03.29.26 Sermon - The Victorious Christ

0:00If you're able, would you please stand while we read God's word. Okay, today's passage comes from Colossians chapter 1 verses 13 to 20. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sentence. He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. For by him, all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

1:00You may take a seat. All right, thank you, Kelly. And yeah, how's everybody doing today? Again, thank you. Glad to be back. Not to the weather, but to the home. When I get home, it's always nice. I sleep my bed for the first time in a week. I'm like, oh, that's amazing. I love that feeling. But going from 85 degrees in sunny. I mean, it's nice today, but when we got home and it was like 34, we're back to it. It's crazy how quickly I adjust to warm weather, and then I come back. I don't know what this is anymore. I don't know how to live in this. But, glad to be back, and I hear everything went well yesterday. And thank you for the shout out that I listened to on the podcast and everything. Really appreciate it. Really appreciate you guys. Let's pray, and then we'll jump into the sermon. And our new campaign today. Lord God, we praise your name.

2:00You are the Holy One. You are high and lifted up. You are exalted above all. And so, Lord, we just exalt you. We glorify your name. We lift you up, and we set you apart as holy in our hearts. So, Lord, I just ask that as we worship you today through the hearing preaching of your word through song, through the conversations that we have and how we love one another, how we pray together, that God, you would be glorified, that you would stir in our hearts. A greater, deeper desire for you. And, Lord, that we would love you and worship you more holy in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. So, we are starting a new campaign today. And, yeah, it's called the victorious Christ. The, what we're going to be focusing on is how this world view of Scripture is one of just a, it's a spiritual world view and a material physical world view. And how the two combine. I'd like to think of it as the old transparencies.

3:01Does anybody remember transparencies? All right. Come on. Be honest. You're dating yourself. I know. But, like, before we had presentations and better computing technology, or maybe just the church that I grew up in didn't want to pay for that stuff. I don't know. But we used transparency. Is there things that you would put, like, clear screen things for the kids? So, you guys have no idea what I'm talking about. They were, like, clear screen things that you'd put on a projector. It was like a light and it would project it up onto the screen. And they were clear, but the lines and the words and stuff that you could see those when they projected them. And so, you could put, like, one transparency on the screen and then you could put another transparency over that. And then it would fill in more of the details around it. Okay. You guys remember those things? So, that's kind of how I think of the relationship with the physical world and the spiritual world. So, the physical world is kind of like that first transparency that you put on the screen. And everybody can see it. Everybody knows it. We all experience that on a daily basis.

4:01We get that. The spiritual world is like that second transparency. Okay. You put it on the screen and it will kind of fill in even more detail of what's really going on. And what's really happening in the world around us. I'll describe it as, like, the spiritual world that overlays the physical world. So, if you make presentations and stuff, if you do that with pro-presenter or whatever, graphic design software you use, they call them layers. All right. So, this is like a different layer that layers on top of the other layers. All right. So, the spiritual world and the material world, they overlay in the interlap with one another. And they both exist together at the same time. In the Bible, it portrays this cosmic battle in the spiritual realm that affects our physical existence in a lot of different ways. And the Apostle Paul, he even calls this our primary battleground, essentially. This is where Christians are called to primarily fight and to wage war as against the enemy.

5:03So, in some, there's a battle, a spiritual battle for the health of your soul. And whether you realize it or not, it's occurring all the time. So, what we're going to do in this campaign is take a look at that and see how we can fight the authority of Christ, how we can live in Christ's authority in the spiritual world and see how Christ was victorious over the evil spiritual forces of darkness. But before we really jump into that and today being the first sermon in this campaign, I think it's important that we kind of zoom out and get a biblical spiritual worldview to see how the Bible talks about the spiritual world. So, just at the outset here, a lot of us were raised in modernism and in that era of cultural values and ideas in that era, it was much more like New Atheism was super popular in common and people would argue that there was no spiritual world.

6:07So, some of us were kind of raised in that cultural environment. So, if that's you and you don't really hold space in your worldview for a metaphysical, spiritual world, you've got to redact a lot of the Bible. You're going to be like blotting out a lot of it as you read through it because a lot of the Bible is spiritual. There's a ton of spiritual things happening all over the place. In fact, Jesus even says in John 4.24 that God is spirit. So, if you don't have a spiritual framework for the world, you're going to have a hard time really believing in God and knowing who God is. So, as we go through this, I invite you to keep an open mind. There's a lot about this that the Bible doesn't reveal. And there's a lot of ideas out there. Some of you came from a very spiritual tradition, some of you came from traditions where there's a spiritual world and we never talked about it. And so, as we begin on this, keep an open mind, remain curious, seek to grow and learn your understanding of what Scripture really reveals.

7:13So, we have to be careful not to ignore what Scripture says, but we also can't just go beyond what Scripture says. Okay? Scripture doesn't reveal everything and so we have to kind of maintain this balance and this tension as we go through it. In short, to begin with, angels are spiritual beings who followed God's rule. Satan and his demons, they're most likely fallen angels who rebelled against God and his rule. And in the devotional, we'll go through a few of those rebellion scenes from Genesis 1 through 11. In John 12, Jesus calls Satan the prince of this world. In Colossians 1, the text that Kelly just read, the Apostle Paul refers to evil spiritual forces as thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities. Okay, so these terms, they all assume that Satan and his demons, they have some authority here on earth now. And so, as we're just zooming out and getting a biblical worldview on the spiritual world, let's first ask, where does that idea come from?

8:15Okay, because their idea is that the spiritual forces, these powerful, evil spiritual forces, are at work behind the rulers of this world, the governing authorities, behind nations and empires. So it's not only this personal spiritual battle that we're having, like it's a cosmic battle that's going on in the spiritual world that overlays our material world. So where does this idea come from? This is Deuteronomy 32. This is commonly called Moses Song. Moses is, I don't know if he's saying it or just said it to the people, I'm assuming he's saying it because it's a song. So imagine that, like if, yeah, I know some traditions do that, but if I just started singing once in a while, nobody should be here if I had to sing. He'd be like, that hurts my ears. Okay, so Deuteronomy 32.8, it says this, when the most high, referring to God, Yahweh, gave to the nations their inheritance. When he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the people according to the number of the sons of God. Okay, so when the devotional will go through this a little bit more, but the sons of God there, some would say that's referring to kings, to rulers of nations, because they thought of themselves.

9:31They thought of themselves as sons of God in order to strengthen their right to rule, but I think the more likely option, again, okay, there's a lot of interpretive decisions that we have to make on there. And so I'm giving you both options. The more likely option is that the sons of God in this context refers to spiritual beings, these powerful, high ranking spiritual beings. We're going for us to grasp this, we have to get our minds into the framework of the ancient world. Okay, this is tough for us, living in the era that we do, in the Western culture, but rewind to Moses, to the people of Israel wandering in the wilderness, and Moses saying this before they enter the promised land. And speaking to a group of people who had been enslaved for 400 years, that's four generations in Egypt, so they had been indoctrinated in the Egyptian worldview at this point. And it wasn't only the Egyptian worldview, the Babylonian worldview was the same, like every nation in this day and age had their own gods. Okay, so think of it as like this is God dividing up the nations to these powerful spiritual beings.

10:43Is, I think, what Moses is saying here. So think of Egypt like the sun god, you all did, like, world history back in the day, right? The sun god is Amunrah, right? And it's emerging of two gods. They have a bunch of them, they have Apes, they have a tomb, all these different gods, right? Every nation had their gods, Babylon, they had Marduk, Greek gods, they had Zeus, and Hera, and Athena, right? Those are more common in our understanding today. Every nation had their gods. And so what Moses is saying here is that God divided up the nations and peoples under these national boundaries, and he gave these spiritual beings authority over them to some degree. Okay, so this is a cosmic, like, national gods, national spiritual beings worldview that the Old Testament is working here. And again, this was just in the cultural era that you breathe, everybody knew this, that everybody lived like this, that these work, there were gods of other nations. And when you went to war with another nation, you weren't just warring with the people of that nation, the gods were warring against one another as well.

11:57So whoever won, this is all in their framework, their perspective. So whoever won, like, that god is more powerful, is kind of how they thought of the world in general. So the Hebrew Bible, it assumes this worldview, but it has some major differences in its challenges and pushes back on this worldview in a few really important ways. Yahweh is not just one god among the pantheon of other gods. He's the one true god, the Hebrew Bible makes abundantly clear. He is unique, he alone is the uncreated one. Everything in creation is we're going to read in Colossians was created by him and for him. He's completely separate from creation. So notice they're like Egyptian gods, they have the sun god who's associated with the sun. That's not Yahweh, that's not the god of the Hebrew Bible and the Hebrew people. Yahweh is not associated with any of those, he created all of them, he's distinct, he's separate from them. The biblical authors, they refer to the gods of the nations as the Hebrew word for gods, Elohim or these divine beings.

13:00But that is not God's personal name, God's personal name is Yahweh. So we see this all over, that they assume this worldview, that this is the culture that the people are steeped in, but there are some really important differences. And we see it here in Deuteronomy 32, 39, to keep reading in Moses's song, he says, see now that I, even I am he, and there is no God beside me. He's speaking prophetically for God here. So there is no God beside me, he said, there's no one like me. Isaiah 46, 9, prophet Isaiah says, remember the former things of old, for I am God against speaking prophetically for God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me. So this is a different perspective on the world in the ancient culture, that there's no God even close to God. That these other spiritual beings, they are assuming that they exist, and they may call them Elohim, may call them gods in the Old Testament, but they're not like Yahweh. Yahweh is different, he's distinct, he's unique.

14:02There are these other spiritual beings who have authority over the nations, and whom God Yahweh has granted some authority over the world for a time. In 1 Corinthians 10, the Apostle Paul gives us this answer. So this is in the progressive revelation of Scripture as we keep reading, God fills in some of the mystery for us, and fills in some of the blanks. So like in the Old Testament, it's pretty hard to see that God exists as a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The New Testament makes that abundantly clear. This is another thing that the New Testament makes abundantly clear that wasn't necessarily super clear in the Old Testament, is who are these spiritual beings, who are in charge of the nations. The Apostle Paul says in verse 10, as he's talking about food, sacrifice to idols, and whether or not the people of Corinth should eat that food. He says, what do we imply then that food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, okay, so the idol is just like a thing, it's a piece of wood, right, or gold, whatever metal they made it out of. That's just a thing, like that's not real, but there is a real spiritual force that worked behind those things.

15:07I imply that with the pagan sacrifice, they offered to demons and not to God, okay, so these were the pagan gods of the Greco-Roman world of the day, and they would offer sacrifices to them, and then they would have a festival, or they'd serve it in the marketplace. And Paul is asking, like, should you eat it? The people were asking should we eat it or not? And Paul is essentially saying if you know that it was from, that if it was offered in sacrifice, you probably shouldn't eat it. And this is one of my favorite lines in the Bible. It's like one of the Captain Obvious statements ever. I do not want you to be participants with demons. Thanks, Paul. I... Holy agree. Don't participate with demons, okay? I don't mess with it. All right, so what are these spiritual beings who are in charge of the nations? They're demons. So most likely what the biblical worldview is revealing, and I'll go through a lot more detail and a lot more text in the devotionals this week, Monday through Wednesday.

16:07What the biblical worldview is revealing is that God had separated the nations, and he had given these spiritual beings authority over the nations for a time. And these spiritual beings, they began to accept worship for themselves, and their demons, as Paul reveals here, they began to accept worship for themselves instead of directing worship to Yahweh, the one true God. And so they deceived the nations, and they deceived the people into worshiping them and thinking of them as gods, as the same, at the same level as Elohim when they're not. They're just demons. They're spiritual beings, okay? So that's kind of the biblical worldview that scripture is working from. It's not just an individual battle. This is a cosmic battle for the nations for the entire creation, okay? So we got to zoom out and get that picture. And that's again how these demons have rebelled against the one true God. So it's with that framework in mind, okay? We're moving fast right now. It's all in the devotional. You can review it, and you'll get it when you read through it again, okay? And you read through a lot more text on it.

17:07So with that worldview, that Paul writes this in Colossians 1. This is the Colossians' heresy. So Paul's writing the book of Colossians to refute what's known as the Colossian heresy. We don't know exactly what it was, but from what Paul says, we can get a pretty good picture of it. We're likely the people of the church in Colossia were like worshiping angels, or thinking that Jesus was kind of on the same spiritual authority plane as angels. And so they were worshiping the angels. They had this mixed like self-righteousness in there from the Jewish tradition and law keeping. And they thought that's how they were made righteous with God. So it was this kind of weird heresy that's hard to pin down. And so what Paul's doing here is trying to help them see and how to worship Jesus in the midst of these false ideas. Of the worship of angels, thinking Jesus is on the same level as angels. It's harsher statusism and all that stuff.

18:07Paul says he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. So what Paul's doing is he's not going to just like start diminishing the angels and spiritual beings right away. His first step is to say like Jesus is really awesome. You should worship Jesus because he's way better than you think he is and you're acting like he is. And he begins by saying this that the father has delivered us from the domain of darkness. So this is what we have to recognize at first is that before Jesus we were in the domain of darkness. Darkness is likely a just personified metaphor for Satan because he compares it to the kingdom of his beloved son. So before Jesus saves us, before we're redeemed and brought into the kingdom of God, we are in the kingdom of darkness. We're participants in sin and in the domain of Satan. We're under his authority until Jesus redeems us and then he transfers us.

19:13So we get traded to a different team. So we were on team Satan. Now we're on team Jesus when he saves us. And so we're following him in his authority then after he has brought us into his kingdom. In whom we have redemption says in Jesus we have redemption the forgiveness of sins. Redemption language is like set free from slavery. So we were slaves to sin and that sin which is important to note here why Paul immediately goes to the forgiveness of sins is because the slavery that we are under was a slavery to sin. And that's how Satan has power and authority over us is in our sin. Apart from our sin, he doesn't have power and authority over us. That's how he works in our lives. And so by redeeming us, giving us forgiveness, breaking the power of sin that it holds over us in Christ, we are now set free.

20:13And so we are now no longer under that authority of darkness and living in that kingdom. We're living in the kingdom of Jesus. Satan has no power over us when we are believing in Jesus for our salvation and we are walking in the way of Jesus. And we're doing what he tells us to do. His power over us is sin. Okay, so that's the key framework now. Paul is going to get into this glorified picture of Jesus. He, Jesus, is the image of the invisible God, he says. This means Jesus is the true representation and revelation of God. He's going to expound on this more in verse 19 which we'll come to but I'm going to say it now where he says that Jesus is that the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in him. That Jesus is God in flesh. Okay, he's not just the image of God like an idol is. He's not even just like made in the image of God like we humans are. Jesus is the image of God. He is God in flesh.

21:18He is the full representation of God because the fullness of God was in Jesus and is in Jesus. Jesus is fully God and fully man. And he says he is the first born overall creation. His language of first born and implies preeminence. It implies authority in this context. For he's explaining this idea now by him. I like the N.F.E. translation of this in him. It leaves it more vague and more broad and he's going to explain what he means in him at the end of verse 16 here. He says for by him all things were created. Now he's as if all things isn't enough. He's he's writing to make sure that you can't misunderstand him. Okay, again, the collusion heresy had a lot to do with like angel worship and they were mystical and they're seeking these spiritual crazy experiences. Paul's not messing around. You can't miss what I'm saying here. All things were created by Jesus.

22:22Things in heaven, heavenly things were created by him and earthly things. So the spiritual beings were created by him. All of heaven, the stars, the galaxies, all that stuff, the ancients thought of those as like spiritual beings as well. All of them were created by God. Visible and invisible. The spiritual, the physical. You can't misunderstand him here. That God created everything in Jesus. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. So these are from Deuteronomy 32, that idea. These are the rulers of the nations and the evil spiritual forces at work behind them. They were all created by Jesus. All things were created through him. So now he's explaining what it means that everything is in him, that they were created at the beginning of verse 16. All things were created through him, meaning Jesus is the agent of creation. He created all these things.

23:28And everything was created for him. This means the purpose. This is an implying purpose. That all of creation has a purpose. And it is to glorify Jesus. It is to glorify God. This means that he's going to say in a minute that Jesus is reconciling all things in heaven and on earth to himself. This means that all things then will glorify him in the end. Worship of him is the purpose that we were made for. That all of creation exists for is to worship and glorify Jesus. And he is before all things. And in him, all things hold together. So he's preeminent over all things. He temporally existed before all things because he is eternally existent with the Father. And he is the sustainer of all things. He's a very glorified picture of Jesus as you're seeing.

24:30And he is the head of the body, meaning he is an authority over the church. He is the beginning, the first born from the dead. He is the first one to rise from the dead, meaning that he has life in himself. So death has no hold on him. We're going to talk about this next week at Easter. That in everything, he might be preeminent. This is the idea that Paul is driving, the preeminent of Christ, that he is high and exalted, that he is lifted up. So why are you worshiping angels? Why are you worshiping all this other stuff? Why are you thinking that Jesus is on par with angels? It's not even close. He created them. So even the good spiritual beings, Jesus created them, the bad ones. Jesus created them too. And he is an authority over them. So these spiritual experiences that you guys are looking for and you're seeking after and thinking that this is like an experience of God, like, no, Jesus is better. Jesus is better. For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. We already talked about this. Jesus is fully God, fully man. And through him, to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

25:39Because of the cross, we're going to remember next week, and on good Friday, Jesus is reconciling all things to himself. The purpose of all creations to glorify him, now he's bringing everything back into that purpose of worshiping him and glorifying him. In the spiritual realm and in the physical realm. And he's doing this by his bloodshed on the cross. So, all right, getting this biblical worldview of this cosmic spiritual battle that's taking place. These spiritual beings, they have rebelled against Yahweh, against God. God has given them authority to rule over the nations and they rebelled against him. These spiritual beings were created by God, that is, they were created by Jesus as the agents of creation, they rebelled against God in his rule. They violated their ultimate purpose by failing to worship and to glorify God, and instead they received worship for themselves.

26:40Now, God through Jesus is reconciling this rebellious creation to himself. He will judge and he will destroy those evil spiritual beings who are irredeemably evil and have rebelled against him. He will judge the humans who have not received his forgiveness and who are following after the prince of the power of the air as Paul says in Ephesians 2. They have remained in the domain of darkness. Conversely, then, he will also rescue and redeem those who are his people who believe in him and receive his forgiveness. He's making all things right. He's bringing the entire cosmos, so the salvation that Christ brought on the cross and in his resurrection and in his ascension, it's not only redemption for the physical realm. It is redemption in the spiritual realm as well. He has been victorious in all things. This victory will be revealed upon Jesus' final return.

27:42But now it is finished. It has been fully accomplished through his blood shed on the cross and his resurrection from the grave. Again, we'll talk about this next week. We're should teaming you guys and coming to get set. Our big idea is super simple. I think this is what Paul is trying to say here. In this topic of the spiritual world and the spiritual realm, we can get lost in it. We can ignore it. That's a mistake. We can get lost in it and obsess over it. That's also a mistake. How do we avoid both extremes? This is where it starts and ends. Jesus is awesome. Jesus is great. Jesus is way better than all of them. He created everything and so just put your eyes on Him and worship and exalt and glorify Him. These other things will fall into place for you. This is the point Paul is making. Stop worshipping and obsessing over angels. He's telling the Colossians church, just worship Jesus. He's way better. That's going to be where we start for this campaign. It's just worship Jesus. Get this bigger, glorified picture of Jesus in your head.

28:44If you want to know one of the secrets to life, living the abundant life of Jesus, you're wondering, man, why aren't we talking about how? One of the five steps for me to be a better employee. This is it. This is at the root of all of it. It's just worship Jesus. If you want to be a better human, worship Jesus. It has to start here. Lord, we just thank you that Jesus, you are high and exalted, that you are lifted up, that you are greater, that you are more glorious than anything that we can imagine. You are more glorious than anything in all creation. For you created all of it. You sustain all of it. And Jesus, you are reconciling all of it to yourself. We thank you that we are a part of this great plan, that we are a part of this cosmic universe. And Lord, we can fulfill our purpose and worship and glorify you. So I pray, Lord, that you would just fill us with your Holy Spirit to do so now through song, that we would worship you, that our hearts would be set right towards you, that our worship wouldn't just be in the words that we speak, but it would be in the desires of our heart.

29:53That Lord, you would fill us with this passion for you, this longing to know you, to be with you, to glorify your name. So Lord, humble us, we pray, so that we can worship and exalt you. Give us this bigger vision of yourself, your glory, and your majesty. Then your name Jesus, we pray. Amen. Let's stand, let's worship our great Savior together. If you would like to pray while we're singing, please head back and pray with Michael. Lord, our God, you are God most high, you are the one who was and is and is to come. You are the eternal one, you have life in yourself, you are God Almighty, you are the creator, you are the sustainer of all things.

31:00Lord, thank you for the reality that you are reconciling all things to yourself, that you didn't leave your creation in its rebellion, in its chaos and evil, but Jesus, you, God in flesh, stepped into. This world that was under the authority of the prince of the power of the air, that was under the dominion of Satan, you stepped in and you brought the light of your kingdom into this dark world. You revealed to us who God is, you revealed your power, you revealed your authority over evil and the evil spiritual forces at work in this world. Jesus, therefore, you've been given the name that is above all names, that at the name of Jesus every evil bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

32:11We thank you for your victory, that you have won on the cross and in the resurrection. We thank you Lord, that you have given us your authority, that we can live in peace, that we can be participants in this reconciliation, that you are bringing to your creation, that Lord, we get to delight in knowing you and being with you now and for all eternity. You have redeemed us, you have done it, you have rescued us, you have ransomed us. So Lord, we thank you for your power, for your victory, and so we give you all glory, honor and praise, for only you are worthy of it. Jesus, you are high and lifted up, you are glorious beyond compare, Lord, would you fill us with this passion for you, this desire to worship you, that everything else would fade and compare us into you.

33:17Holy Spirit guide us. It's in your name Jesus, we pray. Amen. You guys can have a seat for a few moments. All right, our big idea is very simple to worship, worship Jesus, worship Jesus, as we begin this campaign and talking about this cosmic battle and Jesus victory over evil spiritual forces, this is what's at the heart of it, is worship. These evil spiritual beings, they're after your worship. They're trying to draw your worship away from Jesus. They deceived the ancient people for centuries into worshiping them as gods. Now in our culture, their deceptions are a little bit more subtle, but just as effective.

34:19They've deceived us, even in the living like they don't exist. If you believe that they exist, it's great, but we live as if they don't exist, because if we knew that they exist and we're living like it, we would pray more. We would fight. We would pray without ceasing as Paul tells us to. We would fight in that realm. We wouldn't fight in the physical realm, and in hating each other and arguing with them on another, and we wouldn't fight so much there, we would fight in the spiritual realm. When we would pray, and we would seek the Lord, and we would worship God, that's how we would fight, is in the spiritual world, and in seeking God. But instead, we're fighting in the physical world, and we're fighting in our own strength, both in the physical and the spiritual world, and that's why we feel so anemic. And that's why we feel so powerless as the church, because we're not tapping into where the real battle is, and it's in the spiritual world. I've done that, deceived us in delivering like they don't exist. They're also have deceived us, and they're not seeing how they work, and they're thinking that it's just an individual battle of me and demons and the devil.

35:34Now, this is a cosmic battle. This is a cosmic battle, and these evil spiritual beings are at work behind the rulers and the authorities governing authorities of our world today. So this is big, guys. This is bigger than just me and you, and that means that Jesus' victory is bigger. We'll come to that in just a moment. Because these demons are totally content for us to worship anything other than God. That's their goal, is to draw our worship away from God, to draw our eyes away from the worship of Jesus. And what they've done mostly in our world, in our culture today, is convince us to worship ourselves. This is probably the biggest idol that I see. And it's really the same as was in the Garden of Eden. Defining good and evil for ourselves is the big temptation there in the Garden.

36:37They've led us to believe that the good life is a life of leisure, and comfort, and self-satisfaction, self-actualization. The good life is all about me, which I talked about this in our last campaign a little bit. There's evil spiritual forces at work convincing you that this is the good life. Instead, what scripture reveals is the good life is a life lived in self-sacrifice. It's a life lived in service to God and others. The good life is a life lived with that purpose, because a life of selfish ambition and seeking after just what satisfies you will only lead you to despair, because it's empty. At the end of the day, you will scratch a bunch of itches. But it'll lead to loneliness, it'll lead to emptiness, and it will lead to despair. It's a life from the devil that our culture has bought her client and sinker.

37:37The truth of God's Word, what he's leading us to, is this life of love, of community, of giving yourself and service to others. And therefore, finding purpose. Giving yourself and service and worship and devotion to God. And so you find worship and you find purpose. You were created for worship. You were created to worship God. And when we worship all these other things as ultimate, they lead us to despair, they lead us to anger, they lead us away from God. And so we don't experience the presence, the peace, the love, the joy of God. And so to begin, we have to reject those lies about the Self. Reject those lies about seeking self-satisfaction and all these other things. Reject the lies of idolatry, reject the lies of putting our worship and our hope in the governing authorities.

38:38Of our nation and in other nations. And we need to set our eyes on Jesus and worship Him. Because the victory that Christ won, that we're going to celebrate next week, is this cosmic victory. Over all the evil spiritual forces, over the governing authorities of this world, over our sin, He has defeated the sin that the devil can conquer. And so we can have peace with God. So as we approach Holy Week, I don't want your eyes to be on evil spiritual forces. I don't want your eyes to be on yourself. Just put your eyes on God. Worship Him more. Expand your picture of Him, get a bigger vision of Jesus. So Paul is doing in this first part of Colossians. He's not picking the arguments again and fighting the battles of following the law and Jewish religious practices.

39:46He's not picking the battles right away of angels and who are they and why we worshiping them. He's just saying like, hey guys, Jesus is way better. There's one thing that I can get across to you that I've been trying to get across to you for years. I hope I'm just praying that the Holy Spirit reveals this and put the lights of fire in your heart and your soul is that Jesus is really awesome. That vision of revelation that John has when he sees Jesus, whatever it takes, get this picture, this glorified vision of Christ in your mind's eye. Do whatever it takes to just imagine Jesus as He is. More as He is, more glorified, more lifted high, more exalted. This is one of those core foundational practices and issues of your life that if you get this, it will fix a lot of stuff in your day to day. I promise you, if you learn to worship Jesus, you have to learn to worship. There's this cosmic battle for the health of your soul that's calling you and driving you to worship other things, but you will only be satisfied when you worship Jesus.

40:52And when ultimately you put your worship in Him. So to know what you worship the most, think about what you talk about most easily. Think about what you're most excited to share about. What you're eager to share with other people. That's probably what you worship the most. What you spend your free time thinking about. What you devote yourself to. What you're passionate about. What you long for. Think about those things and you'll come to what you worship at the heart and the core of who you are. Is it God? Is it Jesus? If it's not, I would challenge you. We all have idols that we're working through, but I would challenge you. Jesus has to be the ultimate. If it's not, you will be unsatisfied and you're fighting this spiritual battle and you're allowing Satan and his demons to put other idols in your heart. And you're holding onto them. Worship Jesus. Worship Jesus. And all those other idols will start to fade.

41:52All those other things, they'll start to look weak and pathetic and sad. And Jesus will look more glorified. Jesus will look more awesome. And you'll begin to desire Him more. And it's this kind of cyclical process. You'll begin to worship Him more deeply. You'll desire Him more. You'll experience Him more. And then you'll worship Him more. And it just kind of keeps going and going and going. Because Jesus is awesome. Even in these few verses, the Apostle Paul says that Jesus is the fullest revelation of God because he has the fullness of God dwelling in him. He is God in human form. He's the preeminent one. He's exalted above all other spiritual beings. He's all powerful. He's the creator of everything. He's the agent of creation. Everything finds its purpose in Him. He's bringing peace to all of creation. When we look out at the world and we're so frustrated and we're at a loss of like, what do we do? How do we do this? Jesus.

42:52Set your eyes on Jesus. He's our hope. Then when He returns, He will fully bring peace to all things. And so, yeah, you can have peace even as there's war going on in all different places of the world. Even as we're stressed about the economy and the markets and all this is freaking us out. You can actually have real peace. Why? Because Jesus has conquered it all. And we're just waiting for Him returner for that conquering that victory to be fully revealed and recognized. You can actually have peace in this world. You can live with purpose because your purpose is to worship glorify Him and to exalt Him. So no matter what's going on in your life, you can live with purpose and meaning. You live in a world that's finding purpose in themselves. People are trying to find purpose in themselves and it's empty, it's hollow, it's vacant. Your purpose isn't worshiping God. And when you begin to do that more, you'll find more peace.

43:56So if this is who Jesus is, why would you give your ultimate adoration to anything lesser? Why would you give your ultimate adoration to a created being, a created thing? It's foolish, it's silly. And we know it. But our hearts are just drawn towards it. And we're in this cosmic battle for it. So to win this cosmic battle, the victory is not in yourself. You don't have the strength to win it. The victory is in Jesus. He's wanted for you. So begin by worshiping Him, begin by having this exalted, glorified vision of Him. None of us have a vision in our minds eye, in our heart and our soul of Jesus that is actually as He is. The Apostle John who wrote the book of Revelation, even though he walked with Jesus and he knew Jesus.

45:03When he saw the glorified Jesus, he fell on his face as if he was dead. Get that. This guy saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. He saw some pretty crazy stuff. He saw Jesus die and then he was alive again in three days. He saw Jesus heal people left and right. He saw some amazing things. When he sees the glorified Jesus, he's like, oh, he falls on his face as though he's dead in fear of Him. You don't have a big enough picture of Jesus. So keep expanding that vision of Jesus and worship Him more and more and more. Make that your life's goal. And the idols will begin to fade. He'll reveal them and they will fade and you'll desire them less and less. If you want to know the secret to winning this battle, I think this is a big part of it. Glorify Jesus more, worship Him more, exalt Him, lift Him up more.

46:06Lord, I just pray that by your Holy Spirit, you will just give us this bigger picture of Jesus. Lord, we confess we repent of all the idols of our heart that our heart loves to wander towards these other things that we think will satisfy us. These other people who we think can meet our needs and what we desire, what we long for. It's only in you that we find our satisfaction. Lord, it's only in you that we put our hope. It's in you that we find our peace. So Lord, forgive us of our idolatry. Forgive us, Lord, of our misplaced worship.

47:06And Jesus, we just declare now that we want to know you, that we want you to sit and throne in our life. And we want you to be the one we are pursuing the most, the one that we love the most. And so Lord, we just make it our aim to seek after you, to see you more and more as you really are. Show us your glory, we pray, that we would be filled with the heart of worship. Thank you for your victory. Thank you for your status that you are God. There is none before you. There is none besides you. There is no spiritual being who can hold a candle to you. You are victorious. You are king. And so we trust you, that you have won this battle on our behalf.

48:07And we cling to you to fight for us, for our victory. We just declare your victory now. And we want to worship you more and more as you are, as your people. It's in your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen. Forgot our next steps for this week. Number one is to just know Jesus as the exalted Christ. Read a lot of scripture. For as as you go through the devotional this week that you will see Jesus high and lifted up. And then make time to worship Jesus this week. This is an intentional thing that you do. Carve out time. Make time. Make time for this. Okay, if you don't have time now, make time. Put it in your schedule. Block it out. This is an appointment you are not missing. Get alone with God, worship Jesus, and just get to know Him more. I'm going to pray one more blessing on the behalf of you.

49:08Lord, God bless us as we go forth from here. Fill us with your Holy Spirit to know you more deeply, to exalt you, to worship you. Convict us of our idolatry, Lord, that we can repent and know you more closely. Thank you for your love and your victory and your presence among us. To Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Thank you for being with us today. If you would like to pray, please pray with Michael and Kathleen in the back. If not, go and just worship Jesus as our victorious Christ.