Classic Sermon #6061: So that in everything I may have the pre-eminence

We are taking a tour through the epistle to the Colossians and I am taking several themes from this very dense epistle in its content and we are trying to walk through various passages. And today we are going to go to Chapter 1 and we are going to stop at verses 15 to 23. This is a passage that exalts the person of Jesus.

Colossians 1:15-23 and says the word of the Lord thus, speaking of Jesus Christ evidently: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, because in Him all things were created, which are in heaven, those on Earth. Visible and invisible, be they thrones, be they domains, be they powers, everything was created through Him and for Him and He is before all things and all things exist in Him.

“And He is the head of the body, which is the church, the one who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He may have preeminence in everything. Because it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself. So those who are on Earth as those who are in heaven, being Peace through the blood of his cross.

“And you also, who in other times were strangers and enemies in your mind, doing evil deeds, now he has reconciled in his body of flesh through death to present you as many and blameless and blameless before him. You remain founded and firm in the faith and without moving from the hope of the Gospel that you have heard, which is preached in all creation that is under heaven, of which I, Paul, was made its Minister.

May the Lord bless his holy word.

I always like to make a brief summary of what we played last Sunday in this case. There I spoke of verses 12 and 13 of this chapter, about the typical attitude of the Christian and Paul there mentioned two qualities: joy and gratitude that should be in the life of the child of God.

Joy, I said, should be the prevailing tone of the believer because when looking at all that we have received from God we cannot feel less than joyful and full of hope. Gratitude again for the same thing because by recognizing that what we have received has been grace, not because we deserved it, the Christian must always live giving thanks to the Lord.

This week we chose Thanksgiving. This town chooses today, Thursday, to express gratitude to God. And that is very good, but of course we also have to remember something and that is that for the son of God every day is Thanksgiving, right? and that not only a single day or two, no.

Every morning when we get up a note of gratitude should sprout from our hearts and every day when completing a task and God taking us out of small and big problems we must raise our gratitude to the Lord. The Christian has a grateful heart and which is the enemy of complaint. Quite the opposite of that attitude of complaint and negativity that often characterizes us.

Now that life of joy and gratitude has a foundation. Because? Paul points out three things that Christ has done. Number One says that we have been made partakers of the inheritance of the Saints, that is, we have riches in Christ. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing, we have received spiritual gifts. We are rich, we are powerful, we have authority in Christ Jesus. That is the inheritance of the people of God.

Second, Paul says that we have been delivered from darkness and transferred to the kingdom of light. Satan is no longer in control of our lives. Christ has the administration of our lives. It is no longer Satan who is leading us down a path of destruction and exhaustion and stagnation, but Christ is encouraging us and lifting us up and strengthening us and administering our lives to raise us up more and more every day so that what the scripture says is fulfilled: ' for the path of the just is like the light of the aurora that is increasing until the day is perfect'.

Why that? Because God is managing our life, because God is taking it from growth to growth, from blessing to blessing. Satan is no longer the one who manages our days but God.

And finally, Paul also says that we have been redeemed and forgiven. In Christ we have redemption through his blood and the forgiveness of our sins. We have been bought at the price of blood, from the slavery of sin. And that has very serious consequences. By being bought we owe ourselves then to the one who bought us who is Christ Jesus.

Now his yoke, he says, is easy and his burden is light. When Christ owns us now, that's a blessing. It is not a curse and we are also called to a life of holiness because He is holy.

There you have some ideas from the above passage. And so now, I believe that, when Paul was writing, meditating on those three things: the inheritance, the freedom from darkness, and the redemption that we have; his mind was directed towards the figure of Jesus Christ who has made all things possible.

All of this, all of this inheritance, all of this blessing comes as a result of the work of Christ on the cross of Calvary and then I believe that this moved Paul's mind to think about the person of Jesus, to focus on the figure of Jesus Christ. And that is what he does in the next verses from 15 to 23, he spends time exalting and explaining the person of Jesus, his work, his functions, his attributes. And that's what he does in these eight verses, here.

It's an anthem. Some scholars believe that this particular passage was part of a hymn that was sung to the person of Jesus in praise of him and that Paul was quoting from that hymn when he wrote this part. We do not know. But it would be very appropriate because it is a hymn of praise, it is a very deep adoration that is rendered to the person of Jesus.

Another thing about what Paul is saying here is not only praising Christ in a neutral way, but there is also a polemical character to what Paul writes here.

You will remember that at the beginning of this study I told you that this letter Paul wrote in part to contradict a heresy, a bad teaching that was circulating, that was beginning to circulate among the Churches in that area of Colosse. And that teaching, among other things, is actually called the Colossian heresy. Scholars have even given a name to that type of teaching that was circulating at that time.

That bad teaching was a mixture of Jewish legalism and also a kind of mysticism that encouraged people to delve into weird and mysterious theories about gods and demigods. And the idea was that the material world was a curse and that we live in this world a condemnation and that man should aspire to get out of this condemnation and enter a spiritual dimension where there is liberation. That was this teaching.

So according to this teaching one needed a mysterious knowledge that only the initiates could receive to ascend to those levels. They said that between man and God there was like an intermediate layer where there were superior beings that were not God but were not men either. They were like demigods. And one had to deal with these beings in order to reach that higher level. And they recognized Jesus Christ but they did not recognize him as God, they did not recognize him as the son of God and with God himself.

And so Paul wrote this letter in part to neutralize those ideas because what that false teaching did was de-emphasize the person of Jesus; remove the focus from the person of Christ. And that is why Paul in this letter, you will notice, emphasizes a lot the person of Jesus Christ, he emphasizes his work, his nature because this epistle was written to counteract that teaching that was subtly taking the look away from the person of Jesus.

I would say, brothers, that one of the main ways that Satan tries to harm Christian doctrine is precisely by trying to neutralize and dull the person of Jesus Christ and his redemptive work on the cross of Calvary. Taking away from Christ that unique, essential character and suggesting that there are other means of reaching God.

Separate the Christian from his awareness that only Christ saves and that only in Christ do we have hope and that only Christ has been the bridge between God and the Father. And then the enemy tries to introduce doctrines that make Christ one more among many possible mediators.

And I believe that one of the things that characterizes heresy throughout the centuries is precisely that subtle attack against the person, against nature, against the subtle, unique work of Jesus Christ. And that is why, brothers, anything that takes your gaze away from Christ and places Him in the background or in a parallel plane to other beings is harmful, false and you should avoid it like the plague.

And that's why Paul, over and over again, continually attacked that. Respectfully. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses are very sincere, very good and God fearing people but the Jehovah's Witness doctrine says that Christ is a creature that was created. It's just like the ultimate angel that God created and that Christ is not God himself. So although they are people who believe in the Bible and believe in the work of Christ on the Cross and all this, but this is a very dangerous teaching because it takes their eyes off what Christ has done.

He is the only one. The Bible says that 'there is only one mediator between God and men: the man Jesus Christ' and there is nothing else and that Christ is the son of God and that he is God himself.

So we have to be careful with everything, wherever it comes from, that takes our eyes off that uniqueness, that essential character of the person of Jesus. And what Paul does here is that he invites the Colossians to focus their gaze on the person of Jesus Christ and then he turns his gaze and begins to describe certain attributes of Jesus Christ and this is what we have here.

He exalts it. That's why I liked that chorus that says: 'To you we attribute the glory. To you we attribute honor, to you we attribute power and majesty' because that is a choir that exalts the person of Jesus, this other King of kings, Lord of lords. They are choruses that exalt in a very direct way and that invite the mind of the worshiper to focus on the sublime character of the person of Jesus Christ. That is one thing the Bible does over and over again.

And so here Paul does the same thing. I see here at least five fundamental attributes of the person of Jesus and I have made a small diagram here for you to see. Jesus Christ is these things, as Paul expounds here.

Jesus Christ is: God. Creator. Sustainer. Head. Reconciler.

And that little arrow that you see going like a kind of ladder leading one to the other is because each one of those attributes of Jesus Christ leads to the other, they are all chained, they are links that are linked to each other, logically. And one leads to another and one thing is implied in the other and they are all part of the function that Christ performs.

And I believe that at the end of it all, what that body of attributes suggests to us is what Paul himself says in verse 18, is: 'so that in everything He might have preeminence.' Brothers, that is the foundation of the Christian life: that Jesus Christ have the preeminence in everything. That is why we call ourselves Christians. Christ must be the primary focus of our lives.

So, look, let's go to the first element. Paul says in verse 15: "He is the image of the invisible God." What is Paul saying when he says that he is the image of the invisible God? That word that in Spanish is translated “image” in the original Greek is “icon” and that is where icon is spoken in English and in Russian as well. The Russians have these very beautiful images.

And icon in Greek literature was simply a statue, a drawing, a painting, a copy of something that was in reality and that represented that something. So when Paul says that Christ is the image of the invisible God, he is saying that Christ is the visible expression of the God who cannot be seen. That by looking at Jesus Christ and looking at his spiritual attributes, looking at his character, looking at his nature, looking at his person, one is seeing that God that no living being can see and that Christ directly projects the nature and person of the Father.

The Bible says that 'no one has seen the Father' but through Jesus Christ, yes, we have seen the Father. And that was what Christ himself told him and - do you remember that famous passage from John chapter 14 verse 8 and 9? - when Philip says to Jesus Christ "Show us the Father and it is enough for us".

Verse 8 says, “Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us,” and what does Jesus say to him in verse 9? He says: “I've been with you for so long and you haven't known me, Felipe? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say then show us the Father?”

And that's what Paul is saying here, Christ is the image of the invisible God. Christ is, in modern terms, if Paul were writing this letter today, do you know what he would say? "Christ is the portrait of God, Christ is the photograph of the Father." That is what Paul is saying here. In those times there were no photos, there were no portraits so it was the image, a painting. But today he would say "Christ is the spitting image of his Father."

As we say there. Have you heard that expression? That son is, forget it, the stamp of the father. It is the spitting image. Well, that is what Jesus Christ is and not only that is expressed in Colossians. If you go to the Book of Hebrews in chapter 1 verse 3, there the writer says, speaking of Christ: "Who being the brightness of his glory and the exact image of his substance."

Again, that expression: “the image itself” in the original Greek is “character” and character is where our word character comes from. It refers to go to the wedge that was used in the Roman or Greek seals. It was what had, for example, the stamp to make a coin. That he always had the same reproduction of the image of Caesar, for example. That coined image when placed on wax or hot metal transferred precisely the image that was in the original to the other substance.

So the writer of Hebrews says the same thing: Jesus Christ is the total, exact reproduction of the Father. We will never fully understand the mysteries of the relationship between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, this of the Trinity that are the same, but are different. Because that goes beyond the human mind.

But what I can tell you for sure is that Scripture from Genesis to Revelation declares in an inescapable way that Christ is God. And that has been a fundamental doctrine of the church through all the centuries. And any doctrine that suggests less than that is dangerous, heretical, and should be discarded and avoided altogether.

Now what practical consequences does that have? For me the fact that Jesus Christ is God means that Jesus Christ deserves my worship. That Jesus Christ should be the object of my continuous meditation, that I should be continually renewing my mind and visualizing and adoring and paying tribute and glory to Him as God.

That Jesus Christ should be the starting point of all my efforts and should also be the object towards which all the things I do in my life point. That I must live to please Him, to honor Him, to recognize Him as God, as the very foundation of my life. As He said: "I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life." That is, He is the totality of all these things.

And I would say that before being witnesses of Jehovah, we are witnesses of Jesus Christ and it is not that we put a controversy between the Father and the Son; No! because they are the same thing. But I think there is a subtle reversal of roles there. The Father has given us the son so that we can do battle with the Son and with the Father through the Son.

Jesus Christ is the intermediary and that is why the Father said 'This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him'; which could also mean saying 'You deal with Him' and we have to put our adoration, our reverence, our primary relationship with that Son who then leads us to the Father. All of that implied in the deity of Jesus Christ.

Now he goes to the second teaching and says: "For in Him" - verse 16 - "all things were created. Those that are in heaven, on Earth, visible, invisible, be thrones, be dominions, be principalities, be powers. Everything was created through Him." And how amazing, not only through Him, but what? "For him". It was like a gift that He gave himself.

What a mysterious thing, right?! God created this creation for his own joy, for his own enjoyment. For him to express himself, for him to please himself in his creation. We live, brothers, and this world has been created to give Glory and pleasure to the Lord.

And we live for that and when we recognize that function of ours, then our life is transformed. I was created for Him, for Him to rejoice in me and for Him to find pleasure in me as the artist finds pleasure in contemplating his creations. Then everything that exists was created by Christ and for Christ.

And you see, there you have an implication of the deity of Christ. Because the Bible says Who was it that created the heavens and the Earth? Genesis 1. It says: “In the beginning created” -who?- “God created the heavens and the Earth”. So here it says that Christ created the heavens and the earth. Is there a contradiction? No. But Christ is God.

[Final comments of the program]

And when God was creating the Heavens and the Earth, Christ was creating it in God. They are the mysteries of the Trinity and the relationship of the Father and the Son. But everything created was created by Jesus Christ and for Him. The Gospel according to Saint John declares that same truth.

You will remember the first chapter of John. In the beginning it was the verb speaking of Jesus Christ and the verb was with God and the verb was who? It was God and verse 3: "All things were made through Him -that is to say through Jesus Christ- and without Him nothing was made that was made". And further on in verse 10 it says, “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him,” speaking of Jesus Christ.

It is the same thing that Paul is saying here in Colossian: Jesus Christ is the creator, He is the origin of everything that exists and He is not only the origin of lesser things but also of greater things and that is what Paul is underlining here. He is the origin of all authority, everything that has authority and that has importance Jesus Christ is the creator of it.

Go? And Paul decides to emphasize that fact: that there is nothing, no matter how great, in this universe, that has not been created by Him. What is the implication then? That all things are under the authority of the one who created them. He is above everything, the visible things and just in case also the invisible and is on thrones, dominions, principalities, powers.

And what does Paul mean by that, brothers? That Jesus Christ as creator of everything that exists He is above kings, He is above princes, He is above presidents and prime ministers, He is above nations, He is above the governors of states and city mayors. That is on the political, human level, but it goes further.

Jesus Christ is above angels, archangels, cherubs, seraphim and you know what? Not only that, but Jesus Christ is above the demons, the demonic powers that also have their own ranks of authority. And the amazing thing is that what Paul is saying here is that Christ created all of that. Do you know that Christ created even the demons? Or did you not create them? The Bible says that demons are fallen angels, angels who disobeyed and lost their dignity and lost their beauty and were driven from the presence of God.

And those beings who rebelled against the authority of Christ and his Father were thrown out. That is Satan, the most excellent creature that God created, who rebelled against God and wanted to put himself in the same place as God and then he was cast out and became that nightmarish being that is Satan.

So Christ created all those beings and Christ is above all of them. Remember that when you are afraid of Satan or a demonic power, Christ is above all that and you are above all that because Christ lives in you. It says: "Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world" right?

And Christ says: "I have overcome the world, trust me, I have overcome the world". The prince of this world is Satan, but Christ has also defeated him and Christ is his owner. Christ is his creator, Christ is the one who has the chain that takes him by the neck where he wants and we have that authority too.

That is a tremendous thing. Jesus Christ is the owner of my life, I do not have to fear anything at all and not only that too, but there is something in the fact that He is the creator and He is the owner brothers. I cannot escape for a moment from referring to this. If Jesus Christ created everything and created everything for Himself and He owns everything, then that means I don't own anything, right?

These clothes I'm wearing are not mine. The money, the little money that I have in my pocket, is not mine either, my wife is not mine, my daughters are not mine, my bank account is not mine, my talents are not mine, my time is not mine, my education is not mine. it is mine, my future is not mine. Everything belongs to God and Christ Jesus, and then my life if I am truly a servant of Jesus Christ, I always have to be confessing with my mind and my actions, that everything is from Him, for Him, for His glory and is at his service.

Brothers, if you and I understood what that means, I assure you that our life would be completely revolutionized. I myself who am preaching it, do not know what I am saying. Because if I truly believed that, I would still serve the Lord ten times more than I do now.

If we understood that our money belongs to God and that our talents belong to God and that our time belongs to God, then brothers, we would only live for glory and honor and for the expansion of the kingdom of God. I would invest everything I had, so that the Kingdom of God is advanced, so that God is glorified, and that, brothers, is the life of discipleship and that is the life that recognizes the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all things.

If Christ created the Universe, He owns everything he created, He is the creator.

But not only that, but he is also the sustainer. You will remember that I told you that these things are linked, one with the other. He is the sustainer, look, Jesus Christ not only created the world, deism is a theological philosophy that says that God created the world and then wound it up like an alarm clock and launched it to float in the universe, and forgot about him.

Existentialism also preaches a doctrine similar to that. But the Bible says that God and Christ did not create the world and forgot about it, but after Christ created the world, then He put you to work with the world, with the cosmos, with the universe and that Christ maintains it - so to speak- to the universe.

Not only did He create it and then He was irresponsible and disregarded it. No! Jesus Christ is continually sustaining the world, see? That's why it says in verse 17: "He is before all things and in Him all things consist." What does that mean? That all things have their explanation, they have their reason for being in the person of Jesus.

He sustains, He sustains everything that exists, everything created. He gives it its meaning.

Christ imparts coherence and meaning to the universe. Christ is totally involved in the cosmos, in the movement of the planets, in the laws that govern the universe, in the rising and setting of the sun, in the law of gravity, in the laws that govern the movements of physical bodies. in the world and in the universe, the person of Jesus is involved in all of this.

The psalmist says: 'In our mother's womb He was the one who created us. My body was not hidden from you, well, in secret I was formed and interwoven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my embryo and in your book were written all those things that were later formed without missing one of them. The God who created the macrocosm is also the one who creates the microcosm.

The God who rules the galaxies and keeps them spinning and traveling at millions of miles per hour is also the God who creates a minimal cell with his composition. The God who creates the entire human body is also the one who creates the complexity of the eye. That is the wonderful sustaining work of Jesus Christ.

All things in Him subsist. Now what does that imply? Something very important is that Christ is involved with us every day. My mind always goes to that passage when Christ says: "Behold, I am with you always until the end of the world."

He didn't just do the work of salvation and then he took a jet to heaven and forgot about us. He said 'I'm leaving but I'm also staying with you through the holy spirit'. And Christ is present in the holy spirit, in his church and He is sustaining the world and He is sustaining the universe.

I was thinking the other days in the physical sciences, scientists are always racking their brains to find a law that summarizes all the other physical laws of the universe. They are always trying. They have actually reduced the motion of physical bodies and matter to a few laws of thermodynamics, a few basic laws. But they, not content with that, are looking for a Law [with a capital L] that is the law that makes all other laws unnecessary and explains all other laws.

They are always looking for that ruling principle of the universe. I can tell them that the Bible already found that two thousand years ago and it is called Christ Jesus.

All things in Him subsist. He is the explanation of everything that exists. He gives coherence to everything, He gives reason to all the movements of the planets and of the atoms. So if Christ is the sustainer and He is the one who maintains, we brothers have to do the same.

Just as the universe is closely linked to the person of Jesus, we have to be continually attached and rooted to Him. Because He is the one who sustains our spiritual life. And you know what? Christ already said the same thing a long time ago in the Gospel according to Saint John chapter 15, do you remember? What does the Lord say there? He says -chapter 15, verse 5- “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, this one bears many fruits because separated from me you can do nothing ".

You understand? Because Jesus Christ is the sustainer. Everything subsists in the person of Jesus. Anything that separates from that organic union with the person of Jesus is destined to die. Like a fruit that since you pluck it from the bush is already beginning the process of putrefaction of that fruit, because it no longer has the bush supporting and nourishing it.

At the moment in which the man or the Christian separates from that intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, the decline already begins. Spiritual decay begins and that is why we must always be intimately united to the person of Jesus because He is the one who sustains our spiritual life. He is the one who sustains all our efforts. If I want to bear fruit I have to stay well attached to my supporter.

That is why when Martha and Mary had their dispute, Martha was over there busy, working, preparing everything for Christ so that everything would be fine with Him and His Apostles, and Mary was there simply clinging to Jesus listening, receiving from Him, clinging to her person and Martha says to Jesus: “Lord, look at my sister, she is being lazy. Not the time I'm here wrapped up working and she's over there so happy with you”. And that Jesus Christ told her: “Marta, Marta, you are very busy with many things. I want to tell you that Maria has chosen the best part and it will not be taken away from her”.

Because? What was the best part? Being close to the person and the work and the word and the presence of Jesus Christ. That was the best part. Many times we get to work on the things of God and we do this and we do that and our life goes into one activity after another and in a do, do, do but we do not take time to renew our relationship with Christ. Our intimacy with Him and we are declining. A lot of effort, a lot of action and little fruit.

Because? Because we are not taking that time to renew our sustaining relationship with the one who sustains all things.

Brothers, the Christian grows through fasting, through prayer, through reading the word, through communion with the Saints as we are having here today, through service to the Lord. Through all of these things we are renewing our intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the sustainer, He has created us for himself and He has also promised “stick to me, I will sustain you. I'm going to feed them. Receive your food from me. Seek me, stay close to me.

Fourth: He is the head. Verse 18 says: “And he is the head of the body, which is the church. He who is the beginning, the firstborn among the dead, so that in everything he may have preeminence. He was the head of the body that is the church. In other words the head of the church. This is very important because Jesus Christ is our captain, Jesus Christ is the general of this army that is the church.

He is the new Adam who through his person and his work instituted what is called the Church with a capital 'I'. Jesus Christ is our high priest. Jesus Christ was even the first to rise from the dead for eternal life. He was the one who made this new era of Salvation possible through his blood shed on the Cross and He himself was the first to rise again under that new plan that He made and established on the Cross of Calvary.

How complete the work of the Lord!

He is the beginning, so too. He is the one who leads his church as God died on the Cross and paid an infinite penalty and as a man rose again and goes before us redeemed men and women heading the endless line of those who have been redeemed under the new plan of salvation. He is the firstborn from the dead. He is the head. In everything He must have the first place.

And for me, again, the fact that Jesus Christ is the head has some very, very serious implications. If He is the head, it means that He is the brain. OK? That means that the church takes its directives from Him.

Jesus Christ is the one who through his holy spirit directs his church towards all truth. We must turn to Jesus Christ to receive revelation, to receive wisdom, to receive intelligence, to receive advice in our decisions as individuals, as churches, and as a universal church in this world.

The church, the congregations, the Christians must be attentive to receive their orders from the thinking head that is Christ Jesus. Periodically the Lord [if I believe that, I believe that from time to time] the head -my head- is going to tell me what He wants me to do. He is going to tell me what I have to do, what I have to think, what I have to say.

Do you remember that image in the Old Testament: Israel when it was in the desert? There was a pillar of fire and a cloud of smoke. At night there was a pillar of fire and in the day there was a cloud of smoke. And when Israel was walking in the desert, where that cloud stopped –if it was daytime- the people would stop there and they would put up their tents and camp there for a year, two years, six months while the cloud was perched on that place.

When that cloud did... like this... and rose up, what did the Israelites do? They would get up with it, take down their tents, take their animals, remove everything and move to the next place where the cloud stopped and there they would come back and stop for as long as the cloud was in that place.

That is a symbol, brothers, of the church and of the believers that we are continually attentive to the direction of Jesus Christ. Where Christ sends us, there we go. Where Christ tells us to 'stand up' there I stop.

Where Christ tells you to 'get up' there I am supposed to get up because He is my head, He is my leader. He is the one who tells me what I have to do. And then, brothers, that means that we have to hope that if He has said it, He is going to honor us and He is going to bless us. He's going to back us up. He is the head. My only concern in life is 'Lord, are you involved in this decision? Are you directing me?' Because if Jesus Christ is directing me I have nothing to fear. God will honor me.

And when you have a problem, a need, a dilemma in your life, seek direction from your head, which is Christ Jesus, and make sure that He is speaking to you and if He is speaking to you, He will take you to a safe harbor. 'He who began the good work will be faithful to finish it,' says the word.

He is the head of the church. Many churches decline and stagnate and die, do you know why? Because the head is continually giving you directions where the body should go and the body out of fear or self-defense or whatever, becomes paralyzed. It does not move.

It's like a person who is frozen and sees a car coming at over 100 miles per hour. His fear prevents him from moving and he sees the car and his brain is telling the muscles “Move” but something freezes him and the car takes him away. Many times our problem is that we do not move when the Spirit of God tells us. Let's make sure brothers that we can hear the voice of God and when we hear it we move.

Where He tells me to go, there I will go. Where He tells me to stay, there I am going to stay because He is the head of the church. We are the body.

Finally, it says that Jesus Christ is 'the reconciler'. Verse 20 says, “Through him he will reconcile all things to himself. So those who are on Earth as those who are in Heaven, making peace through the blood of his Cross.

And look how wonderful this is. It says in verse 21: “And to you also, individuals, who were in other times strangers and enemies in your mind, doing evil deeds. Now he has reconciled you in his body of flesh through death." That is why I say that Jesus Christ is also the reconciler.

You see in his work with the church, Jesus Christ is doing a work of reconciliation. Just as He is the creator, just as He is the sustainer of the universe, He is also the one who reconciles all the elements that make up the universe.

And what does this mean brothers? If you stop to think, when sin entered the world, what happened there? Sin introduced the element of conflict into the universe, right? Sin introduced discord, it brought death, it brought enmity among men. When Adam was in Eden, it says that a vapor came out of the Earth that naturally irrigated the earth and the earth gave its fruit without any effort.

What happened when sin came there to that place in Eden? Then God said to Adam, "You shall eat the bread in the sweat of your brow." The land no longer gave its fruit naturally. Now they had to get it out by sticking a rake in it and hitting it and snatching its food from the earth. And the man did it with sweat from his brow.

When Adam was in Eden, the relationship with God was a perfect relationship, totally harmonious. Sin has already separated God and man. When the man was in Eden, between the man and the woman there was harmony. There was no enmity, there was no fight over who was the greatest, there was no fight. The man did not rule over the woman, the woman did not rebel against the authority of the man. There was a perfect harmony between the two.

What happened when sin came? Then God says: “From now on I will put a fight between you and the woman. The man will rule over the woman and the woman [says that] she will rebel against the man.” There was also enmity, there was a fight. The conflict of the sexes is not something of the 20th century. It began thousands of years ago in the Garden of Eden when man sinned. There the friendship between man and woman was damaged in a sense and there was discord.

And between man and man. Cain and Abel, two brothers, Cain killed Abel. Envy has come, rancor has come, resentment has come, jealousy has come. All of that came as a result of sin and that universe that Christ created and sustains was damaged. The mechanism went crazy.

And what did Christ do? He came down to the world and said 'I am going to fix this universe that I created. And I am going to do it by dying on the Cross and now establishing the principle of harmony. And the word says that "Christ made two peoples one people." The word says that in Jesus Christ there is no man or woman, slave or free, there is no date or barbarian, there is no Greek or Jew; but we are all one in Christ Jesus. There is unity, there is harmony in Christ Jesus. He is the reconciler. He came to unify all things.

And what matters most to me, and with this I end, is what he says about "you too, who were in another time strangers and enemies in your mind." That's very interesting, brother. We before knowing Jesus Christ were enemies of God.

Now through that relationship with Christ we are reconciled to God.

But something also important here is that when man is without God, there is a war within him, there is a fight, there is internal division. The Apostle Santiago says: 'Where do wars come from? Where do the fights between you come from? Where do revolutions come from? Where does this come from about people killing each other? Beware of your passions that fight within you.

Man projects his inner war abroad, and that is where the wars and struggles between individuals and between nations and between social groups come from. Now when Christ begins to work in one's life, what happens? That this division of our mind He turns it into peace. That is why Christ says 'that He is the prince of peace'. 'Peace I leave you, my peace I give you. I do not give it to you as the world gives it. Not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid'.

Jesus Christ is the great reconciler. It not only reconciles the external elements of the universe but also reconciles the elements that make up the human personality. If you want peace, make sure that Christ reigns in your heart. If you want peace, make sure your life is given over to the prince of peace.

If you want there to be peace in your family, make sure that you give all your keys to Jesus Christ so that He enters the halls of your life and arranges them so that in your family, in your marriage, in your relationship with your children there can be peace. If the nations want peace, give Christ his place of importance. If this city of Boston wants peace, put Christ first.

If you want peace, let Christ deal with your life, let Christ unify the parts of your being, your emotions. Put your mind, put your heart at the disposal of Christ and say "Lord deal with me so that these parts of my life that are in conflict can be unified and can become one thing"

That is why there is anguish in the world, that is why there is anxiety, there is agony. To the extent that Christ is not Lord of our life, to that extent there is discord within us. And that is why the Lord Jesus Christ says: "Take my yoke and you will find rest for your souls."

Meaning 'let me deal with you and you will find rest for your life'. There are many Christians who do not know peace because they are not wearing the yoke of Jesus Christ.

Because I believe that when you have Christ fully working in your life, He smooths out all the sharp points in your life. So, brothers, we have here a wonderful complete picture of the person of Jesus. I believe that the church must always examine, renew its exalted vision of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ is creator. Jesus Christ is sustainer. Jesus Christ is the head of the church and Jesus Christ is the reconciler so that in everything He has the preeminence.

May the Lord bless us!