Colossians 1:15-23: The Beauty of Christ’s Preeminence

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Download the bulletin below: 20260809_final Transcript 20260809Download John Pennylegion – August 9, 2026 Good morning. Welcome to Christ the King. My name is Penny and I’m the pastor here and it is good to be with you. If you are a guest or a visitor, welcome. Glad that you would join us this morning as we gather for worship and as we come to God’s word and sing to him and offer him praise. It is good for us to be together. And so it is good for us to join together this morning. And if you are new with us, you’re joining us in the second week of a new sermon series in the book of Colossians. So if you have a Bible, you can turn to Colossians, Chapter 1. If you don’t have a Bible, there are Bibles in the chairs in front of you and the passage can be found on page 983. So Colossians, Chapter 1. We’re going to look at the middle section of chapter one this morning, verses 15-23. Now if you were here with us last week, then you might remember that we talked about how Paul is writing to this church that he’s never met before. He’s never interacted with them. He hasn’t been there. He didn’t plant it. He’s only gotten word about who they are and what they’re struggling with and the challenges they’re facing because of his friends, his friend Epaphras, who planted the church. And what Paul has heard from him is that there are these philosophies and ideas about spirituality and about religious life that are starting to seep into the church. And these philosophies and ideas are devaluing the significance and importance of Jesus. And so Paul writes to them. So I want you to put yourself in Paul’s shoes for a moment. I want you to think about what would you write to these people, to this group of believers, to this church, where there is danger of them being led astray, of being pulled in directions away from Jesus. How would you combat those philosophies, those pulls? There’s a few different approaches maybe we would take, right? We could maybe take the Bob Newhart approach and just simply say, “Stop it,” right? “Don’t do it,” right? Just in big letters at the top of every parchment, like stop. We could do that. That’d be one way. Maybe we could shame them. That’d be another way, right? We could say something like, “Are you kidding me? Are you all idiots? Like, how long have you been trying to do this? And how long have you known of Jesus? And now you’re going to deviate from this?” Like, “Come on,” (give your head a shake). Maybe say that. Or maybe we could simply close our eyes and hope for the best. Maybe they’ll come to their senses and maybe not too much damage will have happened, right? Those are options that would be available to us, none of which are very good. But those are the options, and of those options, Paul doesn’t use any of them. No, when Paul seeks to counteract the philosophy of the day, of the errant teaching that is seeping into the church, he doesn’t close his eyes, he doesn’t shame them, and he doesn’t just simply yell, “STOP.” No, instead, he writes this in verse 15. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospe

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