What have you assumed God is like — based on your past, your family, or your fears? How does it change things to know that the truest picture of God is the face of Jesus?

For most of human history, people have stood under the night sky and asked the oldest question there is: What is God like? Every religion, every philosophy, every late-night conversation is, in some way, a reach for that answer. And Paul, writing to a young church in Colossae, gives it to us in seven words. What is God like? Look at Jesus. That is what Paul means when he calls Jesus "the image of the invisible God." The word behind "image" is the Greek word *icon* — not a faint copy or a rough sketch, but an exact representation. When you want to know what the invisible God is like — how He feels about the poor, the sick, the sinner, the outsider, the child — you do not have to guess. You look at Jesus. You watch Him touch the leper. You hear Him forgive the woman everyone else wanted to

Is there an area of your life you've quietly assumed is outside God's reach or care? What would change if you truly believed Jesus says "Mine" over that very thing?

Yesterday we looked at who Jesus is. Today Paul tells us how big His reign is — and the answer is: bigger than you have imagined. "By him all things were created," Paul writes. Not most things. Not the nice things. *All* things — the galaxies and the microbes, the visible world you can touch and the invisible world you cannot. Paul even lists "thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities," which was ancient language for the angelic and spiritual powers people spent so much energy trying to appease. Paul's point is bracing: even those powers were made by Jesus and answer to Jesus. They are real, but they are secondary. Do not fixate on them. Fix your eyes on the One who made them. The Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper said it in a line worth memorizing: "There is not one molecule in the

Where in your life do you feel like things are coming apart? What would it look like to trust that Christ — not your own effort — is the one holding it all together?

There is a phrase in the middle of Paul's hymn that scientists have spent centuries circling without quite naming: "in him all things hold together." Think about how finely tuned your world is. The earth is tilted at just about twenty-three degrees — enough to give us seasons instead of scorched deserts and frozen wastelands. We orbit at just the right distance from the sun; a little closer and we burn, a little farther and we freeze. The moon is just the right size and just the right distance to pull the tides and, remarkably, to fit almost exactly over the sun in an eclipse. The ratio of carbon to oxygen, the rate at which the universe is expanding, the forces that hold an atom together — dial any of them a hair in either direction and there is no life, no you, no this morning. You can

What part of your life have you been keeping back from God — the thing you assume is too far gone? What would it mean to bring it to Him honestly today, trusting that His grace is greater than your sin?

For three days we have looked up — at the glory, the reign, and the sustaining power of Christ. Today Paul turns the telescope around and points it at us, and he does not flinch: "you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds." That is God's honest diagnosis of every one of us apart from Him. Not distant acquaintances of God who drifted a little. Alienated. Hostile. Enemies. And then comes one of the most beautiful words in the Bible: "he has now reconciled." The One who breathed the world into existence one day breathed His last on a Roman cross — so that people who were His enemies could be brought home as His children. The One who holds every molecule together let His own body be broken apart, to put us back together with God. Why does this matter for you today? B

If someone looked at where your time, money, and attention actually go, what would they say holds first place in your life? What is one concrete way you could give Jesus the center this weekend?

All week Paul has been reaching for words too big for the page — like Coco the gorilla signing "darn floor, bad bite" for an earthquake she had no vocabulary to describe. We are not much better off when we try to describe Jesus. He is greater than our words. And when you finally run out of language for someone that great, there is only one thing left to do. You worship. That is where Paul's whole hymn has been headed. He piles up the titles — image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation, the one through whom and for whom all things were made, the one in whom all things hold together, the head of the church, the firstborn from the dead — and then he names the point of all of it: "that in everything he might be preeminent." Preeminent means first place. Not a place. First place. In

Coco the gorilla had no sign for earthquake, so the day after the 1985 quake she signed "darn floor, bad bite." Kent said Paul sounds like he is straining the same way. Read Colossians 1:15-20 out loud and name the phrase that most sounds like a man reaching past his own vocabulary.

How do you put into words a Jesus who is greater than words? Pastor Kent Keller opens with Coco the gorilla — who, having no vocabulary for an earthquake, could only sign "darn floor, bad bite." We're…

Verse 15 calls Jesus "the image of the invisible God" — Kent said that word is where we get "icon," and it means the living, breathing version of what a portrait only pictured. If someone asked you today what God is like, how much of your answer would actually be about Jesus?

How do you put into words a Jesus who is greater than words? Pastor Kent Keller opens with Coco the gorilla — who, having no vocabulary for an earthquake, could only sign "darn floor, bad bite." We're…

Kent explained that "firstborn of all creation" is about honor, not about time — Jesus was not made, everything was made through him. Why do you think our forebears fought so long over one word instead of letting people believe whichever version they liked?

How do you put into words a Jesus who is greater than words? Pastor Kent Keller opens with Coco the gorilla — who, having no vocabulary for an earthquake, could only sign "darn floor, bad bite." We're…

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Greater Than (Week 2)

Greater Than Words · Group Guide

Name: Christchurch Miami
Address: 8485 SW 112th Street, Miami, FL, 33156, US
Telephone: +13052715262
Price range: Free

Colossians 1:15-23

Kent Keller Sunday, July 19, 2026

Icebreaker

Tell us about a time you tried to describe something to someone — a place, a taste, a moment — and the words just were not there. What did you end up saying instead?

Colossians 1:15-23

Discussion Questions

1
Coco the gorilla had no sign for earthquake, so the day after the 1985 quake she signed "darn floor, bad bite." Kent said Paul sounds like he is straining the same way. Read Colossians 1:15-20 out loud and name the phrase that most sounds like a man reaching past his own vocabulary.
2
Verse 15 calls Jesus "the image of the invisible God" — Kent said that word is where we get "icon," and it means the living, breathing version of what a portrait only pictured. If someone asked you today what God is like, how much of your answer would actually be about Jesus?
3
Kent explained that "firstborn of all creation" is about honor, not about time — Jesus was not made, everything was made through him. Why do you think our forebears fought so long over one word instead of letting people believe whichever version they liked?
4
The Gnostics told the Colossians the gospel was too simple to be the real thing, and that the deeper truth was available from the elite — for a fee. Where do you hear that same pitch today, that plain Christianity is for beginners and the serious stuff is somewhere further in?
5
Kent's picture: a perfect prototype car is wrecked on the way to the factory, the factory starts turning out wrecks, and then the designer sends a second, undamaged one. Having Jesus in front of you as the undamaged original — does that land more like hope or more like exposure? Say why.
6
Kent quoted Abraham Kuyper: there is not one molecule in the universe over which Jesus does not cry "mine." Name one corner of your life you have quietly kept off that list, and one small thing you will do this week to hand it over.

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Greater Than Words · Group Guide

Colossians 1:15-23

Discussion Questions

Related Reading

It All Begins with God: Genesis 1 and the Creator Who Sustains You

Jesus Plus Nothing: The Math I Keep Doing on My Own Salvation

Greater Than All: What Colossians 1:15–20 Says About Who Jesus Really Is

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