who would say that they agree about what Jesus has done for us, the difference is in what qualified Him to do that for us, meaning who He is. So Paul begins to transition. It's interesting as you break this text down, verses 13 and 14 describe what He's done, then verses 19 through 23 pick up that idea of what He's done. But verses 15 through 18 are kind of the anchor in the middle of those two passages describing what Jesus did to tell us who He is that qualified Him to do what He did. You with me? So we're going to unpack several defining statements about who Jesus is. And I want to begin in verse 15. That's all we're going to look at this morning, just verse 15. He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. I want you to read it off the screen with me. Here we go. One, two, three. He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. Now let me just say this. This verse is the big umbrella that even verses 16 through 18 fall under. What we're going to unpack this week, everything else is built upon the foundation of what we're about to discover Paul is writing to us in verse number 15. There are two great truths that I want to give you out of verse number 15, and here's the first one. Jesus is God in the flesh. That's a good place to say, hey man, hey, I want you to say that with me, because here's what I want you to hear and what I want you to understand. If you've missed this, you've missed everything about what sets us apart as followers of Jesus Christ. You cannot be a Christian and not understand this. You're tracking with me. Okay. I know I heard a collective gasp in the room. Everybody's listening now. Play it with me, Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus is not a teacher about God. Jesus is not just the way to know God. Jesus is not even a man who became God. What Paul is saying to us here is that Jesus always has been and always will be 100% God. Jesus is God. Now Paul says it in two phrases here. The first one, he is the image of the invisible God. He's the image. You can't hear that phrase in this verse, at least I couldn't and not immediately think back to Genesis chapter 1, this idea of the image of God. Do you remember Genesis chapter 1 when God made human beings? What did God say? The Bible says in Genesis 1, 26, then God said, let us make man on our own image according to our likeness. And it says down in verse 27, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female. He created them. Did you hear it? The Bible says as human beings, we have been created in the image of God and according to his likeness, but there is a very important distinction. You and I have been created in God's image. That is not what Paul said in Colossians chapter 1. He did not say Jesus is in the image. He said Jesus is the image of God. And it is in the present active tense, meaning that it is ongoing, continuous action, meaning that you could translate that this way, he is continuously the image of God. Here's what Paul is saying, when you see Jesus, you see God. JB Phillips is a great Greek scholar who translated the New Testament. The JB Phillips translation of the New Testament is an amazing translation of the New Testament. If you don't have a copy, I encourage you to get it. It's a great copy of God's word to use in your devotional time. JB Phillips translated it this way. He is the visible expression of God. That's the way he translated that word image because the word image in the Greek language had two expressions, it meant representation like a picture, but it also meant manifestation, meaning that it was more than just a picture. It brought the actual presence of the object that it was representing, meaning that when we see Jesus, Jesus is not just a reflection of God, he's not just a picture of God, he's not just a portrait of God, Jesus is literally God in the flesh. That's why when the angels came to marry in Matthew chapter 1, they said that you shall call his name Immanuel, which translated means God with us. Now just in case, just in case we didn't get it from the phrase, the image of the invisible God, Paul decided under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God in chapter 2 to say it another way. Listen to what he said in chapter 2 verse 9, look at it on the screen. For in him, talking about Jesus, look at this carefully, in him, all. You got that right? Say it with me. All, not part, not some, not even most, oh, in him, oh, but what does it say, fullness, the word fullness there means completeness according to Greek scholar William Barclay. For in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. Here's what JB Lightfoot said, in him resides the totality of the divine powers and attributes. Jesus is all that God is in human form. This issue is the difference between what we believe as Christians and people of all of the faiths, even some who would profess to be Christian. He would give Jesus a place of prominence, but they would not give him the place of preeminence that the Bible gives him as God in the flesh. Many who would come against what I'm teaching you this morning would say that it was after the early church began, that people began to attribute to Jesus' deity, but they would say that the Bible really never attributes deity to Jesus, and Jesus never claimed to be God. I wish people who make those kinds of statements would occasionally read the Bible. Can I put verse nine back up there of chapter two again, let's read it together. For in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, how much more plainly can the Bible say everything that God is, Jesus is in human form. He's God in the flesh, but it wasn't just the teachings of Paul. Jesus himself claimed to be God. Listen to some of these verses. John chapter 10 and verse 30, Jesus said, "I and the Father are," what do you say? One, meaning one in essence. He went on to say later in John to Philip's question, "Show us the Father." Jesus in John 14 and verse 9 said it this way, "Have I been with you so long and yet you have not come to know me, Philip?" Listen, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." How can you say, "Show us the Father?" Then in John chapter 10, or excuse me, John chapter 14 and verse 6, listen to what Jesus said, "Jesus said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.' No man comes to the Father but through me." Do you know what Jesus was implying here? Jesus is implying, "I am the way to God. I am the truth about God and I am the, listen, life of God." No one comes to the Father but through me there was an atheist who was trying to understand Christianity and the truth of Christianity and he began to explore the sayings of Jesus and after reading Jesus' own words about himself, he came to this conclusion. Jesus is either one of three things. Jesus is either a bold-faced liar because you cannot, the atheist conclusion was, you cannot say what Jesus said and be put into the category of being a good teacher. He walks in the room today and steps up front and says, "Oh, by the way, you seen me, you seen God. Me and the Father are one. I am the way to God. I am the truth about God. I am the life about." Listen, somebody gets up here and you're not going to go, "Well, what not a nice sermon he gave today?" I believe you follow his teaching, life would be better. He said, "Jesus is either a liar or he's crazy. He's delusional because he believes some things about himself that the normal person cannot believe about themselves and be put into the category of a good teacher and a great moral guy. Somebody claims to be God, somebody claims to have existed before Abraham lived thousands of years before they were born." You can't go, "That's a pretty good guy. I think I might have coffee with him this week." Or the atheist said, "He is who he is that he was." He either lied, he's crazy, or he is who he claimed to be. Now the atheist, some of you already figured it out. The atheist who discovered this process was a man by the name of C.S. Lewis who ultimately gave his life to Christ through this pursuit of truth as an atheist and became a great Christian writer and even wrote Christian fiction, things like The Chronicles of Narnia and all of those movies that you've seen that portray the message of the gospel in literary form. What convinced him? The turning point for him was this very issue that Jesus himself claimed to be God. Not only Jesus, but the disciples taught that he was God. Now the disciples don't forget, were the first followers. They heard every word Jesus spoke. They saw every miracle Jesus performed. They saw every action and reaction in his life. Listen to what John, one of the disciples, said about Jesus. And John 1-1, listen to what he says, "In the beginning was the Word." He's using this concept of the Word we don't have time to unpack it, but is a reference to Jesus. You'll figure that out in just a minute, but he's trying to relate to Greek culture and baring a word from their society to communicate the truth about Jesus and he says in the beginning was the Word. Here's what he's saying. Whenever you designate the beginning, when the beginning began, he already was. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And so as not to leave it ambiguous, he said, and the Word was God. And he skips down in verse number 14 and says, and the Word, this one who existed before the beginning began, who was with God and who was God, he says, and the Word became, what, flesh and dwelt among us. The Word dwelt is a Word in the Greek that literally means to pitch your tent. It describes an ordinary habitation, a dwelling. John says, this one who always has been and always will be God, who existed before the beginning began, John says, this one who has no beginning and had no ending at a point in time chose to enter the creation that he's spoken to existence and dwelt among us as human beings, God became a man. Now listen what John says, and we saw it. It's a Greek word, the word see here, there are multiple words in the Greek language for the word see. This is the one we get our English word theater from. It means to observe carefully, to watch it all play out, and at the end draw a conclusion. John says, for three years we watched him. For three years we lived with him. For three years he dwelt among us like an ordinary person. John says we saw it. What do you see? Glory. Glory as of the only begotten from the Father full of grace and truth. If all that's not enough, God the Father himself gave a testimony in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 8, the Bible says, but of the Son he says, this is God the Father speaking, of the Son he says, thy throne, O, what does it say? God. Here's what I want you to hear me say. All wrote it, the disciples taught it and accepted it, Jesus himself claimed it. God the Father testified it. Listen to me, if Jesus is not God, throw your Bible in the trash and walk away from the faith. This book teaches Jesus is God. If he's not God, this book has no authority in our life. This is not a cafeteria line where you pick and choose the peace. You know what that, if your approach to the Bible is, this is a cafeteria line. I pick the parts I want and I don't pick the parts I don't want. You know what that means? You know who God is now? You. Because you just became the determiner of truth. You just became the one to decide what is true and what is not true. Listen, I don't have that right. God is the author and the finisher of our faith and the word of God that we hold to as Christians says that Jesus is God in the flesh, he's God. He says he is the image of the invisible God. It's interesting, phraseology, the word invisible means what you think it means, that which cannot be seen with physical eyes. Listen to what John 1 18 says, no one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him. The word explained is a great word, it means to declare thoroughly to unfold. Here's the point. Jesus came as God in the flesh and the second half of this phrase, the image of the invisible God declares why he came, he came so that you and I could know who God is and how we could know him. Do you understand today that unless God had made himself known to us in his grace, you and I would have never discovered God on our own. We would have never come to the understanding of who he is, but for the grace of God we would sit in absolute darkness, but Jesus came as God in the flesh so that you and I could understand the riches of who God is. That's why our can't use it this way when we see him. We know just what the God of the universe is like. We know how he thinks, we know how he talks, we know how he relates to people. God has spoken in his son. So here's the life-changing reality. I know I'm giving you some heavy doctrine, but listen, doctrine is a good word. Don't be afraid of the word doctrine, doctrine just means what we believe. Everything that we are is rooted in what we believe. But here's the practical application statement, Jesus Christ is God and to know Jesus is to know God, meaning you can't know God apart from knowing Jesus. You say, Pastor, that's a mighty narrow statement. Isn't that too narrow? That's the wrong question. The wrong question is not is it too narrow, the wrong question is the right question. Is it true? You see, if your doctor says this is the only medicine that will help you, that's not too narrow if it's true. I'm not looking for options, I'm looking for truth. If you believe this book, it's true. Let me show you how the Bible says it in 1 John 5 verse 11, and the testimony is this. That's John's way of saying, here it is, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son, He who has the Son, has the life, He who does not have the Son, does not have the life. Jesus is God and to know Jesus is to know God. But I've got one more truth I want to give you this morning, you all okay? Everybody all right? You got time for one more? You got time for one more? We just got to be done by 11, there's some more people coming, all right? Let me give you one more. Jesus is sovereign over all creation. Not only Jesus is God in the flesh, but because He's God in the flesh, Jesus is sovereign over all creation. Did you hear it? He is the image of the invisible God, then He said, the firstborn of all creation. Now I'm going to be honest with you, that phrase, the firstborn of all creation is a phrase that for centuries has been a launching pad for great error concerning the person of Jesus Christ in societies around the world. You go all the way back to the fourth century, around 300 A.D. There was a teacher from Alexandria, Egypt, who came on the scene named Arias. And Arias took that phrase out of Paul's writings and began to teach that because Paul said he was the firstborn of creation that Jesus was a created being. Here's the way Dr. Richard Melik says it, "Arias taught that Jesus was greater than the rest of creation, but lesser than God Himself. He understood this text to teach that Jesus was the firstborn part of creation, even though Jesus was unique among created beings, He was still created. Jesus became such a teaching that began to permeate throughout the church. There was a council in 325 A.D. in a place called Nicaea where they refuted and denounced the teaching of Arias and Arianism as a false heresy concerning the person of Jesus." I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Pastor, why in the world are you giving us a lesson in church history this morning about the person of Arias from the fourth century? Let me tell you why. Because we are living in a day and particularly in a city that is bombarded with religious systems that teach at their core the very same thing that Arias taught in 300 that has been denounced by the church as heresy for generations. Paul or Peter wrote in 1 Peter chapter 3 that "You and I are to sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts and always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you yet with gentleness and reverence." Here's what he's saying. That "You and I as followers of Jesus Christ, we're not to argue, we're not to carry picket signs, we're not to be out in the streets screaming and shouting, but with a spirit of humility and gentleness and reverence, you and I are to know with certainty what we believe about the person of Jesus Christ. And when we give an opportunity, we are to be ready to give a reasoned response for why we believe what we believe. And today you would be shocked and appalled if you knew the statistics and numbers of young people who leave Christian churches and go off to college and then go shipwreck in their faith because they had no biblical grounding in framework for who Jesus is and who they were because of who Jesus is. So today I want to unpack what this means and the moments that we have left so that you have a biblical framework for this passage of Scripture. What does it mean and what are the errors that are out there? Let me give you two examples of why this is so significant today. How many have ever heard of the Jehovah's Witnesses? Jehovah's Witnesses teach the exact same thing that Arias talked. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus Christ was a created being. Now they would give him a place of prominence. They would say he was the first created, but that he is created. To the point that the Jehovah's Witnesses, if you have a new world translation of the Bible, throw it out. I'm telling you the truth. If you have a new world translation of the Bible, the Jehovah's Witnesses have their own translation of the Bible that does not follow the original languages. They have inserted their own words to make it say what they want it to say. For example, in John 1-1 when it says in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God, they put a little A in there. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was A God. It's not in the original language. In Colossians chapter 1 where it says first born of all creation, then it says for by Him all things were created. They put the Word other in the next verse four times. For by Him all other things were created, both in heavens and on earth. All things, all other things have been created through Him. He is before all other things. You see how that changes what the verse says? When you put other in there means he's one of, but they're the other. Is it important that we understand this teaching of Scripture because we live in a culture where there are people going to your house and my house and the houses of our neighbors that is sharing things that are contrary to the person and work of Jesus Christ. Another in our own city is the church of Mormonism. Mormonism in our city takes this very phrase and builds the same kind of theology. They would say that Jesus is unique in and only in that He is the first born son of creation, meaning that Jesus is just like you and I and eternal, primordial spirit is what they would say you and I both are and the only uniqueness to Jesus is, according to Paul, they would say He was the first born of creation. It removes Him of His deity, it removes Him of His uniqueness, it removes Him of His preeminence and it makes Him one of the rest of us. Well, Pastor, how do you know that that's not what Paul meant when he said first born? Let me give you two reasons why we know that with certainty. Here's the first one, the context of the statement, the context. Let me give you a great rule of thumb whenever you interpret scripture, always interpret scripture in light of its context. In seminary that my preaching professor told me context is king. Here's what that means. You can't take a verse of scripture out of its context by itself. You got to understand the verse of scripture in its context because if you do that it's dangerous, for example, in the Gospel of Matthew the Bible says Judas went and hanged himself. In another place in the Bible it says go and do likewise. I'd say context is pretty important, wouldn't you? If you pull verses, God wrote and inspired His word in the context of letters for us to, that's why I hope we are committed to studying scripture in its context. Because if I just pull a verse from over here and a verse from over here to make it say what I want it to say, you can make the Bible say anything you want it to say. Right after Paul said he's the first born of all creation. Who has to leave nothing unclear, Paul then said for by him all thing. The word all is a word that means everything that has ever been created, meaning there is nothing that has ever been created that he did not create. And just in case we didn't get it, Paul got pretty specific both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, he said it twice in the same verse, all things have been created by him and for him. The context here demands an interpretation that says Jesus is not a part of creation because he created everything that has ever been created. But not only do you have to interpret in light of the immediate context of scripture, then you have to step back and interpret it in light of the larger context of scripture. And not only Paul, John said the same thing about Jesus. Look, look back at first John chapter one verse one. Look what it said. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. Then look what it said. He was in the beginning with God. Now listen, all things came into being through him. And so as to remove any ambiguity, listen to the last part of this verse and apart from him, Jesus, nothing came into being that has come into being. Here where the Bible says, the Bible elevates Jesus. He's not a part of creation. Both the immediate and larger context of scripture say that he is over all creation and the source from which everything that has ever been created has been created. Then he says it in the negative, nothing has ever been created. Here's what it means. There's not one created thing that was not created by Jesus himself. So for anyone to reduce Jesus to being one of a list of the created order is to totally renounce the teaching of scripture that Jesus is 100% God and the source of all creation. The context, but the second reason we know that's not what Paul meant when he used the word first born is the way the word first born is used in the Bible. Although this term can mean first born, like your first born son is the first son born into your family as it's used in the Bible. This word more often refers to a position or rank. It's like we were talking about this this week in Pastor Joe, our Boulder City campus pastor gave me a great illustration. He said it's like when you and I would say this is my closest friend. Now when we say closest friend, we don't necessarily mean geographically closest. When I say someone is my closest friend, it doesn't mean that they are the friend that is closest to me in proximity. I'm describing a position that they hold in my life by using a word that can mean proximity but often means a level of intimacy. The word first born can speak to chronological time of birth. But more often in the Bible it speaks to position or rank. Let me give you some examples. In Exodus chapter 4, Israel is called the first born nation of God. Now we know that Israel was not the first nation on planet earth but they were given a rank and a position in God's kingdom by His grace. In Job chapter 18 verse 13, the Bible refers to the first born of death talking about the disease that was killing Job. And using the word first born there, it's not saying that it was the first disease ever. It was saying that in position it was the most deadly, the highest ranking disease of the day. In Isaiah chapter 14, the Bible talks about the first born of the poor. Not meaning that these were the first poor people ever on planet earth but that they were the poorest of the poor. They had a height and a position of poverty that caused them to be noticed above all others. In Revelation chapter 1 and verse 5, the Bible says Jesus is the first born of the dead. Now we know Jesus was not the first person resurrected from the dead. There were others in the Bible resurrected before Jesus. Then why did it call him the first born? He wasn't saying chronologically he was the first one raised from the dead. He was saying he's the most important. He's the highest. His resurrection is the greatest. When Paul here says that Jesus is the first born of all creation, he's not saying he was the first born created human being. He is saying that he because he is God holds the highest place in all of the universe. He is God and he is sovereign over all. Now why is this so important? Let me give you the life-changing reality and we've got to finish. Jesus Christ is sovereign and one day I'll stand before him as God. See Jesus is God in the flesh so to know Jesus is to know God but Jesus Christ is also sovereign. He's the Lord God over all the universe and one day you will stand before him as God. And what makes the difference on that day is do you know him now? You see what I'm sharing with you this morning, one day everybody is going to acknowledge. Let me show it to you in the book of Philippians, I'll close with this verse. Philippians chapter two verse nine says for this reason also God highly exalted him. It's a word that means super exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. You know what the word Lord means, it means sovereign ruler. What I'm sharing with you today is the absolute truth of the Bible. Jesus is God to know him as to know God and Jesus is sovereign one day will stand before him as God and one day every person on earth, every person in heaven, every person under the earth describing those who've already died and said everybody will acknowledge he's God. But you have the opportunity today by the grace of God to acknowledge him as the Lord God of your life and surrender everything that you are to his lordship. He is God one day you'll stand before him as God. Do you know him today as the God of your life? [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]