Dr. Scott McKee: Well, good morning everybody. I want to welcome those of you joining us from Farmington Hills campus and those of you joining us online from places near and far, warm and cold. Have I mentioned recently that I'm a new grandfather? And thank you. Our grandson Aiden is nearly six months old now, and we have this little routine we do every time we're with him.
We look at him and we say, How big is Aiden? How big is Aiden? And then we grab his tiny hands, and we open up his arms, and we say, Aiden is So big. So apparently it's not entirely original with us. This little sing song, Aiden is so big, and generations of parents and grandparents have done that with kids.
The line doesn't work in all contexts. For example, if your spouse said, How big do my hips look? You would not want to say, So big. But we want our kids to know that they are big, that they are growing, that they are capable and strong. We don't want our kids believing they are weak because what they believe about themselves matters.
How they think about themselves will affect their lives over and over and over again in a myriad of ways. And today we're going to tackle maybe the biggest question of humanity, maybe the most important question of all time, how big is your God? So big, you get so big. How big is God? Because friends are deeply convinced that the way that you and I live is a direct response to the size of our God.
And most of us live with a God we have fabricated in our minds as being way too small. We are not fully convinced that we have a big God who is fully capable, fully loving, fully present, fully powerful. We live with a shrunken God. There was a movie that came out many years ago, maybe some of you remember this movie called Honey I Shrunk the Kids. And the kids were regular size, but they went down to insect size.
And I think if a movie were made about our lives, it might be called Honey I Shrunk Jesus. And what happens when you live with a shrunken God? When you go off tomorrow throughout your day, and you've got a shrunken God, what happens? You will live in fear and insecurity because it all depends upon you. When you have an opportunity to share your faith, you will likely shrink back because what if they reject me?
What if they say no? It all depends upon you. You'll shrink back from opportunities to be generous because your financial security is all on your shoulders. When someone insults you or says something negative, you're likely to get all twisted up and turned around because you don't have a big God, and you don't understand that when a big God loves you, who cares what other people think? When you have an opportunity to take credit for something you didn't do, you'd be likely to take it because you don't have a really big God who sees what is done in secret and will reward.
When human beings shrink God, friends, they offer prayers without hope, worship without awe, service without joy, and suffering without hope. It results in fear and retreat, loss of vision, failure to persevere. The little god syndrome is misery and tragedy, and a lot of us go days and days with a small shrunken God. Now, it's against this backdrop, against this tragic scenario, that the writers of Scripture never tire of telling us that we do not have a little God. We don't have one of these little tribal gods the way they thought about gods in ancient days, these little tribal gods.
In all the New Testament, I don't know any place in the whole of the New Testament that has such an exalted picture of Jesus than the passage that is before us today. The first set of the Scriptures that was read today is universally understood by scholars as being a Christian hymn. It was set to music, and it was sung by the church. The church put these beautiful words about Jesus together and sang this as a praise song of the early church. The Apostle Paul lightly puts this hymn here because there was a heresy in the church of Colossae.
There was a heresy that said Jesus was one God among many gods. There was a belief in that day that God was all spirit, which we believe as well, but that material matter, the fleshly things, that material matter was bad. It was evil. So the idea that God could take on flesh and blood was unthinkable to these people. They kind of believed in Jesus, but Jesus wasn't a big Jesus.
He God. In our days, we wouldn't subscribe to that heresy. Heresy, false teaching. But we might be guilty of an implicit heresy of living with a Jesus that we've made too small in our minds. So, let's look at our passage of the day, and look at the significance of each line, and let each line sink in.
This is what we heard read this morning, Colossians chapter one. Paul writes, the sun is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him, all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through Him and for Him. Remember, this is all set to music. This would a hymn that they sang.
He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together, and He is head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him, to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on a cross. Friends, how big is your God? When I was a graduate student, I was traveling with a group of other pastors in a van across the country, and we stopped for some gas, and across the parking lot in this gas station, there was a fist fight going on.
And I don't know if you've ever really heard the sound of a fist hitting flesh, but it sounds pretty big. And I saw this, and I thought, this guy's going to kill this other guy. And I was in the front passenger seat, and I instinctively opened my door and started running toward these two guys. I hadn't thought about what I would do when I got there. I've never even been in a fight.
I hadn't thought that entirely through, but when I got close, these two guys, really, I'm not making this up, these two guys looked over at me, and there was fear in their eyes, and they scattered. And I thought, Yeah, you guys better scatter when you see this coming. And I looked behind me and realized that all the pastors in the van had piled out of the van and were all running in our direction, including Big Dave, six foot four, mounted of a man, he was running this direction too. And to this day, I'm not sure those pastors were running to rescue that boy or to rescue me. But I think I was a lot more confident having Big Dave and a fan load of pastors behind me.
And I thought if I had Big Dave with me all the time, I would live differently, honestly. I'd be a little more bold. I'd break up more fights. I'd be more confident if I had Big Dave and a van full of guys with me 20 fourseven. But of course, that's not possible.
How big is your God? Because the Bible says there's a God who's bigger than Big Dave and bigger than a van load of guys and He is with us 20 fourseven. He's with us when you wake, when you sleep, when you speak, when you listen, when you work, when you pray, when you worship. Live with a small God, and you will live a small, sad, frightened life. Live with a big God, and you will live a life of risky faith, and fearless obedience, and awestruck worship and passionate witness.
It's against this backdrop that Paul writes about this colossal God. How vast Jesus really is. I just want to walk through some of these lines real quickly and look at the supremacy of Christ, the sufficiency of Christ that Paul writes about. There's a big football game later today, maybe you've heard about it, and it's about establishing the supremacy of football. Who's number one?
But Paul wants us to know who is supreme in the ultimate sense here in Colossians. First of all, Paul says, the sun is the image of the invisible God. He's the image of the invisible God. This is a remarkable statement to make about someone who walked in human fleshly body on earth. Paul says, When you see Jesus, you see God.
Now, the word that he uses here for image is the Greek word econ. We get our word icon from this. Among other things, the Greeks used this word to mean a portrait of somebody. Obviously, in those days, there were no photographs, snapshots, there was no digital photography. If you wanted to show someone a picture of your grandchild, you would have a portrait drawn of them, and then you could show them the portrait, and that's how the Apostle Paul uses this word here.
He says Jesus is like a portrait of God. When you see Jesus, you see God. A little kid was drawing a picture, and his mom asked him what he was drawing, and he said, I'm drawing a picture of God. His mom said, But no one knows what God looks like. And the little boy said, They will when I'm through.
How do we know what God looks like? This has been a great question of humanity since the beginning of time. What is His character? What is His heart? The problem, of course, is nobody really knew what God looked like, and Jesus said, they will what I'm through.
If you've seen Jesus, you've seen God. Paul is adamant about this. He says in verse 19, for God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him. How much of the fullness of God dwelt in Jesus? All of it.
All of it. You don't miss anything when you see Jesus. Paul says all this is fit right into a physical body. This will be real important for the church at Colossae to know that God took on this flesh. This means you can be absolutely confident of God's loving heart.
This means I don't have to be afraid of God. If I wonder, what does God think about children? I can listen to Jesus say, let the children come to me. If I wonder what does God really think about sinners like me, I can hear Jesus say, I have come to seek and save the lost. If I wonder how does Jesus feel about suffering, I can read about Jesus weeping at the death of His friend Lazarus.
I don't have to wonder if He'll forgive me when I sin, I don't have to avoid Him when I feel inadequate, I can run to His arms day or night. No more being afraid of God. How big is Jesus? He's the image of the invisible God, the God that no one had ever seen before. When you look at Jesus, you look at God.
Then Paul says, he's the firstborn over all creation. Then when he says He's the firstborn, he's not saying that Jesus was created Himself. The word he uses is proticus, we get our word prototype from this, and it has a title of preeminence. As the firstborn, Jesus was not part of creation, He was not created, He's the Lord of creation, and He stands preeminently over creation. Paul writes in verse 16, For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through Him and for Him.
He is before all things. He is the agent of creation, and He is Lord over every other power. When Paul writes that Jesus is over things visible and invisible, thrones and powers and rulers, he's not trying to name all spiritual realities. The deal is that Colossians, remember, are very into speculating about spiritual things. They're really into angels and the worship of angels, and they're kind of preoccupied with the idea of the spiritual world.
And Paul here is simply saying that every supernatural force, whatever it may be, every angelic being, every fallen angel, every one of them, every human power, every government, every corporation, your boss, all of those powers are just child's play in the hands of Jesus, all created by Jesus. Thrones, powers, principalities. Jesus is big enough to easily overpower any force that might hinder me from following Him. They're all under His Lordship. They may not know it yet, but they're all under the Lordship of Jesus.
He's Lord of all governments, over all networks, over all authority, every addiction, every supernatural being, I don't have to live in fear of any of those things. How big is Jesus? He's the sustainer of all things. In verse 17, he says, He Himself is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. You ever met somebody who said, I don't think I can hold it all together?
You don't have to hold it all together. That's the job of Jesus. He's doing it. Look at what Hebrews chapter one verse three says, again, New Testament book, but very similar. The sun is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word.
Just a word from Jesus, just a thought, and He holds it all together. Every moment you and I live is a result of the sustaining grace of Jesus. That's how big He is. How big is Jesus? He's big enough to conquer death.
Look at what Paul writes in verse 18. And Jesus is head of the body, the church, he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on a cross. God reconciled all things to Himself through Jesus through His shed blood on a cross. That includes you and I, human beings, but includes all of creation, and apparently it also includes things in heaven.
I don't fully understand how this works, but apparently at the fall, all the universe was affected, and Paul says in Romans that all of creation was subjected to frustration, creation was off somehow, and God in Christ, in the cross, was reconciled to all things in heaven and earth, there's this cosmic significance to what happened on the cross. Paul says that Jesus is now firstborn among the dead. Very unusual words to reference death, firstborn among the dead. In this world, death is about destruction, it's about the negation of birth. We don't have firstborn among the dead, when you're dead, you are dead, but not with our God.
Jesus rose from the dead and promises life to us as well. He's the firstborn among the dead, and we will follow suit. Now, Paul in this hymn goes together with a second verse. The first verse is about Jesus and creation, and the second verse is about Jesus and re creation. Jesus making the creation new.
And this is about the head of the body, the church. The church is what Jesus is up to. Initially He was doing creation, now He's redeeming creation. He's doing that through His church. He has become, as once He was, the firstborn of all creation.
Same word here, prototychus. He's the firstborn of the dead, and through His death on a cross, the agent of reconciliation is beginning a new race of human beings, a new humanity, and He's the prototype of life after death. But the question is, will you live with a big God? Will you be a big God person? And I want to suggest three areas that I'd like to invite you to do that.
Three areas I would invite you to live a big God life. And the first area is your relational life. Your relational life. Some of you have a person in your life that you're estranged from that you're angry at, and there's some bitterness in your heart toward this person, and you know this bitterness has not been good for your soul. But yet you find yourself, when you're right up against it, to say, I don't have it in me to be reconciled with this person.
And you're right, you don't have it in you. But you've got a big God right next to you. So your job is to take one step toward forgiving. Initiate a phone call. Reach out, make contact.
God will give you the power to forgive if you take the first step. Maybe there's somebody you need to apologize to. Just take a step. Live tomorrow with a big God in your relational world, and it will change your world. The second area of ministry that I want to challenge you to live a big God life with is your ministry life, your service in the church.
A lot of you, according to these footsteps, are considering a new area of ministry. Some of you are considering leading a small group, but you're kind of nervous about that. Some of you are thinking about working with kids in kids ministry, but you've never done that before. Some of you are thinking about signing up for a disaster relief trip, but you're nervous about traveling in a group. Maybe God's calling you to give financially to support the work of the church, but you're not sure how much you should give because you're worried about that.
Give and serve the way you sense God calling you to, and see if God doesn't prove faithful. Be a big God person in your relational life, be a big God person in your ministry life, and then thirdly, the third area, be a big God person in your Christian witness. I have a new physical therapist I met this week, I've decided he's a great guy, and I'm going to invite him to Easter services at Ward Church. Now you're thinking, you're a pastor, it's really easy for you to invite people to church. It is not.
I fear rejection as much as the next person. But Easter is a great opportunity to invite somebody. Who are going to invite to Easter Sunday services? You can have a ministry of invitation. You know people are facing obstacles in their life, they're not necessarily religious people, but you care about them.
Do you ever offer godly wisdom? Do you ever offer to pray? How do you bear witness to Jesus? This can be really scary for most of us, but remember, you have a really big God, and your friend would benefit from a big God too. When we have a small God, we're less likely to want to share about that God.
Why would I bother my friend with my small God? But when you have a big God, you want to share about Him. I can't think of a single person who wouldn't be better with God than without God. Can you? Take a risk.
Ask spiritual questions. Extend an invitation. Pray differently. Live with a great big God as proclaimers of the Gospel. Before we sing our closing worship song, I want to say a few words to remind you of how big Jesus is, and maybe this will affect even how we sing this final song.
How big is Jesus? Thank you, sir. He's so big. That's a pretty good answer. He's so big, He created the world by speaking a word from his mouth.
Just a word, and it all came into being, and he sustains it all without any effort at all. So big that he was able to place the fullness of God in a baby born to a poverty stricken couple and laid in a manger. How big is Jesus? So big that a word from him, with a word from him, storms ceased, and winds died down, and fish were multiplied, and the lame leaped for joy, and blind opened their eyes, and demons and death ran for their lives. So big that He has numbered every hair you've ever grown, every tear you've ever cried, every breath you've ever inhaled, every word you've ever spoken, and every hope you've ever cherished.
He's so big that He's surrounding your chair right now. And He will surround your car on the way home, He will surround your bed tonight, He will surround your day tomorrow. So big that He will be a shield around you from this moment until the day comes when He presents you wholly in His sight, without blemish, and free from accusation to live forever in the arms of His Father. Our God is so big. Let's pray.
God, you are a big God. Forgive us our small thinking and small living. You are the God who holds all things together. May we walk in confidence and boldness because of you. How great is our God.
This we pray in the great name of Jesus Christ, the supreme lord of the universe. Amen.