Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.fbchenrietta.org/sermons/82353/christ-over-cosmos/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] Scientists say there are over two trillion galaxies in the universe.

[0:15] ! Each one has billions of stars, every star blazing because Jesus told it let there be light.

[0:25] ! Yet somehow, the same Jesus who holds all that together, the stars, the planets, gravity, the galaxies, holds you and me too.

[0:42] We scroll through a world sometimes that feels like it's spinning out of control. War is breaking out. Headlines are often depressing. But the world, or what we can call the cosmos, is not out of control.

[1:01] And neither are you. When I say the word cosmos, I'm talking about the Greek word for the order of the universe. Now, does anybody know who Carl Sagan was?

[1:14] You could say during his lifetime, Carl Sagan was public enemy number one of the Christian church. This guy went after Christianity.

[1:24] He went after the idea of Jesus. He went after the gospel. Definitely had nothing to do to support it. But what's really interesting is his quote here.

[1:38] And we're going to use a couple of his quotes because they really tie in to what Paul is going to teach us in our study of Colossians. So cosmos is a Greek word for the order of the universe.

[1:50] It is, in a way, the opposite of chaos. Isn't that interesting that what God created would end up defining order and not chaos?

[2:03] There's another quote that I want to share with you. And it's fascinating because Carl Sagan was an astronomer. He was a cosmetologist. He studied the unknown universe, the galaxies.

[2:14] Very famous, very successful. And he spent his life exploring the cosmic order. But he was widely known for his skepticism toward Christianity.

[2:26] But he actually observed these powerful truths like this one. Every one of us in the cosmic perspective is precious. If a human disagrees with you, then he's of no worth, right?

[2:41] No. Of course he is. He says, let him live. Because in a hundred billion galaxies, you will never find another. Isn't it fascinating that this quote shows you how much Carl Sagan grew to value human life, which is God's greatest creation.

[3:02] But he stopped just short of recognizing the one who actually holds it all together. And the one who created it all. So, skeptical of God.

[3:14] Critical of faith in Christ. But he lands so close to some of the very truths that we find in the scriptures. Recognize the universe has order. He recognized there's beauty and structure in that order.

[3:28] He recognized that human life is precious and it's unique in this universe. But he never got to pointing to the one who designed it all.

[3:39] Jesus. Colossians is going to do that. It's going to pick up where Carl Sagan never reached. It's going to show us the one who designed it all.

[3:49] The one who is reconciling. Bringing together for its intended purpose. This cosmos. This ordered universe in which we live.

[4:02] And not only is it being reconciled, it's being restored through Christ. And we're going to look at that. And we're going to see how our lives are part of this grand cosmic story. And Jesus is over it all.

[4:15] So that's what we're going to look at today. Is Christ over the cosmos. This is week one in our series in Paul's letter to the church at Colossae. Christ over all a series through Colossians.

[4:27] So would you take the word of God with me and turn to Colossians chapter one. If you've got the Bible app on your phone and you want to use that, that's fine. If you want to use the Bible in front of you, if you brought your own copy, or if you want to look on with someone else, that's fine.

[4:41] But let's look at Colossians chapter one. Who wrote Colossians? First off, the apostle Paul wrote Colossians.

[4:55] Without diving into who Paul was exactly, many of you are familiar. One of the key figures of the New Testament and this church that started after Jesus' death, burial, resurrection.

[5:08] He went back to heaven to be with his father. And he left his followers here on this earth with God present with them through the Holy Spirit. And so little churches started popping up all around the globe of Jesus' followers.

[5:21] And Paul became one of their key leaders and figures speaking into the lives of these churches. So around AD 60 to 62, Paul found himself under house arrest.

[5:33] He was basically in prison under house arrest in Rome. And this was about 1,600 miles from Colossae, the church that he's writing to.

[5:47] Because oftentimes you say, why was Paul in Rome? Why was he in prison? Why was he under house arrest? Because oftentimes this message was seen as civil disobedience.

[5:58] It was often seen as causing unrest, causing problems. And so Paul would often find himself on the wrong side of the law, not through any wrongdoing or criminal activity, but simply through preaching the name of Jesus in places where it would cause and incite unrest.

[6:16] And so even though God used Paul mightily and powerfully, he often found himself in situations like this where he was in jail. And so this time was one of the better ones.

[6:26] He was actually confined to a house, not a terrible prison, but he was allowed to write letters, have visitors come in and see him. And so while he's there, he gets a special visitor from this place called Colossae over 1,600 miles away.

[6:42] Paul had never been to Colossae, never made it out to visit this church. Things had prevented him from doing that. And yet he gets a visitor. And it's the pastor of this young, new, small gathering of people following Jesus in this town called Colossae.

[7:01] And he comes to visit Paul in Rome, makes the long journey. His name was Epaphras. And he was a devoted disciple of Paul. Paul knew Epaphras. He had followed Paul, learned from him.

[7:13] And now he was going out as a disciple, not just of Paul, but of Jesus. And he came with reports about the faith and the challenges of this church in Colossae.

[7:25] So what was the problem? Some members of their church were getting confused. They were blending religious traditions and difficult requirements with the gospel or the good news of Jesus.

[7:39] It was supposed to be a simple truth. And they were trying to blend it and mix it and water it down with these religious ideas. Paul writes to point them away from all that and to the one person of Jesus Christ and to anchor them in him.

[7:58] So the theme of this book of Colossians is that Christ is supreme over all creation. And he's supreme over the church. He sustains everything.

[8:08] He reconciles everything. And he's fully sufficient for life. All of life. So he wants to tell them that Jesus isn't just part of your life.

[8:20] He's the center of it. From Jesus flows everything else that you need in your life. So let's look at chapter 1 and verse 1. Hopefully you're there by now and you're not like me.

[8:34] And you got busy talking and didn't turn there myself. So here we go. All right. Colossians chapter 1 and verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by God's will, and Timothy, our brother, to the saints in Christ at Colossae, who are faithful brothers and sisters.

[8:51] He heard enough about them to know that they're faithful. And he greets them with his standard greeting. Can we pause right there?

[9:12] Two things he just thanked them for. Faith and what was the other one? Look back at it. Love. There we go. Faith and love. That's it.

[9:23] Peace is a good thing to have. But right there, he was thanking them for their faith and love. Those are two essential ingredients. They're not just ingredients. They should be what we're known for as the people of God.

[9:35] Our faith and not just our faith, saying we believe in God. We've figured out the truth and we're better than you because of it. Nope. That's where you're missing the love part. Not just faith, but also love.

[9:46] We should be known for both. So thankfully, Paul was able to point that out to this church in Colossae and say, I'm thanking you for your faith and love. And it shows up in how you live and how you care for others.

[9:58] You have already heard about this hope, he says, in the word of truth. The gospel, or is that word? It means good news. It means the story of Jesus and how he came to deliver us from sin, to forgive us, to make things right between us and God.

[10:17] That's the gospel. Look at John 3.16 if you need one verse that shows you what the gospel is. He said, this gospel has come to you. You've heard it.

[10:29] Epaphras is the one who brought the good news to them, the gospel. And he says, it's bearing fruit. And it's growing all over the world.

[10:40] It's spreading everywhere. These were the early days of the church. And this powerful, life-changing, transforming message of Jesus was spreading everywhere.

[10:52] It hadn't been that long since he rose from the dead. And this Christian faith was spreading like wildfire. So he says, just as it has among you, growing all over the world, just as it has among you, since the day you heard it and came to truly appreciate God's grace.

[11:12] You think they were having some baptisms too? You think they were having some great things happen? You think they were having some people turn from sin and turn to Jesus? Absolutely they were. This is the fruit that Paul's talking about in this letter.

[11:25] You learned this from Epaphras, our dearly loved fellow servant. He's a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf. Let me just pause and say, this is Pastor Appreciation Month. I don't know who decided that, but I'm not mad at them.

[11:37] All right? You guys have been amazing in pouring out expressions of gratefulness and appreciation to myself, to Jared, to Megan, to our staff. I mean, y'all included Joy and Laura Lee, and I think that's wonderful.

[11:50] So you've been very kind and very appreciative of that. And when you have faithful ministers, it's important to do that. The only time I've paid the money to go buy tickets to a Dallas Cowboys football game was when I took my pastor to go see a Dallas Cowboys football game.

[12:05] Like, man, those things are expensive. But you know what? He's worth it. He's my pastor. He's doing a great job. And he was a big Cowboys fan. So part of that, I think, was for me too. But we had fun. But you know what? Y'all have been wonderful and generous and so great in showing appreciation and support of your faithful ministers in Christ.

[12:22] Doesn't mean we're perfect. I think y'all know we aren't perfect. But you know what? You aren't perfect either. So we all fit together pretty well. But it's important to do that to our faithful ministers of Christ. And then he says he's told us about your love in the Spirit.

[12:38] So this is great. This is all good news. They have the most important things down. They've got their faith. They've heard the gospel. They have a faithful minister, and they're known for their love.

[12:52] That's good. And I think that's why Paul said, now I want to try to help you grow even more because you've already got a great foundation here. So let's skip down now to verse 9.

[13:05] For this reason, since the day we heard this, we have not stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord.

[13:26] This is one of the key verses of this whole letter to Colossians right here. That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him. Would anybody say, man, I hope tomorrow I wake up and walk worthy of God, fully pleasing to him?

[13:43] Am I the only one? Yeah, there you go. I think most of us would say, yeah, that'd be good. Day would probably go pretty well. It's hard to do that, isn't it? But that is the goal.

[13:56] And God, by his spirit, can help us do that. Okay? So let's look down at verse 10. You can walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing in all wisdom.

[14:17] Growing in the knowledge of God. Verse 11. Being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might. Just throwing that in there in case you thought it meant going to the gym and getting buff.

[14:30] All right? That's not the kind of strengthening he's talking about. According to God's power. According to God's might. So that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has enabled you to share in the saints' inheritance in the light.

[14:49] Remember all that God's given you. He's got a great, big, fat inheritance waiting for you. Nobody ever left me a great, big, fat inheritance. All right? Maybe some of y'all have that. Got it.

[15:00] Maybe you didn't. But God has a beautiful, rich, wonderful inheritance waiting for us. It's called eternal life in his presence in heaven.

[15:11] Where all sin will be gone. All pain will be gone. And we'll get to enjoy God's world just as he intended it. That's this wonderful inheritance.

[15:22] And we get to start tasting it now on this earth. In bits and pieces when we gather together with the saints in Christ and we enjoy this beautiful fellowship with each other.

[15:33] When we grow and God works through problems and storms of life with us, we get to start tasting this inheritance that we have. Because we've got the promise of it with us.

[15:43] It's called the Holy Spirit. That's the promise or the guarantee of this inheritance that's coming. So he's reminding them of this. This is what's waiting for you up ahead. And he said he has rescued us from the domain of darkness.

[15:57] Just by uplifted hand. You don't have to tell the story. But has anybody ever lived a few days or months or years in the domain of darkness in your life? Yeah. Me too. I've wandered in the domain of darkness a few times myself.

[16:13] But he's rescued us from that. And he's transferred us into the kingdom of the son he loves. He loves in him. We have redemption.

[16:25] The forgiveness of sins. How powerful is that? So he's asking God to give them strength to handle whatever life throws at them with joy. He reminds them that God rescued them from darkness.

[16:38] Brought them into Jesus' kingdom. And we get to hear all about what Jesus' kingdom looks like. We went through a series on the parables of Jesus. Talking about the kingdom of God. Called Stories of the Kingdom.

[16:48] You can go back on YouTube and find that if you're interested. But God's kingdom, Jesus' kingdom is so different from the domain of darkness. Flips it on its head. The rules don't apply. The last shall be first.

[17:00] The first will be last. He who is greater will be least in the kingdom of God, etc. It's so different. And so he says he's brought you into this. Through Jesus, you have forgiveness and a fresh start.

[17:13] So he's reminding them of all this. Then we get to verse 15. And this is where we're going to spend the rest of our time. Verse 15 down through verse 20. This theme of these next, what is that?

[17:25] Six verses? These next six verses is that Christ is central. Christ over all. That's the theme.

[17:37] That's why we call this whole series in Colossians. Christ over all. Jesus is the Christ. And Christ is over all.

[17:48] This theme this morning is Christ over the cosmos. Christ over the ordered, created universe in which we live. So, verse 15. He, Jesus Christ, is the image of the invisible God.

[18:02] The firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by him in heaven and on earth. The visible, the invisible. Whether it's thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

[18:13] All things have been created by him or through him and for him. And he is before all things. And by him, all things hold together.

[18:26] By him, all things hold together. He is the head of the body. He is the head of the church. That's what they mean by the body. He is the head of the church.

[18:36] The body of Christ. He's the beginning. He's the firstborn from the dead. So that he might come to have first place in everything. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.

[18:50] Jesus. Can you imagine that? All the fullness of God. That's a lot of fullness. God's pretty full. God's big. God's vast.

[19:02] And all the fullness of God lived in Jesus. And through him, through Jesus, he reconciled everything to himself.

[19:15] Whether things on earth or things in heaven. How did he do it? By making peace through his blood shed on the cross. We're going to stop there for today.

[19:25] And let's look back at what we just read. There's a theme here. There's a big idea here. The idea is you don't put Jesus in your life story.

[19:38] Your life fits inside his story. You don't just try to find a spot for Jesus in your life. If you do.

[19:50] You're not following Jesus. You're just aware of Jesus. And maybe you have some admiration for Jesus.

[20:01] And you call it love. Or whatever it might be. You have feelings. You have a history with Jesus. But you're not following him.

[20:12] Unless you understand that your life fits inside his story. History is his story. It's the story of Jesus.

[20:23] He is the most central figure in the history of this world. He's the one that holds it all together. So let's look more into this.

[20:35] Number one. Point one. If you're keeping track in your bulletin. Is this. We see it in verses 15 down through 17. Christ reigns over a few things. I've seen if y'all are paying attention.

[20:47] Christ reigns over everything. There we go. Yes he does. Christ reigns over everything. Not just a few things. Over everything. Not just Sunday.

[20:59] Over Monday through Saturday too. Christ doesn't just reign over your Bible when you read it. Christ reigns over every part. Christ reigns over my fantasy football league.

[21:10] I don't know. If he did I'd probably be winning more. Listen. Christ reigns over everything. Even the little trivial things.

[21:22] That just don't seem to mean that much. Or matter that much. Does Christ reign over everything. Yes he does. What does that look like. Well let's figure it out. Let's figure out what that looks like. Back in verse 15.

[21:33] He is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn. Over all creation. God has put his firstborn. And only begotten son. Over all of creation.

[21:44] For it says. In him. All things were created. Some people think. Jesus had no part. In the creation. Of this world. But God literally says. In him.

[21:55] All things were created. And we see. Back in Genesis. There's a reference to. The father. Son. And spirit. Together. Working. Involved. In creation. All things have been created.

[22:08] Through him. And for him. For his good pleasure. He's before all things. And in him. All things. Hold together.

[22:18] What does this mean? Jesus didn't just. Enter. The story. Jesus was always. Part of the story. He was where the story. Came from. He started it.

[22:29] He originated it. Every star. Every galaxy. Every heartbeat. Every emotion. Every breath. Owes its existence.

[22:40] To Jesus. To God. John chapter 1. In verse 3. Teaches us more about this. I already said that. Jesus didn't just. Enter the story. He started it.

[22:50] There you go. If you're taking notes. You've got that now. John 1. 3. Here we go. God created everything. Through him. That's Jesus. He's talking about. God created everything. Through Jesus.

[23:00] And nothing was created. Except. Through him. Do you understand? That Jesus's story. Did not start. As a baby. In a manger.

[23:11] Father. Father. Father. Some of you might be. Realizing that. For the first time. Jesus. Is God. God. Has always been.

[23:21] God is outside. Of the boundaries. Of human life. And this world. In which we live. He created it. He gave it to us.

[23:32] He started. This story. Everything was created. By him. Through him. And nothing was created. Except. Through. Him.

[23:43] So. Here's the truth. You're not holding. Your life together. God is. God holds it.

[23:55] In his hands. Jesus. Holds it. In his hands. When your world. Feels like it's falling apart. Remember. Your savior. Still holds.

[24:06] The universe. Together. Father. So. Christ reigns. Over everything. Number two. Christ. Restores. Everything. This is where we're going.

[24:18] This is point two. Of two points. All right. We're on our last point here. We're doing all right. We're doing all right on time. We're going to spend the rest of our time. Right here. On this point. Christ. Restores. Everything.

[24:29] Look at verse 18. He is the head of the body. The church. The first born. From among the dead. So in everything. He might have the supremacy.

[24:40] Your Bible might say preeminence. The top spot. All right. For God was pleased to have all the fullness of God dwell in him.

[24:51] And through him. He reconciled all things to himself. Christ reconciles or restores everything. Romans chapter 8 verse 21. Paul talks about this.

[25:02] He's writing to the church in Rome. And he says creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay. Think about that. Look at it again. Read it again.

[25:12] Creation itself. Everything God created. The cosmos. Will be set free. It'll be liberated from its bondage to decay. Do you understand that this world around us decays?

[25:23] You understand your body decays? Yes. Certain voices in the room were a little louder on that than other voices.

[25:34] I'm not going to say that's an age thing. I'm just going to say look. It's true man. The older we get. The more we have to come to the grips of the fact that our bodies decay. Everything around us decays.

[25:47] Nothing lasts forever. However, Christ has the power to reverse that. And he will.

[26:00] Someday, this earth will go away. Someday, we will get to live in a universe with different rules. And there will be no decay.

[26:11] And everything will be perfect just as God intended it. Just as God created it. Just as God ultimately designed for it to be.

[26:25] But until then, we're bound. We're under bondage of decay. But God can reverse that in your life. I'm not saying he's going to unlock the fountain of youth in your kitchen sink.

[26:39] And you're going to get to live forever. I'm talking about your inner spirit. Yourself. He can change that to where you're not decaying. You're actually thriving.

[26:49] You're actually growing. And the longer you spend with Jesus, the sweeter it becomes. And the better it is. It's not that there's no problems in your life.

[26:59] But you found the answer to those problems. You found the rock that can hold you through the storm. So the bondage to decay can be broken by the one who created it.

[27:14] So let's look at this. There are examples in nature, in creation of God doing this. Think about volcanoes. Volcanoes. You see that black and white picture there of a town that's had a volcanic eruption come through.

[27:33] And the lava went through and just destroyed everything. And that's what volcanoes do. Anybody ever seen a volcano erupting? Maybe online or something. Now we've all seen everything online, right? There's videos of everything online.

[27:43] But you see the picture of the lava streaming down, just destroying everything in its path. Crazy thing is it moves a lot faster than you would think it would.

[27:54] This slow advance of lava. You go to Hawaii, you go to other places in the world that have had these volcanic eruptions. And you just think, this is terrible. This is nothing but disaster.

[28:06] But then you come back some years later and scientists have figured out that volcanic ash produces some of the richest, most fertile soil for plants to grow in.

[28:23] And so you go back and you see these beautiful vineyards and some of the world's best grapes, etc. are grown in this volcanic soil. So from destruction, God changes it and produces something beautiful, something powerful.

[28:41] And that's what God can do. He can restore. He rules over the cosmos. He rules over everything. He rules over disorder. And from it, He can bring order.

[28:54] He rules over the tragedy. And from it, He can bring triumph. God can do it all. That's the God we worship. That's the God we serve.

[29:06] So, Jesus doesn't just reign. He also redeems. He can take what was used for evil and He can use it for good.

[29:20] Romans 8, 28 gives us this beautiful promise. It says God works everything together for the good of those who He has called.

[29:32] Those who He loves. His children. All of us. If you, by uplifted hand, I think the majority of people in here would say, Yes, at some point in my life I did what Gus Butler did and I put my faith in Jesus.

[29:45] And then whether or not you ever stood up in front of a church and publicly testified with that with baptism, but you know that you are a child of God because He forgave you of your sin, then God has redeemed you.

[29:58] And He can continue to redeem you. And I encourage you, if you haven't taken that step of baptism, to testify about your faith and make it public and be accountable to a church family.

[30:09] Then do that. Jesus did it. He gave us the example. He commanded us to do it. And it's a powerful thing. And Gus, I applaud you for that this morning. So, the preeminence of Christ.

[30:28] He is the image of God. He is God. He claimed to be God and then He backed it up. So we can trust Him to reign over everything.

[30:40] We can trust Him to restore everything. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 19. God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ.

[30:53] So you understand this was the plan from the beginning. Who sets the rules, church? Yeah, let's say it together. Who sets the rules? God sets the rules.

[31:05] Is this His universe we're living in? Yes, it is. So if He designed it, He ordered it, and He set the rules for it, then when we break those rules, who are we accountable to?

[31:20] God. We broke God's rules. We're accountable to God. Does God have every right to punish us for the rules we've broken? Well, He describes that punishment.

[31:33] And you can look at it. You can read all about it. Revelation 21.8 talks about it. It's a terrifying punishment that He created for the devil. And so He says, here's your punishment for breaking my laws.

[31:46] I set them up. I made them clear. So this is what you need to do. He did it back in the garden with Adam and Eve. You can eat of every tree except this one. What did they go and do? They listened to the deceiver, and they ate from the tree of good and evil, which they were not supposed to.

[32:01] God knew they would. He designed that creation. He knew what their weaknesses were. He knew they would choose that over Him and His command. We've been doing it ever since.

[32:12] And so we all are rule breakers. We all are law breakers. Every one of you might look at yourself in the mirror and wake up in the morning and say, hi, lawbreaker.

[32:25] And it would be true. Now, maybe you consider yourself a pretty good citizen. You say, I try not to break rules. I try not to break laws. Listen, that's me except for the posted speed limit.

[32:35] Every once in a while, I will break that. And if you've ridden with me, you know it's probably more than ever. Once in a while. Anyway, my wife's not here. She'd be giving me the evil eye right now.

[32:46] Yeah, I need you to fix that. But we all have our laws, our rules that we're willing to break, and then others that we're not willing to break. God paints us all with a broad brush and says, you're all lawbreakers.

[33:01] You might think you're not as bad as somebody else, but I see you all as equally guilty. Even though the consequences of your mistakes may have been more severe than others.

[33:12] You may have hurt more people in your lawbreaking than others have. But you're all have chosen against me. You've all voted for yourself instead of my laws, my rules.

[33:25] And so we needed help. We needed forgiveness. We needed someone to reconcile the relationship with our designer, our creator, our maker, our lawgiver.

[33:41] And that's what Jesus was. That was the plan from the beginning. I will now show you how much I love you in spite of your lawbreaking. So you don't come under the idea that you're worthy of my love, and why wouldn't I love you because you're so great?

[34:00] He doesn't want us to fall prey to that lie. To deceive ourselves that way. Well, of course God loves me. Have you seen me? Have you spent any time with me?

[34:12] I'm wonderful. Why wouldn't God love me? But we can't do that. We can't lie to ourselves that way because he's shown us just how bad we are.

[34:24] And then he said, I love you anyway. And so I'm going to sacrifice the one who hasn't sinned. I'm going to send him down, and he's going to show you how you could have lived this life.

[34:36] With compassion. With caring for others. With putting others ahead of yourself. With following God's laws and not breaking any of them. Jesus was the fulfillment of all the laws that you and I couldn't keep.

[34:51] And then he went and made them irrelevant. We talked about that a little bit recently. He said, now it's not about the laws.

[35:03] Now there's a relationship to be had. The relationship was not even there. It was broken. You broke my laws. You broke my commands. I have nothing to do with you.

[35:15] But then Jesus came. And Jesus died. And Jesus rose. And Jesus lives today as the living payment for our wrongdoing. And so God, what he was actually doing, was reconciling this evil, fallen, broken world back to himself.

[35:33] And you and I are part of it. So he was reconciling us to himself. God sent Jesus not only to redeem people, but to redeem all things.

[35:48] So just as Jesus came to heal our broken relationship with God, he also came to heal the consequences of the broken world we live in. There is hope in this broken world.

[36:03] If you're a follower of Jesus. God can change the track you're on. God can change the path you're on.

[36:14] God can show you what's broken about your life. And then God can fix it. God can not just fix it, but redeem it.

[36:25] Restore it. Use the brokenness to create something beautiful. So this is our concept. In him, all things hold together.

[36:38] He reconciles it. He redeems it. He died for it. He paid for it. He rose from the dead to show his power over it. And all things hold together in him.

[36:52] Now I want to show you a couple of visual examples of that. First off, this is your life as a follower of Jesus. Do you think that sometimes you fall as a follower of Jesus?

[37:05] Has anybody ever fallen in your life? Gone through a tough time? Maybe it was your fault. Maybe somebody else. Get your hands up. Come on. I know more of you than that. Yep. We fall, don't we?

[37:16] So what happens when we fall and we're a child of God? Still in one piece, man. That's it right there.

[37:28] God holds us together. The Bible says a righteous man falls seven times and rises yet again. If and when you fall, if you are in Christ, he's holding your life together.

[37:46] You might come up with some bruises. You might come up with some memories. You might come up with some consequences. But your life is held together by your creator, by your savior.

[37:56] Then there's the people who are not children of God. And they come up on some of those same problems in life.

[38:12] It doesn't hold together, does it? It doesn't hold together. Y'all aren't going to remember anything else about this sermon, but you're going to remember those blocks falling on the ground, aren't you? Listen, Colossians 1 and verse 20 says, Through the cross, Christ reconciles all things and holds them together.

[38:34] Your failures, your stumbles, your life not to the ground, he still holds it. Nothing collapses beyond his power.

[38:45] So the one who made it is the one who holds it together. And he made it all. The one who made it all is the one who holds it all together.

[38:58] And that includes you. And that includes me. So let's bow for prayer this morning. God, I pray that we would remember that we are held together by you. I trust that most of the people in this room are your children.

[39:12] And they're not resting on that fact because they've been to church or because they've always just kind of believed in you, but because there was a moment. Just like Gus testified at VBS when he said, you know what?

[39:27] I choose Jesus. Not myself. I need a savior. I have sinned. I need to be reconciled to God. Jesus offers that.

[39:38] And so I put my faith in him. Not me. Not anybody else. Not the church. Not any pastor. Not any priest. I put my faith in Jesus alone.

[39:51] Church, let me ask you that question. If there's somebody in the room that says, I need to do that today. I need to make that decision. And on this day, when Gus was baptized and we're hearing about how Jesus can reconcile this relationship, I want to do that today.

[40:06] I want to put my faith in Jesus for the first time. Would you slip your hand up and I'll just pray for you as well. I'd love to talk to you after. If that's you, just slip your hand up now. Thank you.

[40:18] For most of you in this room, I believe you are a child of God. And so I just want to encourage you and remind you this morning that God holds you in his hands.

[40:29] He holds all the cosmos in his hands. He holds all the created universe. And he holds your life in his hands. And when you fall, God holds you together.

[40:42] So rest in that. Ask him for what purpose are you holding my life together? Go to him in prayer. Thank him for it.

[40:54] Revel in it. Enjoy it. Say, God, I don't want to just take it for granted. I want to thank you that you hold my life together. Even when loved ones pass away.

[41:07] Even when times of financial prosperity pass away. Even when there's uncertainty in life. I know you hold it together. I thank you for that assurance.

[41:18] I thank you for that peace. And I thank you for never letting me down. I've let myself down. Many have let me down. But Jesus never has.

[41:30]  So thank him for that. And let's just spend the next minute or so just thanking God for holding us together. And let's just drink through. Our son.