Series: Jesus Manifesto
Message: Getting Clear About Christ
Preacher: Jenniffer Ogden
Reflection: Japhet De Oliveira
Live Wonder: Zan Long
Live Adventure: Zan Long
Live Beyond: J. Murdock
Live Purpose: Lydia Svoboda
Editor: Becky De Oliveira
Refresh: Begin with prayer. Ask for the Holy Spirit to open your heart to new understanding and for God’s character to be revealed.
Read: Colossians 1:15-23 in the English Standard Version (ESV). Note 1–3 insights or questions.
Reflect: If we had to pick a single passage, a “Jesus Manifesto” statement, it would have to be these verses. It would be Paul’s answer to Jesus, “Who do you say I am?” It could be our answer to others: “Who is this man from Nazareth that they called Jesus?” It is the rally cry, the vision statement, the all-inclusive leap across time and space. Jesus has always existed because He too is God. Jesus was at creation; in fact He took point on creation. Jesus is not a created being; He is the Creator. There are some who read “firstborn” and believe that means He was the first one created. This is an ancient heresy called arianism. There were those in the early church who wanted to deny the divinity of Jesus. Paul’s use of the word “firstborn” in context at this time simply meant “the one who receives all the inheritance,” rather than referring to the order of a biological birth.
Why does this matter? The same reason that some wonder in prayer if they should call on God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit. They are all God. They are all the original source, pre-existing for eternity past with no start point as they are the start. They are the Alpha and the Omega. It is unfathomable to us as we do not understand time and space. We are merely humans who discovered a way to fly to the moon. We can observe the miracle of life but cannot create the source. We have no control over death, no matter how much we wish to delay or end it. We have no control over nature, no matter how much we observe and try to manipulate it. We are amazing, but we are created and not the Creator. Jesus is the Creator. He is the one who has the “right.” He is the one who has the “responsibility.” To create and re-create. To forgive and restore. To love and to heal. He is the one who came to earth, and lived among us. He is the one who took on evil and defeated death. What is death? Eternal separation from Jesus. We have the promise that, if we simply respond to the call of Jesus and accept Him as all-sufficient and all-supreme in our lives, death is simply a short sleep.
Our choice is to hold onto the hope of the Gospel.
Recalibrate: Jesus holds all things together. He reconciles all. He is the hope. What does that mean for us today, August 2, 2019?
Respond: Pray for the continued insight and inspiration of Jesus in your life.
Research: Read one of the recommended commentaries on this passage.
Remember: “Through His power all things were made—things in heaven and on earth, things seen and unseen” (Colossians 1:16, ICB).
Japhet De Oliveira is administrative director for the Center for Mission and Culture at Adventist Health in Roseville, California.
Read This Is For You with your little one. Know that Jesus is with us always. Jesus’ love never leaves. Jesus’ love lets us choose if we want to stay in love. With your child find all the toys that you were playing with yesterday and place them on the sheet. Grab onto the corners of the sheet pulling the toys together into a big bundle. When we choose to live in Jesus’ love we can be sure that when our playtime is over He will keep us until it is time for us to play forever with Him.
Have you ever seen a toy that you didn’t know what to do with? Maybe you were using a baseball glove as a cave for your cars until someone showed you it was for catching a ball. Jesus came to show us how to play the game of life. Jesus has won the game already and He wants to know if we want to play on team Jesus. God created the game, Jesus has shown us how to play, and Jesus sends His Spirit to encourage us to keep playing. All Jesus wants to know is, “Do you want to play with Me?”
I did something dumb. I got pulled over once for speeding when I was eighteen. It was dumb. Don’t speed. It’s dumb. When I got pulled over, I was so nervous that they were going to take away my license, force me to pay a big fine, and my insurance would go up so much that I wouldn’t be able to afford my car, and then I would have to walk everywhere for the rest of my life. These are all the things that go through your head when you get caught doing dumb things you know you shouldn’t do. So let me reiterate—don’t speed. It’s dumb.
But a funny thing happened when the officer got to my window. I had decided that I was going to do everything I could to make sure the officer knew I was sorry. I took the keys out of the ignition, rolled my window down, and I put my keys on top of the car so he saw them. When he asked me how fast I was going, I told him the truth. When he asked if I knew what the speed limit was, I told him the truth. When he asked me why I was going so fast, I told him the truth. When he told me how dumb my answer was when I said, “No sir . . . No sir . . . I don’t know sir . . .” I told him the truth.
“Yes sir. Pretty dumb.”
Somehow, on that day in that place, that officer decided to let me go with a warning. The warning was straightforward: “Don’t do it again. If I catch you again, I’m going to remember this moment and how dumb you were and I’m going to hold you to being smarter later. You can’t say you’re dumb anymore since I told you the answer. Don’t speed. It’s dumb.”
I never forgot that officer’s words to me. And how grateful I was to get off without paying the consequences for my actions. Even though I did the deed, I wasn’t held accountable for my mistakes because I did them out of dumbness.
Paul says that Jesus offers the same to us in His sacrifice on the cross. And just like the police officer, Paul says that there are things to keep in mind when you receive His grace. In Colossians 1:22-23, he writes that Jesus, “has now reconciled in His fleshly body, through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before Him—provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard.”
What is it that you have been saved from? Who gave you the chance to escape without paying the cost? What did you learn from it? How has that gift of grace changed you?
“If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant” (Col. 1:23). Of course God is love, and there is no coercion in love. If you decide that God is Someone you would like to live forever with, then that is what you will do. The true Gospel is that the Almighty “I Am” is so in love with humanity that He moves whatever is in His way to win them back. Religion will not save you—religion did not overcome death. The shaming, self-righteous religious leaders killed Jesus, who then overcame all. Cling to Jesus.
Zan Long is GRC director for faith development for ages 0-17. She lives in Sydney, Australia, and serves at her local church in nearby Kellyville.
J. Murdock is associate pastor at Boulder Adventist Church in Boulder, Colorado, where he focuses on youth and young adult ministry.
Lydia Svoboda is a junior theology major at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska.