The lion, as we all know, is the king of beasts, and every so often he likes to make sure the rest of the animal kingdom understands it too. So he made the rounds — "Hey, fuzz face, who's the king of the jungle?" The bear and the tiger both said, "You are, your majesty." Then he came to the elephant, who wrapped his trunk around the lion, swung him around a few times, slammed him against a tree, and held him underwater for a while. When the lion came up through bruised and battered lips, he said, "Hey, if you don't know the answer, just say so." That is about where a lot of us live with Jesus — happy to grant Him a title as long as He does not press the question too hard.
This morning we wrapped up our months in Colossians, Paul's powerful little letter to a specific church at a specific time, all of it circling one claim: Jesus is greater than all — greater than our circumstances, our suffering, our religion, our old life, greater than ourselves. Before we read it one more time, let me hand you a rubric my best seminary professor, Dr. Richard Pratt, gave us. For those of us who actually believe the Bible to be God's Word — all of it, not just the convenient parts — every passage has one original meaning, many legitimate summaries, and countless applications. My summary this morning has three parts.
Christ is above everything
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." The word for image is the Greek word eikon — exactly where we get our word icon, and it means an exact replica of the thing being represented. Now, Paul writes in Greek but he thinks in Hebrew. A Jewish believer hearing "the image of the invisible God" ran straight to Genesis — the Spirit of God hovering over the waters. A Greek convert heard the logos, the organizing principle the philosophers said held the universe together, the very word John reaches for in his first chapter. For centuries your forebears wondered what that creative force behind everything was really like. Paul's answer is that He is here, and His name is Jesus. You want to know what God is like? Look at Jesus. As for "firstborn," the Greek prototokos does not mean Jesus was created; it means He is especially honored, given the highest status of all. And then the scandal of the gospel, verse 17: a Jewish baby born to a peasant couple in a backwater town, among a despised and occupied people, is the one before all things, in whom all things hold together. As the commentator Derek Kidner put it, "He speaks and it is done. He commands and it holds fast."
He is sufficient for everything
"For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell." That means we do not need anything else — not for our salvation, not for our sanctification, not for the glory He will one day bring us to. There has always been a temptation to clutter up the simple gospel of grace through faith in Christ alone. Peter himself capitulated to the pressure — receive Christ, yes, but then keep the Jewish law too — and Paul opposed him to his face and said, you're wrong. It is Jesus and His grace, period. Add nothing. We do the same thing today. Henry Cloud's summary of the sermon we have all heard: God is good, you are bad, try harder. And by all means, try harder, be better — but understand it will not add a single thing to your salvation. What are you going to add to the cross of Christ? It is not Jesus plus works, not Jesus plus baptism, not Jesus plus anything. It is just Jesus. You do not add to the gospel of grace; you receive it and rejoice in it.
He is the center of everything
He is the center of time — we date our calendars by His birth, which is why we can even say the word 2026. And He is the center of civilization; no one in human history has impacted life on earth the way Jesus of Nazareth did, and He did it with no money, no army, and no political machine, only the force of His life and His death and His resurrection. Even Napoleon, exiled and grown more serious about such things, saw it: Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and he himself built empires on force, and their dreams vanished into thin air, while a Judean peasant, Jesus, has stretched His hands across the centuries and controls the destinies of men and nations.
Is He at the center of your life?
Here Paul turns it toward us in chapter 2: as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. Not a set of stone tablets down from Mount Sinai — call it a mental checklist, halfway up the mountain on some old parchment. What is there in your life that makes absolutely no sense if Jesus is not the Son of God, if He did not live and die an atoning death and rise again? I can tell you with integrity that if none of this is true, my life is a series of monumentally stupid decisions — but I am betting my life and my eternity that it is true. How about you? How does knowing Him shape your marriage, your children, your co-workers, and, since it is Labor Day, your work? Whatever you do, if it is legal, ethical, and moral, it is good work, and God is pleased with it. The quiet danger is not open rebellion; it is living one life at church and a different one at home. That, I'm told, is exactly how you raise secular kids.
God has been murdered — and rose
Let me close with one of the oldest sermons we have, from Melito of Sardis at the end of the second century. He who hung the earth is hanging. He who fixed the heavens has been fixed in place. The Master has been profaned; God has been murdered. But He rose from the dead and cried out with a loud voice: I set the condemned man free. I gave the dead man life. I am the one who destroyed death and triumphed over the enemy. I, He says, am the Christ. That is the peace made by the blood of His cross — a peace nothing you do or fail to do can unmake. Church, between now and that day, may He keep us faithful.
