Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Colossians 1:15-22. The main subject of the sermon is how Christ is gloriously revealed to the world by God.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Colossians 1:15-22. The main subject of the sermon is how Christ is gloriously revealed to the world by God.
– SERMON TRANSCRIPT –
Well, this is a number of days before Christmas. This is, for those of you that are wondering, this is the last Sunday before Christmas. I think when you’re close, it’s a day or so away like, “Oh, I get it.” But we are celebrating the incarnation of Christ today and, on Friday, many of you’re going to gather with your families and celebrate the gift of Jesus and that’s an exciting time. There’s nothing really like the thrill, especially when you’re growing up when you’re a kid, the thrill of a mystery gift, something that’s waiting under the tree with your name on it, especially if it’s unusually large or if it’s a strange shape that you don’t recognize, those things that are really difficult to wrap. You know what I’m talking about. If it’s got one of those shiny red bows on it, you can’t wait to tear off the wrapping paper, find out what’s in there. I think the excitement of opening gifts maximizes or peaks when you’re somewhere between the age of five and 12, somewhere in there, it peaks out. When you remember last year and you’re old enough to get that sense of years passing and you start to anticipate what it’s going to be like to see what’s waiting for you. The thrill of tearing off that wrapping paper. You’re old enough to remember and to anticipate the magic, but you’re not yet so old, so that you’re too cool for the whole thing. You’re not so old yet that you are the ones responsible for putting the whole thing on. And you’re not even so old yet where all you really want on Christmas Eve is a good night’s sleep. I mean, you’re right in that sweet spot where you’re just excited.
Now, one of the problems that people have when it comes to Christmas gifts is achieving surprise. That’s hard to do. A pleasing surprise, in particular. I think you can certainly achieve an unpleasant surprise. But to achieve a pleasing surprise, something the person really wants, really needs, and didn’t see coming, now that’s hard to do, but that’s one of the delights of Christmas. It’s hard for parents that are seeking to achieve surprise, to find good hiding places for the gifts. Under the bed, up in the upper part of the closet. Where do you put it, where the kids aren’t going to find it? Kids are amazing detectives and they’re amazing snoops, and they can find out wherever you’ve hidden the gifts.
Now, when I was growing up, my parents were really shrewd. They did all their shopping relatively early and they stacked up their gifts and they told us exactly where the gifts were hiding. “They’re in our bedroom closet, they’re on the right-hand shelf, on the upper area. If you want to know what we got you, go look, we’re not going to stop you. But if you want a surprise on Christmas, then don’t go in our closet.” It was like a little bit of reverse psychology. It was 100% effective. We never snooped. That was something I might suggest to all of you that want surprise.
Now, this morning I have the privilege, and this is the image that’s in my mind, of preaching to you the glories of the incarnation, as if I were unwrapping a mystery gift, as if to some degree, Christ is a mystery that needs to be revealed to each one of you. I have the privilege every week throughout the year of preaching for your faith, to feed your faith, that you would have the eyes of your heart illumined to see the glories of Christ year round, not just Christmas time, but this is my great privilege and my delight that I believe that our salvation is a work in progress, that it’s dynamic and that our faith needs to be fed the Word of God. I think about this every week, what Jesus said to Peter, “Feed my sheep, feed my sheep.” I get to do that. I get to feed you the Word of God. But especially at Christmas time, we get to zero in on the mystery of the incarnation and to think of Christ as a gift, as a mystery gift that is in some way wrapped and needs to be revealed to us, to be unveiled for us. And I believe that unwrapping of Christ or that revelation of Christ will be progressive for all eternity. This is not a view that I’ve always had, but when it came to the realization that we would never be omniscient, what that meant would be that we would always be able to learn more of Christ. There’s always more to see of him.
And If you look at Colossians 2, which is beyond what was read for, so if you look at Colossians 2:2-3, this is the text that started my thinking this year for this Christmas message. They’re picking up in the middle of verse Colossians 2:2, Paul’s talking about his ministry of preaching and teaching. He says that, “They may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” That’s an explosive concept, especially the word all, all wisdom, all knowledge hidden in Christ. Colossians 2:3, that’s a staggering concept. In my meditations on heaven that have been growing and developing over the last five years, it’s become clear to me that we will never finish searching out the unsearchable riches of Christ. We’re not going to get to a point in heaven when we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, where we reach an end and we’ve learned all there is to know about Christ. We’re going to continue to learn of him.
So, picture then Christ as somewhat of a gift that you unwrap to a pleasing level and then find that there’s more to unwrap. Have you ever gotten a gift like that where you unwrap this big box and there’s another wrap gift inside it? That happened at our staff Christmas party this past week, and I find that a little frustrating, but some people say, “Oh, that’s so exciting.” But you wrap and then there’s another gift and you unwrap that. Or like, perhaps you’ve seen before one of those wooden dolls, like from Russia, where you open it up and there’s another doll just like that, a little smaller, inside, and you pull that one out. It’s called the Matryoshka dolls, like a “little matron” is what the Russian means. So, you just gets smaller and smaller. You pull it out and then open it up and there’s another one inside. I looked it up, the record for that kind of doll is 51, 51 dolls within dolls, within dolls. The biggest one was just shy of 22 inches tall, like this, two feet, all the way down to an eighth of an inch, little baby at the end is an eighth of an inch, barely can see it. But that’s one after the other as you open it up. But in that case, the engineering of that thing is that those things get smaller and smaller as you open them up. I think the exact opposite happens with Christ. He gets greater and greater, more and more majestic. The dimensions just keep expanding actually. As you open Christ up, he’s greater than you thought he was. So, it says in Psalm 34:3, “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.” I’ve meditated on that verse on and off over a number of years. It’s a good corporate worship verse. As we get together, as Wes and his team lead us, “O magnify the Lord with me.” The best thing that Wes can do is to magnify the Lord. What does that mean? The word magnify means to make greater, to make greater, but that is something we cannot do. Christ is already infinitely great beyond all dimensions. We cannot make him any greater than he is. When we think about a magnifying glass, it just makes something appear to be greater to our eye. Usually we use a magnifying glass for something really small to make it bigger. I think a better image might be of a telescope, which takes something very distant, like the rings of Saturn, very far away, appears like a dot in the sky. And then, with a powerful telescope, it magnifies it to the naked eye, so you can see the dimensions and details of Saturn and its rings. You’ve not done anything to Saturn, but you’ve made it bigger to yourself.
And because of our sins, we are distant from God and he appears small, naturally small to us, apart from the saving work of God, in our hearts, God will appear small, almost insignificant, same with Christ. But through the ministry of the Word, we can magnify the Lord and make him greater to us, make him appear to be greater. If I can have the blessing of the Spirit this morning and the gifting of the Spirit to do that for you, then I will have achieved my goal. If you walk out this morning thinking greater thoughts of Christ and of his incarnation than when you walked in, then I will have done what preaching is supposed to do.
I think about heavenly worship where the angels in Revelation 7:11-12, “All of the angels fell on their faces before the throne and worship God saying, ‘Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.'” Now, the angels knew they weren’t bringing anything to the throne. They weren’t bringing wisdom to the throne. They weren’t bringing and depositing power to the throne. They knew that all wisdom is at the throne already. All power is already there. But they’re ascribing these magnificent attributes to the throne of God and of Christ. That’s heavenly worship.
So, this morning we get to unwrap Christ. We get to look at how Christ has been concealed in the past, how he has been revealed so far, and how he will be revealed for all eternity in heaven. Those are the three parts of my sermon. First, let’s consider the context to these Colossian Christians. The Colossian church was fighting for its life doctrinally. They were under assault from a false doctrine, false gospel, a bizarre mixture, a poisonous concoction of Judaism, of Christian theology, of human philosophy, of mysticism and aestheticism. All of those things were mixed together and were drawing them off of a sincere and pure devotion to Christ by right doctrine. So, they were drinking this and this poisonous mixture was hurting them. And central to the poison that Satan was feeding them was a false concept of salvation as a progressive ascent through higher and higher circles of wisdom or knowledge by means of personal aestheticism. So, they had that basic idea that many did in that part of the world, that the body is essentially evil, spirit is good. So, if you denied yourself through harsh treatment of the body, you fasted, you hurt to some degree your physical body and you denied food and earthly pleasures, then the higher beings, angels, would reveal secrets to you about the universe and you would become gradually wiser and wiser and descend to the heavenly plain, like they are. This is one of those so-called mystery religions that were all the rage back then. There were lots of these mystery religions. They were tied to pagan rituals in Egypt and Persia. Zoroastrianism has a lot of this stuff. It’s all mixed in. And then some of the wisdom of the human philosophy from Greece was coming in there and affecting their worldview. The combination implied some kind of ascent through these locked doors. You come in, coming up and you’re at a locked door and you’re knocking on that locked door. And then if you were pious enough, if you were aesthetic enough, one of these supernatural beings would hand you a key and you would get through that locked door and you’d get ever higher and higher. So, central to their required piety was a denial of the bodily drives, harsh treatment of the body, like eating, drinking, sensual pleasures, aestheticism.
So, Paul sweeps all of that away by proclaiming the truth of the gospel in Christ. The gospel is the remedy to all false doctrine. And so, he proclaims the incarnation of the eternal Son of God. That would be all the mystery they would ever need. It would be all the mystery they could ever handle. The incarnation of God and the gift of righteousness through simple faith in Christ, repentance of your sins and faith in Christ, the gifts of full righteousness instantaneously given to you, imputed to you, through faith in Christ, would be all the righteousness you would ever need. And the progressive growth in holiness through the ministry of the Word, the faithful teaching of the Word, resulting in growing in Christ-likeness and holiness as he describes the Christian life beautifully in Colossians 3, what that life would look like, a life of personal holiness, yes, not of harsh treatment of the body, but of a right understanding of the physical gifts and those things and of growth and holiness and conformity to Christ. That would be all the ascending growth into spirituality they would ever need. And above this, above all of this, the wisdom and knowledge wrapped up in Christ was all the wisdom and knowledge in the universe. Everything that could be known, Christ knows. Think about that. It’s mind blowing. Think about all of the experts and the PhDs and the skillful students on planet earth. Everything they know, Christ knows. Staggering. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Be all the wisdom you could ever want wrapped up in Christ. To discover him, to have Christ as a gift unwrapped and revealed progressively more and more, that was the goal of worship and the goal of Christian ministry and then in heaven, the focus in heaven.
“Think about all of the experts and the PhDs and the skillful students on planet earth. Everything they know, Christ knows. Staggering. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Now, central to all of this, and central to our celebration this morning and this week, is the incarnation, the person of Christ. So, he zeros in on what theologians call Christology, the study of the person of Christ. He does that, especially in Colossians 1:15-20, which you just read a moment ago, some of the richest, fullest, deepest words ever written on the mysteries of the person of Christ, the incarnation. So, this is the infinite gift that God gave to the human race 2000 years ago, and we get to unwrap some of that this morning. And that’s marvelous, isn’t it?
I. Christ Concealed
Let’s begin with Christ concealed. Christ concealed. Christ is concealed, first and foremost, above all, by his infinite majesty. Fundamentally, Christ is hidden in some sense from us creatures, because he is an infinite being and we are finite. All of us are finite. So, we cannot take all of his infinitude in, even the holy angels who have never sinned, who are perfectly pure, cannot take all of Christ in all at once. And so we have Isaiah 6, this vision that Isaiah had where he says, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and exalted and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings, and with two wings, they were covering their faces, and with two wings, they were covering their feet, and with two wings, they were flying and they were crying to one another, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory.'” Ponder why these burning ones, these seraphim were covering their faces before the enthroned Lord? John, the gospel of John tells us that Isaiah saw Jesus’s glory and wrote about him. That’s Christ, the pre-incarnate Christ and the angels are covering their faces. So, he’s hidden from them in some sense, because he’s infinitely glorious and they can’t take it all in all at once. This is the infinite majesty of the person of Christ. When he became incarnate by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was God in the flesh.
And so, look down at Colossians 2:9, there it says, “For in Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form.” Here he’s setting aside the false doctrine, body is evil/spirit is good. It’s just not true. Jesus is God in a body, God in a physical, that’s what incarnation means. The enfleshment of God, he takes on a human body and all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form. This is the infinite mystery of the incarnation, the fullness of God, all that God is, all of his attributes in bodily form. And so it says in Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God,” the image of the invisible God. Now, in the fourth century, some theologians were wrangling over the person of Christ. They’re wrangling over theology. And there was a strong heresy that was coming along called Arianism, which taught that Christ is the first and greatest creature or created being that the Father made. There was a time that he didn’t exist. And God raised up a number of theologians, but especially Athanasius, who came along to battle against this false doctrine. What we know that the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Kingdom Hall teaches now, same heresy. Athanasius came along and he had an image in his mind of the infinite dimensions of the person of Christ. Well, this is a man that had spent most of his life meditating on the incarnation. And I took that image, it’s a little complex, and I simplified it based on experience I had once of seeing Pacific Coast 1, Highway 1 along one of those rocky coastlines. You ever seen those in Northern California, right near the Redwood Forest? It’s just spectacular there. Japan has similar rocky coastlines overlooking the Pacific Ocean, very dramatic. But picture this in your mind; the image comes from Athanasius. It’s like we’re sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean as it pounds the coastline as far as the eye can see. From our lofty perch, we can see a mile to the left and a mile to the right. Everywhere we look, wave upon wave of surf is rolling in and crashing with great plumes of spray on the beach below. We cannot begin to comprehend a single wave completely. Even if we did, there are countless more waves crashing in along the shoreline, a mile up coast and a mile down the coast from where we’re sitting and we know it. And the ocean itself stretches as far as the eye can see, to the curvature of the earth, generating yet more waves that are going to pound the coastline in another five minutes or 10 minutes. That’s the image that you have. You’re never done contemplating the infinite majesty of the incarnate Christ. He’s infinitely glorious. And so, he is concealed in his infinite majesty.
He also was concealed in the Old Testament age. He was concealed in the era of the Old Testament, the Trinity, the doctrine of one God and three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit was never carefully, clearly expounded in the Old Testament. There are clues, there are hints, but it wasn’t clearly taught. Monotheism, that there is one God and only one God, there is no other God but the one God was clearly taught. Deuteronomy 6, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Isaiah is very clear on this in 10 chapters, in Isaiah 40-49, “Before me, no God was formed, nor will there be one after me.” Monotheism. But the idea that the God, the one God has eternally existed in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit was concealed, it was hidden. Jesus himself, Christ himself, and his mission planned out before the foundation of the world completely in the mind of the triune God. Christ and his mission was concealed in the mind of the Father in the Old Testament. Isaiah 49:2, Christ is speaking by the Spirit through the prophet Isaiah. So you hear Jesus say this in Isaiah 49:2, speaking of his own Father, speaking of God the Father, “He made my mouth like a sharpened sword in the shadow of his hand, he hid me. He concealed me in his quiver like a polished arrow.” So there’s this hiding, this concealing of Jesus in the Old Testament age. And so, if you look at Colossians 1:26-27, it speaks there of the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. There’s that hiddenness, that hiding of Christ. “To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” So, that’s Christ concealed.
II. Christ Partially Revealed
Second in our outline, Christ partially revealed. Christ is revealed in the incarnation with Gabriel’s first announcement to Mary, Luke 1:31-35, “The angel Gabriel came to Mary and said these words, ‘You will be with child and give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end.’ ‘How will this be?’ Mary asked the angel, ‘Since I am a virgin.’ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.'” Now, all of the ingredients of the mystery of the incarnation are in that announcement, Son of David, Son of God, fully man, fully God. And then at the time of his birth, the angel spoke these words to the shepherds in Luke 2:10 following it says, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today, in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You’ll find a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger.” So here’s this baby wrapped in cloth, helpless, needing to be cared for, but he’s called Christ the Lord. The word Lord means God. And then this great company of angels appears in worships and celebrates, and the author to Hebrews tells us what’s going on there. When God brings his Firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.” So, they’re worshiping Jesus when he was brought into the world, this is the mystery of the incarnation, fully God, a baby wrapped and laid in a manger, fully God, fully man.
Then, at the baptism, Jesus, as Jesus is being revealed to Israel, and he goes to where John the Baptist is baptizing people and he himself is baptized. As he comes up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And voice came from heaven saying, “You are my Son. With you I am well pleased.” A picture of the trinity there at the baptism of Jesus, again, as John said in John 1, John the Baptist said, “The reason I came baptizing is that he might be revealed to Israel. I have seen and I testify that he is the Son of God.” Partial revelation.
And then, as Jesus began his public ministry, his deity was unwrapped little by little as he did these great signs and wonders, one after the other. For example, as he begins preaching in the synagogue in his hometown in Capernaum, this account in Mark 1:23-27, “Just then a man in their synagogue who is possessed by an evil spirit cried out, ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. The Holy one of God.’ ‘Be quiet,’ said Jesus sternly, ‘Come out of him.’ The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were also amazed that they asked each other, ‘What is this? A new teaching and with authority, he even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.'” This is spectacular power, a display of effortless power over demons. They were terrified of him. Then his power to heal people, all manners of sickness and diseases are brought to him, and he handled all of them easily. So much so that huge crowds were gathered and following him everywhere, and people couldn’t get to him for healing. So, when Jesus heals the paralyzed man, he does it as a sign that he had the power on earth to forgive sin, something only God could do. So, little by little Jesus’s deity is being unwrapped. It’s being unveiled.
And then his power over the weather, think about this, when Jesus was asleep in the boat, in Mark 4, “A furious squall came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped.” Picture it, the boat is filling with water and Jesus is peacefully asleep in the back. Then his disciples woke him and said, I don’t know what tone they used, but I don’t think it was like this, but I’ll just preach it like this, “Teacher, don’t you care if we’re drowning?” I think they probably screamed it. They were terrified. “Jesus got up and spoke to the wind and the waves and said, ‘Peace, be still.’ And immediately the wind died down. It was completely quiet. Then Jesus spoke to them, said, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’ They asked one another, ‘Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him.’” Well, I know who he is. He’s God in the flesh. That probably is one of his most spectacular miracles ever. What would’ve been like for you to be in the boat and see that kind of power?
And he had power over death. It didn’t matter that Lazarus had been dead for days. It wouldn’t matter if it had been dead for four days, four months, four years, four centuries. Jesus has absolute power. He says, “Lazarus, our friend, has fallen asleep, but I’m going to go and wake him.” It was as difficult for him to raise the dead as it would’ve been for us to wake a sleeping person. He had absolute power over all of these things. And now, the incarnation concealed all of that. You couldn’t see the glory that he had with the Father before the foundation of the world, because he just looked like an ordinary man. Jesus said to his enemies, “I’ve shown you many great works from the Father, for which of these are you stoning me.” “We’re not stoning you for any of these, but you, a mere man, make yourself out to be God.” But Jesus took Peter, James and John with him up a high mountain by himself in Matthew 17, it says, “There he was transfigured before them, his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light.” And this was just a little glimpse of radiant glory coming out as he’s unwrapped a little bit before them and they see the glory.
But yet, in all of what Jesus did, nothing glorified him more than his death on the cross. Jesus unveiled his glory as God on the cross in ways that he didn’t do any other way, no other miracles, nothing else revealed Christ’s glory, the glory of the Father, as much as the cross. Right before Jesus was crucified, he prayed to his father in John 17, “He looked toward heaven and prayed. ‘Father, the time has come, glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you, for you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.'” And so, Jesus, in dying on the cross, revealed all of the attributes of God. Every attribute you could ever study is on display in Christ crucified. For example, the power of God is on display in that in a single day, he atoned for all the sins of the land, as it says in the Old Testament prophecy. In a single day, he paid for the sins of a multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe, language, people, and nation, from every generation of church history in a single day, atoned for them, he is the power of God.
“Jesus, in dying on the cross, revealed all of the attributes of God. Every attribute you could ever study is on display in Christ crucified.”
He is also, it says in 1 Corinthians, the wisdom of God. It was wise for God to save our souls that way, wise for him to humble us like that. And to point to the cross of a man bleeding and dying and say, “There’s your savior. Believe in him and you will have forgiveness of sins.” It was wise for God to do that. We see the love of God and that he laid down his life for his bride. He laid down his life for his friends. We deserve to die because of our sins. He died in our place. “God demonstrates his love for us in this, while we’re still sinners, Christ died for us.” All of the attributes of God are shining forth, if you know what to look for, even though it’s a supernaturally dark day, you have the radiant glory of God shining from the cross. Then you see it again in his mighty resurrection as He triumphed over the grave for all of us.
So, Christ is revealed. He was revealed in his incarnation, he was unwrapped. But I still say partially, there’s yet more glory to see. And Christ is revealed in the proclamation of the gospel. Look at Colossians 1:27-28, “God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Verse 28, “We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we might present everyone perfect in Christ.” so, just by words, by proclamation. Now, it would be infinitely better for all of us to have the privilege that Paul had of being caught up to paradise, whether in the body or out of the body, we don’t know, and see God enthroned with our own eyes, that would be better. But now what do we get? We see through a glass darkly, then face to face. Now, we know in part, then we will know fully. So, we get acts of Jesus and we get nouns and verbs and preaching and Bible studies. That’s what we get now. Yet, through the proclaiming of the gospel, Christ is unveiled. He’s revealed.
And so, that’s what happened when Epaphras came and preached the gospel to the Colossians, when they heard the simple gospel, the milk of the gospel, and they believed, that’s what happened. Now, Paul’s expanding their knowledge. He’s writing the epistle of the Colossians and he gives them more theology. He said, “You are underestimating Jesus. Let me tell you more who he is.” And so you have the words that you heard and did read earlier, look again, Colossians 1:15-20, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him. 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 and the first born from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness well in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.” Now, these are some of the most astounding words you’ll ever see written about Jesus. Each one of them is explosive and powerful. He claims that He is the physical image of the invisible spiritual God, so that if you had been alive at that time, like when one of his disciples said, “Show us the Father.” And He said, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I’ve been with you all this time? If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” He is the image of the invisible God. And he says, “By him, all things were made.” That’s staggering, by Jesus all things were made. The author of Hebrews says the same thing. Hebrews 1:10. It says, “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands.” That’s amazing. Jesus laid the foundations of planet earth. Now, modern science has taught us something called plate tectonics. You’re like, “Pastor, you’re one of the few pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention they’re going to mention plate tectonics in your Christmas sermon.” But I do mention it, big, huge floating plates, I guess nine of them, they tell us, and these plates kind of bump into each other and grind against each other sometimes and create earthquakes and all of that. The biggest is the Asian plate, 40 million square miles. Jesus made it. 40 million square miles. Yep. Jesus made it. He laid the foundations of the earth.
Don’t you wish you could go back when those Pharisees and Sadducees were arguing with him, it’s like, “Wait, wait. Do you know who you’re talking to?” He laid the foundations of the earth that you’re walking on, this ground. It says in Psalm 104:5, “He set the earth on its foundations. It can never be moved.” This has been the foundation of human history. Everything ever built by humans has been on this foundation, and Jesus laid it. Now, I’ve tended to think of the Father as creating everything. And so, I think he did, but I think he did it through the son. It’s like he speaks and Jesus is the word he speaks. In some sense, Jesus also, we could say, created all things. Not only that, he created the stars, all things. Hebrews 1:10, “In the beginning, O Lord, you lay the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands.” So, next chance you get to go out and look at the night sky, if there’s not light pollution around where you live, and you can actually see the stars so distant, twinkling, cold and blue and beautiful. Jesus made them.
And not only that, the scripture tells us that he sustains all things by his powerful word. He upholds everything. God the Father, Christ the Son, the Spirit created a needy universe. They need the triune God to keep them going. He upholds or sustains everything by his powerful word. Verse 16, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, where thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things created for him by him and for him.” so, angels, demons, everything. He’s the Creator and Ruler of all things. I love what it says that they’re created not just by him, but for him. Oh, Christian, meditate on this: You are not made for yourself. We are so selfish. You are made by him, meaning Christ, and for him, for his pleasure, for his delight. And you’re going to find your greatest freedom and pleasure in meditating on that and living, going to Christ and saying, “I am yours. You made me. I live for you. What do you want from me? How can I please you and glorify you?” And he sustains everything moment by moment, by his powerful word.
And so, Christ is revealed in the proclamation of the gospel like it’s happening right now. But Christ is also revealed in the miracle of conversion, because all of us, apart from Christ, are dead in our transgressions and sins and blind to these things. We’re like the Jews of Paul’s day when he says that whenever Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, “Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.” But at conversion, the Holy Spirit takes that veil away, and suddenly Christ is revealed to you. “And God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6. That’s the moment of conversion. That’s the moment you’re born again, and you see the glory of God in Christ for the first time. So, Christ is partially revealed in all of this. He’s been partially revealed to you in your hearts by faith, but there’s more to come. Isn’t that exciting? I mean, there’s a lot more to come.
III. Christ Eternally Revealed
And so, Christ will be eternally revealed. He’s infinitely glorious. As it says in Colossians 2:3, “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” Christ is going to be unwrapped and revealed and dimensions and details of his glory are going to be revealed to us for all eternity in heaven. And that’s going to be thrilling, not static, but dynamic. For all eternity, we’re going to see more and more of Christ. And we’re going to see how wisely he acted in history, how wisely he worked to save the elect in every generation, what he did in each and every case to win them over.
Wasn’t it marvelous to hear Molly’s testimony? It’s just beautiful. I don’t take it for granted ever, that a child that’s raised in a Christian family comes to a genuine faith in Christ. Amen? It is the normative way. The most common way by which God’s elect are converted is in healthy Christian families, fathers and mothers pouring the gospel into their kids all over the world. Missionaries go to just fire starters so that one generation later that’s up and running in that country, in that tribe or language or people or nation. And that’s marvelous and exciting. But when we get to heaven, we get to look back and see how he did it, what he did, how he providentially arranged things in your life, where you were born, how you were raised, what he did, who he brought into your life and when, and what words he used to save you. And you’ll be so expanded; you’ll be so over you by then. You’ll be over yourself. It won’t be all about you. You’ll be like, “Not just how did he save me, but how did he save him or her? That person over there.” And you will care what God did to save someone you never met 487 years before you were born. And you are going to be excited at the display of God’s wisdom and power through Christ in saving each person. And to see how Christ controlled wicked governments, unbelieving kings, and orchestrated their decision so that the gospel could spread to the ends of the earth. And how the one enthroned in heaven laughed at their rebellion and their opposition, and how he used their schemes and their plots to actually further the gospel. We’re going to get to celebrate those kinds of things.
And we who have developed a certain level of expertise in an area of study, maybe in software or pharmaceutical research, medical research, physics, mathematics, banking, business, you’re going to find Jesus knows more than you when you get to heaven in that area, “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” I blew the mind of a Japanese person I was talking to as I was fumbling my way through the Japanese language. Never really did that great. I was growing, getting better, but at any rate. I said, “You know, Jesus knows Japanese better than any Japanese that’s ever lived.” That was such a shock to that person. But it’s true; Jesus knows the Japanese language better than any Japanese person. “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” It’s mind blowing. When we get to heaven, Christ will be forever unveiled, forever revealed to our joy and delight.
IV. Applications
What applications can we take? Well, this Christmas come with hearts expecting to learn more of Christ. Can I just say, you parents gather your kids around sometime on Christmas Day and read to them some miracle stories of Jesus, not just the birth narrative, read some of the accounts of the great works of Jesus, some of his teaching, some of the sermon in the mount. They said of Jesus, “No man ever spoke like this man,” read some of his teachings. Feed Christ to your kids. Guess what? You’ll be feeding Christ to yourself, too. That’s the great joy. Realize the sweetest, richest meditation you can have in this world is Christ.
Do you realize? I know you do, but I’ll say it again, everything we interact with our five senses is temporary. The things that are seen are temporary. So, everything you will unwrap on Friday will very soon break or be lost, or no longer bring you any joy. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Even some of them will have a life cycle, and they’ll do pretty well for a while. You’ll get some clothes, some sweaters, some other things, that’ll be spectacular on you, and you’ll look really good. But then they’ll wear out. All of those things wear out. The real gift on Christmas Day will be sitting quietly off to the side, somewhat neglected. Don’t let him be neglected. Make him front and center. Unwrap him, meditate on him. Remind yourself that you’re temporary in this world. You’re just passing through and Christ is your eternal treasure and your joy and delight.
And if you have not yet come to Christ, if you have never believed in him, never trusted in him, Christ came to save sinners like you and me. It’s not hard. It’s simple. Just admit that you are a sinner. Admit that you need a savior, and that God is the only savior for the world. Christ is God’s savior for the world. Trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins. Close with me now in prayer.
Lord, thank you for the chance we’ve had to do a little more meditation on the person of Christ. He is a joy and delight to each one of us. Thank you. And Lord, I pray that you would take these feeble, ineffective words and allow them, however much they are based on Scripture, to transcend the limitations and to move our hearts to joy and to peace and to power in Christ. Lord, thank you for the gospel. Thank you for coming to earth and for living for us, dying for us, and rising again for us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Colossians 1:15-22. The main subject of the sermon is how Christ is gloriously revealed to the world by God.
– SERMON TRANSCRIPT –
Well, this is a number of days before Christmas. This is, for those of you that are wondering, this is the last Sunday before Christmas. I think when you’re close, it’s a day or so away like, “Oh, I get it.” But we are celebrating the incarnation of Christ today and, on Friday, many of you’re going to gather with your families and celebrate the gift of Jesus and that’s an exciting time. There’s nothing really like the thrill, especially when you’re growing up when you’re a kid, the thrill of a mystery gift, something that’s waiting under the tree with your name on it, especially if it’s unusually large or if it’s a strange shape that you don’t recognize, those things that are really difficult to wrap. You know what I’m talking about. If it’s got one of those shiny red bows on it, you can’t wait to tear off the wrapping paper, find out what’s in there. I think the excitement of opening gifts maximizes or peaks when you’re somewhere between the age of five and 12, somewhere in there, it peaks out. When you remember last year and you’re old enough to get that sense of years passing and you start to anticipate what it’s going to be like to see what’s waiting for you. The thrill of tearing off that wrapping paper. You’re old enough to remember and to anticipate the magic, but you’re not yet so old, so that you’re too cool for the whole thing. You’re not so old yet that you are the ones responsible for putting the whole thing on. And you’re not even so old yet where all you really want on Christmas Eve is a good night’s sleep. I mean, you’re right in that sweet spot where you’re just excited.
Now, one of the problems that people have when it comes to Christmas gifts is achieving surprise. That’s hard to do. A pleasing surprise, in particular. I think you can certainly achieve an unpleasant surprise. But to achieve a pleasing surprise, something the person really wants, really needs, and didn’t see coming, now that’s hard to do, but that’s one of the delights of Christmas. It’s hard for parents that are seeking to achieve surprise, to find good hiding places for the gifts. Under the bed, up in the upper part of the closet. Where do you put it, where the kids aren’t going to find it? Kids are amazing detectives and they’re amazing snoops, and they can find out wherever you’ve hidden the gifts.
Now, when I was growing up, my parents were really shrewd. They did all their shopping relatively early and they stacked up their gifts and they told us exactly where the gifts were hiding. “They’re in our bedroom closet, they’re on the right-hand shelf, on the upper area. If you want to know what we got you, go look, we’re not going to stop you. But if you want a surprise on Christmas, then don’t go in our closet.” It was like a little bit of reverse psychology. It was 100% effective. We never snooped. That was something I might suggest to all of you that want surprise.
Now, this morning I have the privilege, and this is the image that’s in my mind, of preaching to you the glories of the incarnation, as if I were unwrapping a mystery gift, as if to some degree, Christ is a mystery that needs to be revealed to each one of you. I have the privilege every week throughout the year of preaching for your faith, to feed your faith, that you would have the eyes of your heart illumined to see the glories of Christ year round, not just Christmas time, but this is my great privilege and my delight that I believe that our salvation is a work in progress, that it’s dynamic and that our faith needs to be fed the Word of God. I think about this every week, what Jesus said to Peter, “Feed my sheep, feed my sheep.” I get to do that. I get to feed you the Word of God. But especially at Christmas time, we get to zero in on the mystery of the incarnation and to think of Christ as a gift, as a mystery gift that is in some way wrapped and needs to be revealed to us, to be unveiled for us. And I believe that unwrapping of Christ or that revelation of Christ will be progressive for all eternity. This is not a view that I’ve always had, but when it came to the realization that we would never be omniscient, what that meant would be that we would always be able to learn more of Christ. There’s always more to see of him.
And If you look at Colossians 2, which is beyond what was read for, so if you look at Colossians 2:2-3, this is the text that started my thinking this year for this Christmas message. They’re picking up in the middle of verse Colossians 2:2, Paul’s talking about his ministry of preaching and teaching. He says that, “They may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” That’s an explosive concept, especially the word all, all wisdom, all knowledge hidden in Christ. Colossians 2:3, that’s a staggering concept. In my meditations on heaven that have been growing and developing over the last five years, it’s become clear to me that we will never finish searching out the unsearchable riches of Christ. We’re not going to get to a point in heaven when we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, where we reach an end and we’ve learned all there is to know about Christ. We’re going to continue to learn of him.
So, picture then Christ as somewhat of a gift that you unwrap to a pleasing level and then find that there’s more to unwrap. Have you ever gotten a gift like that where you unwrap this big box and there’s another wrap gift inside it? That happened at our staff Christmas party this past week, and I find that a little frustrating, but some people say, “Oh, that’s so exciting.” But you wrap and then there’s another gift and you unwrap that. Or like, perhaps you’ve seen before one of those wooden dolls, like from Russia, where you open it up and there’s another doll just like that, a little smaller, inside, and you pull that one out. It’s called the Matryoshka dolls, like a “little matron” is what the Russian means. So, you just gets smaller and smaller. You pull it out and then open it up and there’s another one inside. I looked it up, the record for that kind of doll is 51, 51 dolls within dolls, within dolls. The biggest one was just shy of 22 inches tall, like this, two feet, all the way down to an eighth of an inch, little baby at the end is an eighth of an inch, barely can see it. But that’s one after the other as you open it up. But in that case, the engineering of that thing is that those things get smaller and smaller as you open them up. I think the exact opposite happens with Christ. He gets greater and greater, more and more majestic. The dimensions just keep expanding actually. As you open Christ up, he’s greater than you thought he was. So, it says in Psalm 34:3, “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.” I’ve meditated on that verse on and off over a number of years. It’s a good corporate worship verse. As we get together, as Wes and his team lead us, “O magnify the Lord with me.” The best thing that Wes can do is to magnify the Lord. What does that mean? The word magnify means to make greater, to make greater, but that is something we cannot do. Christ is already infinitely great beyond all dimensions. We cannot make him any greater than he is. When we think about a magnifying glass, it just makes something appear to be greater to our eye. Usually we use a magnifying glass for something really small to make it bigger. I think a better image might be of a telescope, which takes something very distant, like the rings of Saturn, very far away, appears like a dot in the sky. And then, with a powerful telescope, it magnifies it to the naked eye, so you can see the dimensions and details of Saturn and its rings. You’ve not done anything to Saturn, but you’ve made it bigger to yourself.
And because of our sins, we are distant from God and he appears small, naturally small to us, apart from the saving work of God, in our hearts, God will appear small, almost insignificant, same with Christ. But through the ministry of the Word, we can magnify the Lord and make him greater to us, make him appear to be greater. If I can have the blessing of the Spirit this morning and the gifting of the Spirit to do that for you, then I will have achieved my goal. If you walk out this morning thinking greater thoughts of Christ and of his incarnation than when you walked in, then I will have done what preaching is supposed to do.
I think about heavenly worship where the angels in Revelation 7:11-12, “All of the angels fell on their faces before the throne and worship God saying, ‘Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.'” Now, the angels knew they weren’t bringing anything to the throne. They weren’t bringing wisdom to the throne. They weren’t bringing and depositing power to the throne. They knew that all wisdom is at the throne already. All power is already there. But they’re ascribing these magnificent attributes to the throne of God and of Christ. That’s heavenly worship.
So, this morning we get to unwrap Christ. We get to look at how Christ has been concealed in the past, how he has been revealed so far, and how he will be revealed for all eternity in heaven. Those are the three parts of my sermon. First, let’s consider the context to these Colossian Christians. The Colossian church was fighting for its life doctrinally. They were under assault from a false doctrine, false gospel, a bizarre mixture, a poisonous concoction of Judaism, of Christian theology, of human philosophy, of mysticism and aestheticism. All of those things were mixed together and were drawing them off of a sincere and pure devotion to Christ by right doctrine. So, they were drinking this and this poisonous mixture was hurting them. And central to the poison that Satan was feeding them was a false concept of salvation as a progressive ascent through higher and higher circles of wisdom or knowledge by means of personal aestheticism. So, they had that basic idea that many did in that part of the world, that the body is essentially evil, spirit is good. So, if you denied yourself through harsh treatment of the body, you fasted, you hurt to some degree your physical body and you denied food and earthly pleasures, then the higher beings, angels, would reveal secrets to you about the universe and you would become gradually wiser and wiser and descend to the heavenly plain, like they are. This is one of those so-called mystery religions that were all the rage back then. There were lots of these mystery religions. They were tied to pagan rituals in Egypt and Persia. Zoroastrianism has a lot of this stuff. It’s all mixed in. And then some of the wisdom of the human philosophy from Greece was coming in there and affecting their worldview. The combination implied some kind of ascent through these locked doors. You come in, coming up and you’re at a locked door and you’re knocking on that locked door. And then if you were pious enough, if you were aesthetic enough, one of these supernatural beings would hand you a key and you would get through that locked door and you’d get ever higher and higher. So, central to their required piety was a denial of the bodily drives, harsh treatment of the body, like eating, drinking, sensual pleasures, aestheticism.
So, Paul sweeps all of that away by proclaiming the truth of the gospel in Christ. The gospel is the remedy to all false doctrine. And so, he proclaims the incarnation of the eternal Son of God. That would be all the mystery they would ever need. It would be all the mystery they could ever handle. The incarnation of God and the gift of righteousness through simple faith in Christ, repentance of your sins and faith in Christ, the gifts of full righteousness instantaneously given to you, imputed to you, through faith in Christ, would be all the righteousness you would ever need. And the progressive growth in holiness through the ministry of the Word, the faithful teaching of the Word, resulting in growing in Christ-likeness and holiness as he describes the Christian life beautifully in Colossians 3, what that life would look like, a life of personal holiness, yes, not of harsh treatment of the body, but of a right understanding of the physical gifts and those things and of growth and holiness and conformity to Christ. That would be all the ascending growth into spirituality they would ever need. And above this, above all of this, the wisdom and knowledge wrapped up in Christ was all the wisdom and knowledge in the universe. Everything that could be known, Christ knows. Think about that. It’s mind blowing. Think about all of the experts and the PhDs and the skillful students on planet earth. Everything they know, Christ knows. Staggering. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Be all the wisdom you could ever want wrapped up in Christ. To discover him, to have Christ as a gift unwrapped and revealed progressively more and more, that was the goal of worship and the goal of Christian ministry and then in heaven, the focus in heaven.
“Think about all of the experts and the PhDs and the skillful students on planet earth. Everything they know, Christ knows. Staggering. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Now, central to all of this, and central to our celebration this morning and this week, is the incarnation, the person of Christ. So, he zeros in on what theologians call Christology, the study of the person of Christ. He does that, especially in Colossians 1:15-20, which you just read a moment ago, some of the richest, fullest, deepest words ever written on the mysteries of the person of Christ, the incarnation. So, this is the infinite gift that God gave to the human race 2000 years ago, and we get to unwrap some of that this morning. And that’s marvelous, isn’t it?
I. Christ Concealed
Let’s begin with Christ concealed. Christ concealed. Christ is concealed, first and foremost, above all, by his infinite majesty. Fundamentally, Christ is hidden in some sense from us creatures, because he is an infinite being and we are finite. All of us are finite. So, we cannot take all of his infinitude in, even the holy angels who have never sinned, who are perfectly pure, cannot take all of Christ in all at once. And so we have Isaiah 6, this vision that Isaiah had where he says, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and exalted and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings, and with two wings, they were covering their faces, and with two wings, they were covering their feet, and with two wings, they were flying and they were crying to one another, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory.'” Ponder why these burning ones, these seraphim were covering their faces before the enthroned Lord? John, the gospel of John tells us that Isaiah saw Jesus’s glory and wrote about him. That’s Christ, the pre-incarnate Christ and the angels are covering their faces. So, he’s hidden from them in some sense, because he’s infinitely glorious and they can’t take it all in all at once. This is the infinite majesty of the person of Christ. When he became incarnate by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was God in the flesh.
And so, look down at Colossians 2:9, there it says, “For in Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form.” Here he’s setting aside the false doctrine, body is evil/spirit is good. It’s just not true. Jesus is God in a body, God in a physical, that’s what incarnation means. The enfleshment of God, he takes on a human body and all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form. This is the infinite mystery of the incarnation, the fullness of God, all that God is, all of his attributes in bodily form. And so it says in Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God,” the image of the invisible God. Now, in the fourth century, some theologians were wrangling over the person of Christ. They’re wrangling over theology. And there was a strong heresy that was coming along called Arianism, which taught that Christ is the first and greatest creature or created being that the Father made. There was a time that he didn’t exist. And God raised up a number of theologians, but especially Athanasius, who came along to battle against this false doctrine. What we know that the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Kingdom Hall teaches now, same heresy. Athanasius came along and he had an image in his mind of the infinite dimensions of the person of Christ. Well, this is a man that had spent most of his life meditating on the incarnation. And I took that image, it’s a little complex, and I simplified it based on experience I had once of seeing Pacific Coast 1, Highway 1 along one of those rocky coastlines. You ever seen those in Northern California, right near the Redwood Forest? It’s just spectacular there. Japan has similar rocky coastlines overlooking the Pacific Ocean, very dramatic. But picture this in your mind; the image comes from Athanasius. It’s like we’re sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean as it pounds the coastline as far as the eye can see. From our lofty perch, we can see a mile to the left and a mile to the right. Everywhere we look, wave upon wave of surf is rolling in and crashing with great plumes of spray on the beach below. We cannot begin to comprehend a single wave completely. Even if we did, there are countless more waves crashing in along the shoreline, a mile up coast and a mile down the coast from where we’re sitting and we know it. And the ocean itself stretches as far as the eye can see, to the curvature of the earth, generating yet more waves that are going to pound the coastline in another five minutes or 10 minutes. That’s the image that you have. You’re never done contemplating the infinite majesty of the incarnate Christ. He’s infinitely glorious. And so, he is concealed in his infinite majesty.
He also was concealed in the Old Testament age. He was concealed in the era of the Old Testament, the Trinity, the doctrine of one God and three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit was never carefully, clearly expounded in the Old Testament. There are clues, there are hints, but it wasn’t clearly taught. Monotheism, that there is one God and only one God, there is no other God but the one God was clearly taught. Deuteronomy 6, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Isaiah is very clear on this in 10 chapters, in Isaiah 40-49, “Before me, no God was formed, nor will there be one after me.” Monotheism. But the idea that the God, the one God has eternally existed in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit was concealed, it was hidden. Jesus himself, Christ himself, and his mission planned out before the foundation of the world completely in the mind of the triune God. Christ and his mission was concealed in the mind of the Father in the Old Testament. Isaiah 49:2, Christ is speaking by the Spirit through the prophet Isaiah. So you hear Jesus say this in Isaiah 49:2, speaking of his own Father, speaking of God the Father, “He made my mouth like a sharpened sword in the shadow of his hand, he hid me. He concealed me in his quiver like a polished arrow.” So there’s this hiding, this concealing of Jesus in the Old Testament age. And so, if you look at Colossians 1:26-27, it speaks there of the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. There’s that hiddenness, that hiding of Christ. “To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” So, that’s Christ concealed.
II. Christ Partially Revealed
Second in our outline, Christ partially revealed. Christ is revealed in the incarnation with Gabriel’s first announcement to Mary, Luke 1:31-35, “The angel Gabriel came to Mary and said these words, ‘You will be with child and give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end.’ ‘How will this be?’ Mary asked the angel, ‘Since I am a virgin.’ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.'” Now, all of the ingredients of the mystery of the incarnation are in that announcement, Son of David, Son of God, fully man, fully God. And then at the time of his birth, the angel spoke these words to the shepherds in Luke 2:10 following it says, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today, in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You’ll find a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger.” So here’s this baby wrapped in cloth, helpless, needing to be cared for, but he’s called Christ the Lord. The word Lord means God. And then this great company of angels appears in worships and celebrates, and the author to Hebrews tells us what’s going on there. When God brings his Firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.” So, they’re worshiping Jesus when he was brought into the world, this is the mystery of the incarnation, fully God, a baby wrapped and laid in a manger, fully God, fully man.
Then, at the baptism, Jesus, as Jesus is being revealed to Israel, and he goes to where John the Baptist is baptizing people and he himself is baptized. As he comes up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And voice came from heaven saying, “You are my Son. With you I am well pleased.” A picture of the trinity there at the baptism of Jesus, again, as John said in John 1, John the Baptist said, “The reason I came baptizing is that he might be revealed to Israel. I have seen and I testify that he is the Son of God.” Partial revelation.
And then, as Jesus began his public ministry, his deity was unwrapped little by little as he did these great signs and wonders, one after the other. For example, as he begins preaching in the synagogue in his hometown in Capernaum, this account in Mark 1:23-27, “Just then a man in their synagogue who is possessed by an evil spirit cried out, ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. The Holy one of God.’ ‘Be quiet,’ said Jesus sternly, ‘Come out of him.’ The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were also amazed that they asked each other, ‘What is this? A new teaching and with authority, he even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.'” This is spectacular power, a display of effortless power over demons. They were terrified of him. Then his power to heal people, all manners of sickness and diseases are brought to him, and he handled all of them easily. So much so that huge crowds were gathered and following him everywhere, and people couldn’t get to him for healing. So, when Jesus heals the paralyzed man, he does it as a sign that he had the power on earth to forgive sin, something only God could do. So, little by little Jesus’s deity is being unwrapped. It’s being unveiled.
And then his power over the weather, think about this, when Jesus was asleep in the boat, in Mark 4, “A furious squall came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped.” Picture it, the boat is filling with water and Jesus is peacefully asleep in the back. Then his disciples woke him and said, I don’t know what tone they used, but I don’t think it was like this, but I’ll just preach it like this, “Teacher, don’t you care if we’re drowning?” I think they probably screamed it. They were terrified. “Jesus got up and spoke to the wind and the waves and said, ‘Peace, be still.’ And immediately the wind died down. It was completely quiet. Then Jesus spoke to them, said, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’ They asked one another, ‘Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him.’” Well, I know who he is. He’s God in the flesh. That probably is one of his most spectacular miracles ever. What would’ve been like for you to be in the boat and see that kind of power?
And he had power over death. It didn’t matter that Lazarus had been dead for days. It wouldn’t matter if it had been dead for four days, four months, four years, four centuries. Jesus has absolute power. He says, “Lazarus, our friend, has fallen asleep, but I’m going to go and wake him.” It was as difficult for him to raise the dead as it would’ve been for us to wake a sleeping person. He had absolute power over all of these things. And now, the incarnation concealed all of that. You couldn’t see the glory that he had with the Father before the foundation of the world, because he just looked like an ordinary man. Jesus said to his enemies, “I’ve shown you many great works from the Father, for which of these are you stoning me.” “We’re not stoning you for any of these, but you, a mere man, make yourself out to be God.” But Jesus took Peter, James and John with him up a high mountain by himself in Matthew 17, it says, “There he was transfigured before them, his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light.” And this was just a little glimpse of radiant glory coming out as he’s unwrapped a little bit before them and they see the glory.
But yet, in all of what Jesus did, nothing glorified him more than his death on the cross. Jesus unveiled his glory as God on the cross in ways that he didn’t do any other way, no other miracles, nothing else revealed Christ’s glory, the glory of the Father, as much as the cross. Right before Jesus was crucified, he prayed to his father in John 17, “He looked toward heaven and prayed. ‘Father, the time has come, glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you, for you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.'” And so, Jesus, in dying on the cross, revealed all of the attributes of God. Every attribute you could ever study is on display in Christ crucified. For example, the power of God is on display in that in a single day, he atoned for all the sins of the land, as it says in the Old Testament prophecy. In a single day, he paid for the sins of a multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe, language, people, and nation, from every generation of church history in a single day, atoned for them, he is the power of God.
“Jesus, in dying on the cross, revealed all of the attributes of God. Every attribute you could ever study is on display in Christ crucified.”
He is also, it says in 1 Corinthians, the wisdom of God. It was wise for God to save our souls that way, wise for him to humble us like that. And to point to the cross of a man bleeding and dying and say, “There’s your savior. Believe in him and you will have forgiveness of sins.” It was wise for God to do that. We see the love of God and that he laid down his life for his bride. He laid down his life for his friends. We deserve to die because of our sins. He died in our place. “God demonstrates his love for us in this, while we’re still sinners, Christ died for us.” All of the attributes of God are shining forth, if you know what to look for, even though it’s a supernaturally dark day, you have the radiant glory of God shining from the cross. Then you see it again in his mighty resurrection as He triumphed over the grave for all of us.
So, Christ is revealed. He was revealed in his incarnation, he was unwrapped. But I still say partially, there’s yet more glory to see. And Christ is revealed in the proclamation of the gospel. Look at Colossians 1:27-28, “God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Verse 28, “We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we might present everyone perfect in Christ.” so, just by words, by proclamation. Now, it would be infinitely better for all of us to have the privilege that Paul had of being caught up to paradise, whether in the body or out of the body, we don’t know, and see God enthroned with our own eyes, that would be better. But now what do we get? We see through a glass darkly, then face to face. Now, we know in part, then we will know fully. So, we get acts of Jesus and we get nouns and verbs and preaching and Bible studies. That’s what we get now. Yet, through the proclaiming of the gospel, Christ is unveiled. He’s revealed.
And so, that’s what happened when Epaphras came and preached the gospel to the Colossians, when they heard the simple gospel, the milk of the gospel, and they believed, that’s what happened. Now, Paul’s expanding their knowledge. He’s writing the epistle of the Colossians and he gives them more theology. He said, “You are underestimating Jesus. Let me tell you more who he is.” And so you have the words that you heard and did read earlier, look again, Colossians 1:15-20, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him. 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 and the first born from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness well in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.” Now, these are some of the most astounding words you’ll ever see written about Jesus. Each one of them is explosive and powerful. He claims that He is the physical image of the invisible spiritual God, so that if you had been alive at that time, like when one of his disciples said, “Show us the Father.” And He said, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I’ve been with you all this time? If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” He is the image of the invisible God. And he says, “By him, all things were made.” That’s staggering, by Jesus all things were made. The author of Hebrews says the same thing. Hebrews 1:10. It says, “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands.” That’s amazing. Jesus laid the foundations of planet earth. Now, modern science has taught us something called plate tectonics. You’re like, “Pastor, you’re one of the few pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention they’re going to mention plate tectonics in your Christmas sermon.” But I do mention it, big, huge floating plates, I guess nine of them, they tell us, and these plates kind of bump into each other and grind against each other sometimes and create earthquakes and all of that. The biggest is the Asian plate, 40 million square miles. Jesus made it. 40 million square miles. Yep. Jesus made it. He laid the foundations of the earth.
Don’t you wish you could go back when those Pharisees and Sadducees were arguing with him, it’s like, “Wait, wait. Do you know who you’re talking to?” He laid the foundations of the earth that you’re walking on, this ground. It says in Psalm 104:5, “He set the earth on its foundations. It can never be moved.” This has been the foundation of human history. Everything ever built by humans has been on this foundation, and Jesus laid it. Now, I’ve tended to think of the Father as creating everything. And so, I think he did, but I think he did it through the son. It’s like he speaks and Jesus is the word he speaks. In some sense, Jesus also, we could say, created all things. Not only that, he created the stars, all things. Hebrews 1:10, “In the beginning, O Lord, you lay the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands.” So, next chance you get to go out and look at the night sky, if there’s not light pollution around where you live, and you can actually see the stars so distant, twinkling, cold and blue and beautiful. Jesus made them.
And not only that, the scripture tells us that he sustains all things by his powerful word. He upholds everything. God the Father, Christ the Son, the Spirit created a needy universe. They need the triune God to keep them going. He upholds or sustains everything by his powerful word. Verse 16, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, where thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things created for him by him and for him.” so, angels, demons, everything. He’s the Creator and Ruler of all things. I love what it says that they’re created not just by him, but for him. Oh, Christian, meditate on this: You are not made for yourself. We are so selfish. You are made by him, meaning Christ, and for him, for his pleasure, for his delight. And you’re going to find your greatest freedom and pleasure in meditating on that and living, going to Christ and saying, “I am yours. You made me. I live for you. What do you want from me? How can I please you and glorify you?” And he sustains everything moment by moment, by his powerful word.
And so, Christ is revealed in the proclamation of the gospel like it’s happening right now. But Christ is also revealed in the miracle of conversion, because all of us, apart from Christ, are dead in our transgressions and sins and blind to these things. We’re like the Jews of Paul’s day when he says that whenever Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, “Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.” But at conversion, the Holy Spirit takes that veil away, and suddenly Christ is revealed to you. “And God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6. That’s the moment of conversion. That’s the moment you’re born again, and you see the glory of God in Christ for the first time. So, Christ is partially revealed in all of this. He’s been partially revealed to you in your hearts by faith, but there’s more to come. Isn’t that exciting? I mean, there’s a lot more to come.
III. Christ Eternally Revealed
And so, Christ will be eternally revealed. He’s infinitely glorious. As it says in Colossians 2:3, “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” Christ is going to be unwrapped and revealed and dimensions and details of his glory are going to be revealed to us for all eternity in heaven. And that’s going to be thrilling, not static, but dynamic. For all eternity, we’re going to see more and more of Christ. And we’re going to see how wisely he acted in history, how wisely he worked to save the elect in every generation, what he did in each and every case to win them over.
Wasn’t it marvelous to hear Molly’s testimony? It’s just beautiful. I don’t take it for granted ever, that a child that’s raised in a Christian family comes to a genuine faith in Christ. Amen? It is the normative way. The most common way by which God’s elect are converted is in healthy Christian families, fathers and mothers pouring the gospel into their kids all over the world. Missionaries go to just fire starters so that one generation later that’s up and running in that country, in that tribe or language or people or nation. And that’s marvelous and exciting. But when we get to heaven, we get to look back and see how he did it, what he did, how he providentially arranged things in your life, where you were born, how you were raised, what he did, who he brought into your life and when, and what words he used to save you. And you’ll be so expanded; you’ll be so over you by then. You’ll be over yourself. It won’t be all about you. You’ll be like, “Not just how did he save me, but how did he save him or her? That person over there.” And you will care what God did to save someone you never met 487 years before you were born. And you are going to be excited at the display of God’s wisdom and power through Christ in saving each person. And to see how Christ controlled wicked governments, unbelieving kings, and orchestrated their decision so that the gospel could spread to the ends of the earth. And how the one enthroned in heaven laughed at their rebellion and their opposition, and how he used their schemes and their plots to actually further the gospel. We’re going to get to celebrate those kinds of things.
And we who have developed a certain level of expertise in an area of study, maybe in software or pharmaceutical research, medical research, physics, mathematics, banking, business, you’re going to find Jesus knows more than you when you get to heaven in that area, “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” I blew the mind of a Japanese person I was talking to as I was fumbling my way through the Japanese language. Never really did that great. I was growing, getting better, but at any rate. I said, “You know, Jesus knows Japanese better than any Japanese that’s ever lived.” That was such a shock to that person. But it’s true; Jesus knows the Japanese language better than any Japanese person. “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” It’s mind blowing. When we get to heaven, Christ will be forever unveiled, forever revealed to our joy and delight.
IV. Applications
What applications can we take? Well, this Christmas come with hearts expecting to learn more of Christ. Can I just say, you parents gather your kids around sometime on Christmas Day and read to them some miracle stories of Jesus, not just the birth narrative, read some of the accounts of the great works of Jesus, some of his teaching, some of the sermon in the mount. They said of Jesus, “No man ever spoke like this man,” read some of his teachings. Feed Christ to your kids. Guess what? You’ll be feeding Christ to yourself, too. That’s the great joy. Realize the sweetest, richest meditation you can have in this world is Christ.
Do you realize? I know you do, but I’ll say it again, everything we interact with our five senses is temporary. The things that are seen are temporary. So, everything you will unwrap on Friday will very soon break or be lost, or no longer bring you any joy. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Even some of them will have a life cycle, and they’ll do pretty well for a while. You’ll get some clothes, some sweaters, some other things, that’ll be spectacular on you, and you’ll look really good. But then they’ll wear out. All of those things wear out. The real gift on Christmas Day will be sitting quietly off to the side, somewhat neglected. Don’t let him be neglected. Make him front and center. Unwrap him, meditate on him. Remind yourself that you’re temporary in this world. You’re just passing through and Christ is your eternal treasure and your joy and delight.
And if you have not yet come to Christ, if you have never believed in him, never trusted in him, Christ came to save sinners like you and me. It’s not hard. It’s simple. Just admit that you are a sinner. Admit that you need a savior, and that God is the only savior for the world. Christ is God’s savior for the world. Trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins. Close with me now in prayer.
Lord, thank you for the chance we’ve had to do a little more meditation on the person of Christ. He is a joy and delight to each one of us. Thank you. And Lord, I pray that you would take these feeble, ineffective words and allow them, however much they are based on Scripture, to transcend the limitations and to move our hearts to joy and to peace and to power in Christ. Lord, thank you for the gospel. Thank you for coming to earth and for living for us, dying for us, and rising again for us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
