Misunderstood • Week 4

June 15th, 2025 • "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." – Colossians 1:15

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Host

Beau Bradberry

Senior Pastor

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Hey, good morning. If you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, I want to invite you to join us

in Colossians chapter 1. We're going to look at verse 15. If you do not have a Bible, it would

be our great joy this morning to be able to gift you one. And so at the end of the service, or you

can come right now, right back here at this black table right in the back. There's some black Bibles

that are right there, and you can go by and grab one of those. It is a gift from us to you. We would

love for you to have a copy of God's Word. I want to echo what Pastor Dave said about all our first-time

guests. Hey, listen, we count it as a privilege and an honor that you were here. There's a thousand

places you could have been this morning, but you chose to be here with us, and we count that as a

blessing. At the end of the service, my wife and I will be right back there. If you wouldn't mind just

stopping by for just a second so we can thank you personally for being here. If you've got somewhere

to be, if you've got somewhere to go, hey, we understand completely. You don't have to, but we

would love for you to stop by. And then I would just like to say happy Father's Day to all of the dads

out there, right? Like that video listed the top 10 things, but there's a thousand more that we do,

and I am so appreciative and blessed to be able to be here at this church. And I was thinking about

this in the tenure and the time we came here when our kids were five years old, four years old, five

years old. I don't remember how old y'all were, but y'all were. How old were they, Aaron? Five. Thank

you. Mom always knows when dad doesn't. But here's what God's blessed me with. God's blessed me

with dads older than I am to come alongside and to walk through that with me as a young dad with my

kids and to speak truth and give grace to me in my life. God's allowed me to have men the same age,

the same journey as I am going through this, so we can do this together, so we can pick each other up

and encourage us. But then also the joy and the blessing, man, have some of those younger dads

to be able to pour in, to be able to invest into. And so for all of you guys, if golf is your thing,

man, I hope that U.S. Open is just like you want it to be, whatever that meal is going to be,

whatever that day is going to be. But here's what I want to say, and this is me from my heart,

right? This isn't a message. I'm not doing a Father's Day message, not preaching this for you,

but sometimes, man, I know that on days like this, the focus can be to make it all about you.

And guys, my encouragement for you today is make it about one of the greatest joys that God's given

you and make it about your family. Make it about your wife, your kids, whatever that that looks like

for you to be able to do that. I'm excited. My kids, Saturday is usually a little bit less stressful

day than Sunday, so they gave me my Father's Day gifts yesterday. And this is one of my Father's

Day gifts that my son and my daughter got me. My Nike polo, it makes me look about 20 pounds lighter

and a lot more muscular than I really am. Not really, but you know, just encourage me with that

this morning, all right? So, but happy, happy Father's Day. Well, here's going to be Colossians

115 this morning. Let me read this verse to you before we pray. It says, He is the image of the

invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Would you join me in prayer? God, we thank you so much

for today and this time that we could be here, Lord. We thank you for the kids in the room. We thank you

for the dads in the room. Thank you for the moms in the room. Thank you for the families. We thank you

for the individuals. Lord, we thank you for the members and the guests. We thank you for every

person that you've brought here today. Lord, I thank you for that beautiful moment

when the voices off the microphone stepped back, when the instruments weren't being played.

God, and we could hear your church singing songs of praise to you. God, I pray that all that we do

this morning bring glory and honor to your name. God, and as we look at this particular passage of

scripture, God, may you do with it in the hearts of the men and the women and the children who are here

today, we're to draw them to yourself to convict us of our sin and to point us into the direction of

Christ. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, as we've been going through this series of

Misunderstood, one of the things that we're trying to do is kind of help understand that you and I,

as individuals, we bring certain perspectives to when we read the Bible. And what I mean by that is

is we bring past habits, we bring biases, we bring histories all to what we do. And what we're trying

to do is kind of peel back the personal part of us to bring back any misconceptions or misunderstandings

that we have and to put it into right perspective so that we can understand truly the passage of

scripture for what it is. This past week, my family and I had the opportunity to get up and to go on

vacation. We got a camper and so we took off to go to Lake Jocassee up in the upstate of South Carolina,

almost into North Carolina. If you've never been there before, the Bradbury is what would give it

a 10 out of 10. The lake, wonderful, beautiful place, mountains there, the water's cold, the water's

clear, wonderful, wonderful experience. Well, our next to the last morning that we got there, I woke up

and our neighbor that's right beside us and we had gotten to kind of know him and was talking to him

and he made this statement to me. He said, did you hear about the bear that came by your camper last

night? And while I like eating, I'm not necessarily a big fan on being eaten, right? So I heard the story

from him of what happened and then Aaron came out and I was like, hey babe, just to let you know,

last night about 30 feet from our camper was a bear. And the look that I saw on her face was,

this was just my last night camping, you know? And then I gave the perspective.

I said, but we're okay. We don't have to worry about it. Because while he came 30 feet past our

camper, he sat down three feet away from someone's tent. Yep. Opened up their cooler

and ate all their food. So as long as there's a tent with a cooler, we're okay with the camper in the

refrigerator, right? Like it's just the perspective that we have. And that's what we've been doing a

little bit with, with this, with this series is understanding the perspective that the Bible

brings in the context of, of us so that we can fully understand what is God's word communicating

so that I could properly apply that in my life. Now this morning's Bible verse is a little bit

different than the ones that we've been doing. This morning's Bible verse is one that as I read it,

that you might think through, well, that's, that's not a misunderstood or misapplied Bible verse,

but this Bible verse actually has been frequently misused. And in the misusage of this Bible verse

has come from false teaching and heresy for a large group of people.

One of my first classes that I took was, was taught by in seminary was, was taught by a man by the name

of Dr. Stephen McKinnon. And as he was talking to the first day of the class, I'll never forget this.

We're, we're taking ethics. And he said that what we're going to discuss today is this statement.

While it's important to share Jesus with people, what's really important is that we share the Jesus

of the Bible with people. That sometimes what can happen is that individuals will say that they're

talking about Jesus and we'll hear them and others will hear them talking about Jesus. And so we think,

high five, we're on the same team, but the Jesus that they're talking about is not the Jesus that the

Bible was talking about. So let's look one more time about this verse. It says that he being Christ

is the image of the invisible God, talking about Jesus continues, the firstborn of all creation.

Well, one of the essential doctrines of the early church and the central doctrine for the church

today is, is to establish that, that Jesus is God and Jesus is man. There's the humanity of Christ

and there's the divinity of Christ and proper faith, proper doctrine requires this. Now, does it mean that

you fully understand it or grasp that? No, I've been studying this for years and this, in this concept is,

is still such a hard concept to wrap my earthly mind fully around that Jesus is God and that Jesus is man.

Things that I would think would stand in opposition of one another come into unity in the person of Christ.

And we see this from multiple points in scripture. Some of these are Colossians 2.9,

for in him, being Jesus again, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.

John 10.30, from the words of Christ, I and the Father are one. John 1.1, in the beginning was the word,

and the word was with God, and the word was God, and the word is Christ. 1 John 4.2,

by this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ

has come in the flesh is from God. But this foundational teaching has oftentimes

been attacked from those who claim faith in God. And throughout church history have been labeled as

heretics or cults. An example of this from biblical times would be the instance of the Gnostics. And

you'll see them referred to in different points in times throughout scripture. And they taught when

their essential beliefs was that all physical matter was evil and only the spirit or non-material things

were good. So what they would teach is all physical matter, this water bottle, my watch, you, me,

were all evil. So what they had to do then was reconcile the person of Jesus with this.

So they taught incorrectly that Jesus only appeared to be human, but he was not human, remember, because

physical matter is evil. And so he was actually a ghost or a spirit.

And there's lots of problems, there's lots of issues with that. When we look at the payment of Christ's death

on the cross, and not only that, but just who he said and who the Bible teaches that he is.

So the Gnostic phase isn't necessarily something that rings true for us in Lexington, South Carolina, but

there's the Jehovah's Witnesses, who believe that Jesus, there's lots of things they believe, but they

believe that Jesus was created by Jehovah, by God, as the archangel Michael, before the physical world

existed, and is a lesser though mighty God. They believe that God sent Jesus to earth as a temporary

man and nothing more than a man. And they believe that when he died, his humanity was completely

annihilated, and that he was raised from the dead as a mortal spirit. And when he returned to heaven once

again, and became the archangel Michael. So what in the world does Colossians 115 have to do with this?

Remember, it's important that the Jesus that we share is the Jesus of the Bible.

And that you and I, that our job, that our responsibility as students of the Bible, is to

say not what I can take away as far as removing things from the Bible. We want to take things

from the Bible and see the truths of God apply to our life. Not what I can remove from the Bible,

but also not what I add to the Bible. Not what I add to the Bible. Like as great as we may think we

are in our mind, as biblically sound as we may think that we are, that the Bible is set in full and

it's completed. And it does not need you, it does not need me to come back to this and say,

well then there's things that were left out, there's things that need to be included.

That we believe in the sufficiency and the fullness of Scripture, that we believe in the

authority of Scripture, that we believe in the perfection of Scripture, that it is set, that it is

done, that it is good, that it is whole, is complete, and everything we need for relationship with

Christ and for righteousness is found here. So they use this passage of Scripture and their false

teaching. They believe that God created Jesus as the archangel Michael, and that through God,

Michael, and all things were created. And they come to this conclusion by two errors. Two errors that

they make in this, in this particular passage. One is a language error. Look back at Colossians 1.15,

it says, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. So,

the word, the language error here is firstborn. Firstborn. You guys know, Emma and Grayson are

twins, right? But it is always a thing in our house that we do have an older twin, and that older twin

Grayson loves to leverage the fact, I'm not going to call out names, that he is older than she.

And the younger twin, she doesn't like that very much, right? So we have this. So they use this

word of firstborn in the way that we would say that Grayson is firstborn. Correctly translated,

firstborn here, carries with it the concept of position, rank, or prominence. So an example of that would be

when we look at King David in Psalm 89. Psalm 89 verse 27. King David is referred to as the firstborn of the

kings of the earth. Now, here's what history, here's what the Bible, here's what we know about David.

David was the lastborn in his family, and he surely, when we read through the biblical narrative,

was not the firstborn king of the earth. But what we see here in God's man is God has chosen

who he is in God and what God has called him to. And so what we begin when we remove the language error,

what we see Paul is saying is that Jesus is before, Jesus is eternal, all created things,

that Jesus is different, that Jesus is divine, that Jesus is holy, that Jesus is perfect,

then all created things. So Jesus is not the same as you and me. Jesus is not created.

He's God. He's eternal. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,

and there was never a point where God created Jesus. This is who he is. So there's a language error,

but then there's an intentional translation error. And here's why I say intentional. They add the word

other to various places in Colossians 1, 15 through 16, even though the word other isn't listed

in the original text. Okay? Now, I'm going to do something that Berger and I, we talked about this

morning. We're like, this feels a little weird, but we're going to do this. I'm going to intentionally

put the wrong Bible verse on the screen. Please do not take a picture of this and post it. Look at the

heresies being taught at Willow Ridge Church, all right? This is the incorrect version of what we will

see in Colossians 1, 15 through 16, to help us see this intentional translation error. So he is the image

language of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. That was the language. Verse 16,

for by him all other things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones

or dominions or rulers or authorities. All other things were created through him and for him. Now,

this is the incorrect translation. But what they're trying to push across in the false narrative who

Jesus is is, yeah, sure, Jesus created, but he created all other. But God created him. And it's false.

And it's not only false. But it drives a wedge against the heart of what God is communicating.

Here's what I'm not trying to do this morning. I'm not trying to create in you a heart of hostility

against a group of people who believe something different than you or I.

What I am trying to create in you and in myself is a heart of desperation for the gospel.

That when others who would like to knock and share a heresy,

a lie that pulls people away from Jesus of the scripture, that our heart for them is not to engage

into a fight with them, but a desire that they would come to know the true Christ.

See, that's it.

You and I live in a world

of pick a side, draw a line, and then go to battle.

And there are the battles that we face.

But our mission, the battle should never deter us from the mission.

And the mission is what God has given us to go and make disciples, to share the gospel of Jesus Christ,

to see men and women, sinners lost in their trespasses and sins, come to faith in Jesus Christ.

In all that we are, in all that we do, this is our mission.

This was the heart of Paul as he wrote to the church.

This was the heart of Christ as he came to minister.

And this is the heart of us as we send, as we go, as we live in every moment for who God has called us to be.

So let's get some perspective.

Let's look at the correct verses.

And let's ask, then what is Paul communicating?

What is Paul pointing us toward?

What is Paul leading us to?

So Colossians 1, start reading 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 the cross."

What Paul does here, under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gives a wonderful and beautiful introduction to Jesus.

And I don't know what caused you to be here this morning.

I don't know if it was a conversation with a spouse, if your dad invited you to come with me on the Father's Day.

If this has just been a routine and you're here every week because out of obligation of who you are or whether you showed up for a thousand different reasons.

But what Paul does here, which is what I want to do, is let's have an introduction and kind of hang out for a minute with Jesus.

And just understand who he is.

Because when we understand who Jesus is, when we understand Jesus of the Bible,

we understand love beyond any other earthly comparison that we can draw from.

Like on this Father's Day, I love my kids.

I do.

Man, I am blessed with a son and daughter whom I love and who I firmly believe deeply love me.

I'm blessed this Thursday.

I will have the privilege of being married to my wife, who's way better looking and kinder than I deserve.

For 21 years.

And I love her.

Thank you for the woo.

It should have been more like a Ric Flair woo, though, you know.

Thank you.

There we go.

I love her.

I love her.

And she loves me.

But as much as I love these three people, it pales in comparison to the love that Christ has for them.

It pales.

Whether you're a follower of Jesus, or if this is the first time that you've ever heard his name,

I believe that there's some really good sweetness when we can just end this service by understanding even more so who Jesus is.

Because the truth is, whether you're a part of a false religion, or you're a part of a body of believers, or you don't know what you're a part of,

we all desperately need the Jesus of the Bible.

So what Paul tells us, number one, he says that he's the image of the invisible God.

That he's the image of the invisible God.

Folks, get this.

Jesus is God.

That the man who walked the streets of Jerusalem is God.

That when you looked at him and you saw him, you saw God.

That when he called Lazarus from the dead.

When he laid his hands on the eyes of the blind.

When he sat down and broke bread with the disciples.

When he hung on the cross.

When he walked out of the tomb.

When he stepped into the room where they were all hiding.

When he ascended to heaven.

He is God.

The second thing that Paul tells us is he is the firstborn over all creation.

That he is before.

That he is over.

That he is different.

That there's no part of creation that is him.

He's before it all.

Eternal.

It says that by him, by him all things were created.

That he's the active agent of creation.

That when we look and we see of God working and moving in the Bible, it's Jesus.

It's not just picking up Jesus in the New Testament with the Gospels.

It's picking up Jesus in Genesis 1-1.

And that we can walk through and that we can see the beauty of the hand of Jesus.

Yes, he does not come in the form of man until the New Testament.

But we can see the hand and work of God.

We can see the hand and work and move of Jesus.

This is who he is.

That he is before all things.

There has never been a time, nor will there ever be a time, that he has not existed.

That he is eternal.

That in him, the Bible tells us, all things hold together.

All things hold together.

Who's the glue of your family?

There's some grandma.

Maybe you think it's you.

And you know that without that person, man, this family's going to fall apart.

He is that for creation.

He is the sustainer.

The song that we sang as little kids is true.

It's not a nursery rhyme.

He literally holds the whole world.

He holds the cosmos in his hands.

He is the head of the body of the church.

Folks, it's what makes God's word authoritative.

He is our authority.

He is your authority.

He is my authority.

There's not a special loophole for me because I'm a pastor and I get out of that.

He is our authority, the head of the body, the church.

He is our truth.

And he reconciles what the Bible tells us.

He reconciles all things to himself.

Now, guess what Paul's pointing us to?

Here's what we get to see.

We get to see the cross.

We get to see the cross.

Jesus is working.

Jesus is drawing people to himself as he brings people back into right relationship with God.

And it didn't come by decree of his voice.

It didn't come through a law he commanded, but it came as means by his death hung between two criminals on a cross.

He reconciles us.

He reconciles us through the blood of the cross.

He reconciles us through the cross.

Just let it sink in.

Not because of our great sin.

Because of the condemnation and the wrath that we deserve.

God came here and got on a cross and died.

Not in theory.

Not in concept.

But through the very spilling of his blood.

That's the introduction to Jesus.

That's his love.

That's his compassion.

That's how much he cares.

Why in the world would anyone ever want to lessen that?

And not just cling to the beauty of who he is.

I'm going to close with verses 21 through 23.

Paul says, and you.

Church, this is you and me.

You and me.

And you who were once 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 gospel.

That you heard which has been proclaimed.

In all creation under heaven.

And of which I, Paul, became a minister.

It's not just who is Jesus.

But Paul says,

it is who is Jesus

for you.

The world wants to take

and say,

this is who Jesus is to me.

The Bible says,

this is who Jesus is for you.

Do you see the difference?

When we say,

this is who Jesus is to me,

I want to pull out the parts of Jesus

that I don't like

and cast them aside.

But when the Bible says,

this is who Jesus is before you

because God knows what we need

when we don't realize what we need.

And we need the wholeness

and the fullness of Christ.

And you,

you and me.

The Bible tells us

who we were before Christ.

Like, you see,

we weren't just good people

that occasionally did bad things.

Like, I think that's what

we want to believe, right?

Oh, I mean,

it was just,

it was a good kid

that just maybe occasionally,

no, no, no, no, no.

But our spiritual condition

and what God says,

the spiritual condition

apart from Christ,

apart from Christ,

that we're,

we were alienated from God,

that we were hostile

in mind.

And we just didn't do

a couple of bad things.

The Bible tells us

that we did evil deeds.

That this is who we were

before Christ.

But because of His work

on the cross,

because of Him

taking the wrath of God,

because of Him

taking the payment

and the punishment

for all of our sins,

that He did a work,

that He reconciled

in His body

by His death

in order to present

you and I,

those evil people,

hostile that we are,

that we'll be restored,

that we'll be fixed,

that we'll be made new,

that the Bible tells us

that we'll be alive

in Christ.

He reconciled us,

that He made us

blameless,

that He made us

holy

and above reproach.

Have you ever gotten

the better end

of a deal?

Let me tell you about

the deal that we got

with Jesus.

He got all of my

and all of your,

the nasty,

the evil,

the wicked.

He got it all.

And you see,

He never did

any of those things.

He's perfect,

blameless,

holy.

That's who He is.

But He took

all of my nasty,

my nasty past,

my nasty present,

and my nasty future.

Every evil,

wicked thought,

word,

deed that I will ever do

and that I've ever done.

But then He gave me something.

And I got the better end

of the deal.

And so did you.

But He gave me

His holiness,

His righteousness.

So now,

who I am

in Christ

is alive,

a new creation

in Him.

So Paul calls us.

He says,

now,

now that this is

who you are,

I love these words.

Continue

in

the faith.

Continue

in

the faith.

When Jesus,

His early words

to the early

disciples,

and Jesus

didn't have a car,

right,

didn't exist.

Jesus would have been

on the lower end

of things,

economy-wise.

That's why you never hear

about Jesus

riding on animals

until you

see His entrance

into Jerusalem.

And if you remember

that donkey

that they rode,

that he rode,

they had to borrow.

And he would go

and as he called

people

to

himself,

he said two words.

Follow me.

Follow me.

Church,

sometimes

I think we can make

simple things

more difficult

than they need

to be.

I don't know

what to do next.

I don't know.

We can overthink

something terribly.

Continue

in

faith.

what does that

mean?

Just

follow

Jesus.

On a day

that we celebrate

culturally dads,

man,

I'm so grateful

for my dad.

over the last five

years,

I've had the

privilege and

opportunity

because of the

sickness that my

dad's been

diagnosed with

to watch what I

thought would

turn him bitter

and angry.

I've watched

it soften

his heart

and I've

watched it

solidify his

faith.

So today's

a great day

to celebrate

my dad.

But my dad

can't do

for me

what Jesus

did for me.

And the

challenge that

I have for

you this

morning is

this.

If you're a

follower of

Jesus Christ,

there's some

times this week

that you got

it wrong.

How do I

know?

Because I

did too.

And we

all did.

Know that

God is

bigger than

your sin.

Continue

in

faith.

If you're

not a follower

of Jesus

Christ,

you've got

questions,

you've got

doubts.

Would

today

be the

day

that we

just didn't

introduce you

through Paul's

writing

to a

concept,

but we

introduced you

to a

person.

And you

may feel

that the

world is

stacked against

you,

but could

you believe

this morning

that Jesus

is for you?

That there's

not a sin

that you've

committed

that's

too big

that he

can't

forgive.

That there's

not a part

about you

of who you

are that

causes him

not to

love you.

And would

today be

the day

that you

put your

faith in

the God

of eternity,

Jesus Christ,

who died on

the cross for your sins

and who rose

from the dead

and through the

power of his resurrection

you can walk

in the fullness of

hope and peace

not just in

this life but for all

of eternity. Would you pray with me?

God we thank you so much

for the power of your word

God we thank you for the

truth that you proclaim

God we thank you for every

person who is in here this

morning for whatever

journey for whatever reason for whatever

brings them here Lord they're here today

God we pray that the truth

of your word would

ring true in their hearts

that God if there's

anyone here who doesn't know you

that today would be

the day of their salvation

God we do lift up others

who have wandered from the truth

who believed a lie

God they're not the enemy

for us

they're the object

the people

to share

so they'd experience

the hope

that comes in Christ

in Christ alone

God work

and move

in only

how you can

we thank you

Jesus did

not die

for those who deserve it

because there would be none

he died for us

it's in his name we pray

that's it for this week's message

be sure to check back next week

for a new episode

and in the meantime

you can visit us online at

willowridgechurch.org

or by searching for

Willow Ridge Church

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and YouTube

thanks again for listening

and I'll see you next week's message