Underneath It All with Pastor Ryan Braley

Underneath everything we argue about, fear, chase, and try to control sits a claim that is either liberating or offensive: Jesus Christ is the center of it all. We walk through Colossians 1 and an early Christian hymn that calls Jesus the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over creation, and the One through whom all things were created. If you’ve ever wondered what God is like, we keep it simple and concrete: look at Jesus and watch how he handles power, how he treats annoying people, how he steps into suffering, and how the cross shows love from underneath rather than domination from above. 

Then we move from the personal to the cosmic. Colossians says “in him all things hold together,” and we explore what it means to call Jesus the Sustainer, the “cosmic glue” that makes the universe a universe and can bring coherence to a life that feels like scattered instruments warming up in the same room. We also name the pressures the first Christians faced in Colossae, from legalism and asceticism to angel fascination and secret-knowledge spirituality, plus the real social cost of refusing to worship the local gods. The message is blunt: Christianity is Jesus plus nothing. 

Finally, we lean into resurrection life. Jesus is the firstborn from the dead, the start of new creation bursting into the old world right now, and that means you are not done yet. There is forgiveness, restoration, and a steady hope for anyone carrying pain, addiction, illness, loneliness, or injustice. Next week, our friend Rob Morris from Love 146 joins us, and we’ll also hear more about their work to end child trafficking and exploitation. 

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Transcript

Prayer And Baptism Gratitude

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Amen. Thank you, Janet. Let's pray. God, we give you thanks this morning for your presence here. Thank you for this beautiful baptism and those that uh yeah that are here to support and care and love on the Collins family. Pray you'd bless us this morning as we unpack this book, this letter to the Colossians, and this wild and profound poem that we heard Janet read in this morning. God, would you come and by your grace and mercy, would you transform our hearts? Give us soft hearts, hearts of flesh, in all the ways that our hearts have grown hardened. And this day, one week, removed from Easter Sunday, would you keep inviting us into living the resurrection and uh practicing resurrection life here and now as we look forward to the day in which you will make all things new, including us and the whole cosmos. And bless us this morning in Jesus' name. Amen.

unknown 0:50

Amen.

Underneath It All Is Christ

Why Paul Writes Colossians

Seeing God In Jesus

Christ Holds All Things Together

Resurrection Hope You Are Not Done

SPEAKER_00 0:51

You can be seated. Morning, everyone. Good to be with you. One quick announcement next week. My good friend Rob Morris will be with us. If you remember, Rob, he was with us about a year ago, and then maybe a year prior to that, but he is the founder and I guess he's like the CEO emeritus now of Love 146. If you know what they're doing, Love 146 is a beautiful organization. It's been around for many decades. They're trying to end child trafficking and exploitation. And if you didn't know, uh the biggest sort of trafficked, I guess, item in the world, it's not drugs, it's actually human beings. And so they're doing stuff all around the world, they're doing preventative stuff, they're doing like uh care, like rescuing young girls and boys from these places in uh in you know, in these far reaches of the corner, and then also some aftercare rehabilitation kinds of things. They're actually their their curriculum is in our school system, and uh it's really incredible work they're doing. And so he'll be here next Sunday. Come, and if you know of anybody in your life who is just really into humanitarian aid work or things like this, and um let them come have invite him to come and hear what he's doing. They're doing really, really good work in the world, and we've supported them in a variety of ways. They're not one of our mission partners, but uh they could be in the future, but they're doing some wonderful things, and so uh come and hear, Rob. He'll be preaching on Colossians 2, but also you'll hear more about Love 146. Sound good? All right, in the meantime, we are launching our brand new series, Underneath It All. And Colossians is this incredible letter I'll get to in a minute, but the underneath it all, Paul seems to write that underneath everything is Jesus the Christ or Jesus the Messiah. And he he launches into this poem in this first chapter of Colossians 1. You heard Janet just read it, and it's this incredibly profound poem about Jesus. He calls him Jesus the Messiah or Jesus the Christ. Now, this poem is sort of the centerpiece or like the linchpin of chapter one. There's a bit before it and a bit after it, but it's like the main focus point of chapter one. I'd encourage you to open your Bibles to Colossians one. It's on whatever page Janet said it was on, I forget, but it's on that page. And you can kind of follow along. But this poem or ancient hymn, it's actually Paul didn't write it probably because of the language he uses and that the language that this verse uses, it's pre-Pauline, they say, which means it was, it comes before Paul even wrote this letter. So he's quoting it, he's pulling from a primitive Christian hymn. It was a hymn that the early, early Christians would sing about Jesus. Remember, the early Christians, they were Jewish Christians, they were trying to figure out what does it mean that we worship Jesus as God in this religion or in this, yeah, in the in this people group tradition, religion that uh suggests that we only worship one God. And so they're trying to figure out what does it mean to be a Jewish Christian monotheist? And so Paul draws from this early Christian hymn and sort of unpacks it here in Colossians 1. But it's this pre-Pauline, it's this uh, you know, ancient Christian hymn, and it's incredibly profound. And here it is one more time. I'm gonna read it to you in a different language, not a different language, it's in English, but it's in a different translation. And uh so you can kind of get it. Let's let's just wash over you this morning. So it's actually three stanzas or three chunks, and the first two really mirror each other. You'll kind of see it in your own text. And the then the third one, the middle one, is actually kind of like the hinge of the first two. So it's like the first one mirrors the last one, and there's a middle one that's kind of like the hinge. So here it is. Are you ready? Okay, great. Thank you, Peter. All right, says, uh, and this is again, he's trying to unpack Jesus. He is Jesus, the image of God, who is the invisible one, the firstborn of all creation. By that, he doesn't mean that he's the first created thing, because the very next line says, for in him all things were created. Rather, firstborn of creation means that he's like the supreme, the head, the the pinnacle of all the created things. He's like the one that sort of is the source or in charge of or supreme over all the created things. And the very next line, in him all things were created. Just for by way of testing you here and give you a little quiz, which things were created through Jesus? Fantastic. You're paying attention. Good. Uh, all the things, and here's which things, all of them in heavens and here on earth, things that you can see, things you can't see, which things? All right, you're tracking. I like it. So that could be thrones or lordships or rulers or powers. All things, again, were created both in him and through him and for him, Paul writes. So there you go. Second stanza, this is the middle one. Uh, he is ahead or the head, the source, the beginning, uh, prior to all else, and in him all things hold together, or all things cohere is a fancy word. And he himself is supreme, he's the head, the source over the body, uh, which is the church, which means that you guys, and myself included, we are somehow as the church, we are the body of Christ, which is weird. This we get the language like Paul uses a lot, like this cosmic Christ, that we are somehow, and again, the metaphysics is kind of fuzzy. I don't, but like we are the body of Christ. Fair enough. Okay, so then the third stanza, which mirrors the first one. He is the start of it all, the firstborn from the realms of the dead. He is the first one resurrected. We last week we heard in Corinthians, Paul uses similar language as that he's the first fruits. So what happens to Jesus will happen to all of us. So, but he's the he's the first one, he goes first of the realms of the dead. So in all things, he might be the chief or in charge or the leader. For in him all the fullness of God was glad to dwell. So the fullness of God somehow is like crammed into Jesus the Christ or Jesus the Messiah. And uh he was glad. And through him, he will reconcile or heal all things, bring them all into himself, making peace where there's non-peace, making shalom is the Hebrew word, where there's non-shalom, through blood of his cross. Now, through him, yes, things on earth and things in the heavens. How about that? Paul draws on language and imagery from the book of Genesis, Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, and Proverbs, and puts it this incredibly profound poem about Jesus the Christ. Now, the stanzas could go like this: stanza one could be Jesus the Creator. That Jesus is way back here in the beginning, he's the creator of all things. That's what stanza one said. Stanza two says that he's also the sustainer of all things, the coherer of all things. I like to call him the cosmic glue. Thank you for that laugh of encouragement. I thought it was clever. I like that. Uh, stanza three says that Jesus is the Christ is also the redeemer. He reconciles or redeems or heals all things. So the creator, sustainer, or redeemer. You could all say, This is what Jesus did, right? He created in the beginning. Um, the middle stanza, this is what Jesus is doing. And then, of course, in the age to come when he really this is what he will do. Of course, we know theologically, because you guys were paying attention last week, that you could say it this way also. This is what Jesus did and is doing. This is what Jesus is doing and is doing. And this is what Jesus will do and is doing. Are you with me so far? The future has broken into the present in Jesus. He's doing, has done all of these things. There's this beautiful sort of dialogue about, or monologue rather, really, of who Jesus is. The whole rest of the letter really unpacks and processes what this poem and this ancient hymn means. This letter, by the way, was written by Paul to a church in Colossae. Here's Colossae. It's sort of uh the ancient version of, well, it's Turkey now, but it's this ancient sort of Mesopotamian area, and and Colossae is right there. And Paul did not plant this church. In fact, Paul didn't even know these people. It's wild. He writes in this letter. A Paphras, a guy called Epaphras, some random dude named Epaphras plants this church, which always makes me like, who the heck gave him permission to plant a church? I love it. Probably God, right? What qualifies him? He had been with Paul, he heard the gospel, he's like, Oh, I can go share that gospel. And he just goes and does it, which is incredible. You don't need my permission to go and share the gospel, just do it. You hear me? So Epaphras does that, goes to Colossi. Guess who also goes to church in Colossi, or is a part of the Colossian church? His name is Philemon. He also has a letter. You can read it in your Bible, the book of Philemon. So we'll come to that later. But Philemon goes to this church or as a part of this church, and uh Epaphrus goes to visit Paul. Paul's in prison when he writes the Colossians letter, and Epaphras fills him in on what's happening in this church in Colossae. And Paul writes this letter for a couple of reasons. One is that he's writing them to address some heresy or false teachings. So this is by the way, this is a brand new, fledgling, like young baby church. They're like impressionable and they're living in this culture that has its own rhythms and things, and I'll explain it in a minute. But it's very, very young, and they're very new. And they're like sorting out what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus in the world today? And how do we address all these things? And some heresies or some false ideas have begun to seep into the church. Which ones? We don't know exactly, but based on what Paul writes, here's some maybe some ideas. It could be that uh legalism. Legalism is like when you have to like obey all these certain rules in order to kind of have the favor of the gods. You better do this right and make sure your tie is just right. You better never wear jeans in church, and you better never wear sneakers, or you better, or whatever your things are. You better pray and get up in the morning and not eat, whatever. That's legalism. You know, like that this is what makes you good, is by what you do. Rituals and these kind of things. By the way, rituals are great, but when they become legalistic, they're they become lifeless. Asceticism, this is like a way of like depriving yourself of like pleasure or good things in order to earn the favor of the gods. So, for example, I'm gonna just uh, you know, I'm gonna like uh not ever do anything fun to in order to appease the gods. This is like asceticism. And run amok can be a problem, you can imagine why. Also, this the worship of angelic or other spiritual beings that was kind of seeping into the church in Colossi. Secret knowledge, you might have heard of this, is called Gnosticism. This is the beginning stages of Gnosticism, but uh the secret knowledge that some people had and that was seeping into the church and this reliance on human wisdom and tradition. In other words, like you can do it on your own. And if you just do these on your own, you know, Jesus plus this is fine, and these kind of things. So that's the the first, he was like writing, addressed these heresies. Like, hey, let me correct some things here. The second thing, maybe more poignantly, or as poignantly anyway, is that the church was like in danger and they needed encouragement. They were struggling. And the reason is because to become a Christian in the ancient world, or to be a brand new, like fresh out of the wrapper, fledgling little church, it was super hard. Because in this place and time, in ancient, oh, I won't go back. In the ancient Kaloxi image, remember in the ancient world, every town and village and city, they all had their own like local deities, gods and goddesses that were just as real as the human beings who dwelt there. So there were like two kinds of dwellers in these cities. There were like human beings, those that you could see, and there were like spirit beings, like angels or uh gods and goddesses who were worshipped, and these you couldn't see. So the seen and the unseen, Paul uses this language. And these gods and goddesses had incredible uh power. They could do all kinds of things, and they demanded to be worshipped. That's what the people thought. And if you didn't worship them, and if you didn't worship them properly, uh then who knows what could happen? You were in grave danger. So famine and floodings and death and destruction, these natural disasters would befall people, they began, oh, it's because someone didn't worship the gods or worship them properly. We got to figure this out. They actually had priests and priestesses whose job was to diagnose why are there famines right now? What's happening? Oh, it's because those people were there weren't worshiping properly, or they didn't offer the best sacrifices, or these people, there was always someone to blame. And so these deities were to be worshipped, and every city had them, and you knew who they were, and everybody knew everybody else's business. So if you weren't worshiping the gods, then we would know. So imagine living in that place, and someone comes through town. Oh, hey, um, there's another God, the one true God. This God is the Father of Jesus, the Jesus that we worship, the Jesus who is the physical embodiment, the image, the reflection of the one true God, and we will worship him and him alone, and we will not worship any other gods. You can imagine that would be a problem. Because when things began to happen that were like not good, they would begin to blame somebody. And they were like, oh, we're gonna blame the Christians because they're the ones that weren't worshiping the gods properly. It's their fault. So there's like a pecking order, like they would blame the Christians, number one, of course. And then number two, they would blame, of course, Bill Buckner. Then number three, number three was the U.S. president, whoever it was, it didn't matter. Uh, number four, like Blair Walsh and Gary Anderson, they're kind of like right neck and neck in that one. The twins' ownership down here. And then last but not least, is those darn kids. Well, blame those darn. We'd have gotten away with it had it been for those darn kids. So imagine being this young church. Look, we're not gonna worship those gods. We worship Jesus alone. He's the physical image of God. And then when things would happen, they would be like, oh, it's your fault. You're to blame. It was dangerous to be a Christian in this day and in this day and age. And imagine this young, fledging, so they needed encouragement. And so Paul writes this letter to encourage them and to sort of correct some of these false ideas and teachings. And he sl he sort of sneaks this poem in right in the beginning. Now he opens with a couple of prayers. He opens with this prayer, the very beginning, and he I'll let you read it later, but he thanks God for their faithfulness. Because so far, even though they're young and like they're baby crit, and they're like fresh out of the rapper, they're doing well and they're maintaining their faith in Jesus and the hope that he offers. And because of it, they're loving their neighbors well. And they're loving each other. It's beautiful. They're like to city on a hill that they're supposed to be. And he's like, hey, thanks to God for your guys' faithfulness. I love it. Then he prays for them. He's like, hey, God, please deepen their wisdom and understanding of Jesus. Help them to come to a deeper grip and understanding of who Jesus the Christ was, who he is, and in these kinds of things. See, Paul wanted them to know, hey, look, look, listen, Colossians, uh, Colossi Church. Christianity is not just another religious system. It's not just another God or goddess you kind of add on to the thing. It's not some system for how to be saved, even. It's not some new way of how to be holy or reach holiness. It's not that at all. Here is what Christianity is at its core, and Paul's like telling them over and over and over again. Here's what Christianity is. Christianity is wrong slide. Christianity, here we go, is about Jesus Christ. This poem at a 30,000-foot view is about Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the Savior. Christ, the Messiah, these are the same words. One's a Greek word, one's a Hebrew word. It means the saving one. And so Christianity is not about uh religious, sort of a new religious institution. It's not about a new self-help book that got put out by Barnes and Noble last week. It's not about a new podcast. No, it's about Jesus the Christ, the saving one, who's at the center of all things. And I need you to know this because I need you to know that that of all the the false teachings that have come in that have said, hey, it's Jesus plus this or Jesus plus that. No, no, no. Jesus alone is sufficient. In other words, like Christianity is Jesus plus nothing. Do you hear me? It's Jesus plus nothing. And the heart of this whole thing is just Jesus the Christ. Paul wanted the Colossians to know Jesus, to know about him, of course, to know about what he did, what he said, how he behaved, how he acted, how he treated people, to know him up here, of course. But also to know him here. Who was he? And if he's resurrected, Jesus, I know he's not here bodily right now, but like you can know this Jesus. You can have like this mystical relationship, which sounds woo-woo, I get it. But you can. And you can know him here. Somehow your spirit can kind of commune with his spirit. It's like this weird, but you got to know him and know him personally. And here's why: because he is the image of the invisible God. Through him, you can then know what God is like, and what God has done. And who you are because of what God has done, he would tell the Colossians. And then how to live your life in and through and empowered by God. That's what he wanted that church to know. So, Central, if I can have your attention for one minute, if you can look me in the eyeballs here, this Sunday post-Easter, I want you to know who Jesus is. To know I'm here. Yes, of course, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And read the stories and talk about them and dive into it and get get crazy and read books on, of course. And also to know I'm here. You can have a relationship, you can pray to Jesus, you can uh you can commune with Jesus and we do it together and want you to know him so that you and I can know who God is and what God is like, and know what God has done in the world and in you and in me and and how we can live in and for and through God. That's what I want you to know. Fair enough? Okay, that's this 30,000-foot view of this poem. It's an incredibly profound poem. And I want you to know Jesus. Now, there are three things or like three takeaways from this poem. I'm gonna go kind of quick, but I want you to stay with me, and I got a lot to cover. So hang on for dear life. So the first stanza really teaches us about Jesus, because I want you to know him. I want you to know who he is, and then you can know who God is. The first poem or the first stanza tells us, and I've already mentioned it a few times, but by looking at Jesus, we can discover who God is. Look, most of our friends would acknowledge, probably, there's something out there. The true atheists in the world, there just aren't many of them, like true philosophical atheists. I know that there's a lot of like young folks who want to say they're atheists, and I love them, God love them, but they're not true real atheists. I had a buddy of mine, uh, actually is my my kids' buddy. So when my kids were little, my son's friend, he said to my my son, he goes, Man, I wanted to be an atheist, but my mom wouldn't let me. Yeah, that's kind of what most atheists are like, you know, they just don't, they don't know, they're more like not, you know. But most of our friends, they just there's something out there I can feel like I don't know, man, what happens when you die? They're kind of in that and they just don't know. Because none of us, I'm just telling you, none of us have seen God. The Bible says like no one can see God. So how do we know what God is like? How do we know what out there is? What is out there? Well, I would argue, uh, look at Jesus. He's the mirror image of God. So, Paul, just so you know, I'm not misquoting, Paul says it. He's the image of God, the invisible one. So the thing that you cannot see can be seen in Jesus. So if you want to know what God is like, and let's be honest, who doesn't, you know, look at Jesus and read the stories about Jesus. If you don't know, they're found in the Bible. They're Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Start there. And you'll just read about them and let them wash over you because you can ask questions about God by reading about Jesus. So, for example, I mean, how does God, who's the creator of all things, this incredibly powerful, omnipotent, omnipresent, omni, whatever, omni-all the things, he's omni-everything. How does this God behave? How does he handle his power? Well, look to Jesus. God might handle his power by, I don't know, washing feet. Today we're like, oh, yeah, but this is like incredibly scandalous. A God who stoops down, and Paul says he empties himself and becomes like one of us, uh, and he becomes like a slave in this story where he washes his friend's feet. It's just this gross, nasty task of a servant. Yeah, that's how God uses his power. How about this one? How does God see human beings? I mean, for example, some of us don't raise your hands when we see people that annoy us, stupid idiots. I can't believe these dumb morons. I can't believe it. And I don't know when the last time it was, maybe it was on your way to church this morning. You're like, this dumb idiot right here now. And then you realize, oh, he's going to my church. Oh, sorry about that. I like that's why you shouldn't do that, by the way. Or if you do, take off that Christian fish sticker or the central sticker, take it off your car if you're gonna be a you know jerk. But how does God see people, even the annoying ones who just well, the Bible says that Jesus sees the crowds and he has compassion on them. By the way, compassion means to suffer alongside of something, it means to compati, it means to suffer with. Jesus suffers with the people because they're idiots. But he sees them as sheep without a shepherd. Like no one's told them how to how to how to be a sheep. They don't, they're lost. They're not dumb, moronic idiots. They're not like malevolent most. They're just lost. And they're wandering around lost. And who will help them? Man, when you start to begin to see folks like this, it just makes life a little bit easier to deal with the idiots, okay? Because they're lost like you and I are, or we're or whatever. He has compassion on them. I love it. So make my heart more like that is my prayer. How about what is what is God's approach to sin? How does God approach sin and dis disease? Many times we're like, oh, God is He cannot look upon sin. He's so holy, He cannot be around sin. And I get that sentiment, but I don't see it in Jesus. What I see in Jesus, he jumps right into the mess. Right into the mess. Or he's dragged into it. Like this, I love this story. She drags him right into her mess and touches him, physically contaminating him. Ah, but Jesus doesn't mind it. He stops, hears her whole story, and she's cured. He reverses the curse. Where is he? He's right in the middle of the crowds. I mean, Christians should be right in the middle of the culture. We should just be right in there with everybody else. If you can't handle it, because you, you know, it's you, you know, you're then don't. I mean, like, I'm never gonna encourage an alcoholic to go to a bar. I'm just like, listen, we shouldn't be afraid of these kinds of things. Jesus wasn't. God dove right into it, head first. Or he got yanked into it. I love this story. Uh, how about this one? How do you and I see love? What does love look like? It looks like that. God demonstrates what love and that true power is found not in dominion over and above, but underneath. Life-changing, self-sacrificial love, as in dying for your neighbor on the cross. And now we should go do the same thing. That's not easy. I'm just telling you what it looks like. That's what God is. So if you want to know what God is like, look to Jesus. He's the image of the invisible God. Okay, stanza two. Are you with me still so far? I'm just getting warmed up here. Stanza two. Jesus is the cosmic glue, man. He holds all things together. I'll say it this way: He's not just in the universe. I might get a little bit scientific on you, uh, but he's the one that makes the universe a universe. He helps it make sense. There's like cosmic stability because of Jesus. Now, listen, I don't think that Colossians or Paul or the Bible is trying to teach modern physics. They didn't know about it. That's fair enough. But there's some interesting correlations between sort of modern sort of ideas about physics, and I'll dive into a little bit briefly, just quickly here in a minute. But there's some like interesting connections. But but the point is that Jesus holds all things together. He's the reason why things don't just, you know, disappear or become undone. He holds them all together. Philosophers, even some scientists, they don't understand why there's stability in the world. There's all these laws, of course, like physical laws and natural laws, but like they don't know why they're there or why we exist. They can explain the world, like why is it the way that it is? We don't know why. Well, theologically, I would say because of the Christ, because of Jesus. He holds it all together. So there's like this fundamental connectedness to all the things. That reality itself is not a series of disconnected things, and we think we are, I'm just some island on my own, out there doing my own. No, no, no, you're not. You're not. Theologically or physically, you're just not. The the world, reality itself is fundamentally connected. And actually, it's relationally connected because it's all about these intricate relationships that that maybe Paul's getting at a little bit theologically, but it's it's uh fundamentally relationally connected, the universe is. And it's unbelievable. And so it's like this uh, like I said, Jesus isn't just in the universe, but he's the one that makes the universe a universe. So, for example, if you walk into a room and there's all these musical instruments, like you got a drum kit here, you have a guitar, another guitar, a piano, an organ. And let's say like I had some musicians come and start playing these. You'd have like a lot of disparate sounds, like you know, if they're just warming up, you'd have all this like chaotic noises and that kind of thing. But imagine then you have somebody come in, a conductor, if you will. Mike Lauer is a conductor, he comes in, he starts to conduct the band. You play this and you play that and you do that, you do that. I don't know music, but you can imagine he's doing this thing. And suddenly there's order and music. Yeah, yeah. Jesus is not just another musical instrument to add on to the things, he's the one in whom all the music has its place. And he organizes it, conducts it, and you know, gives it this cosmic glue to make it whole. It has a center and it makes the chaos into music. Are you with me so far? Here's the thing: he can do the same with you in your life. If he's the cosmic glue, he can maybe hold your life together. Your life is made of a bunch of ostensibly disparate parts. You've got your your job, you've got your kids, you've got your your recreational activities, you've got your finances, you've got stress, you've got social media, you've got education, you've got all your hopes and dreams, your 401k, your Roth IRA, or your stress because you don't have any of those things, whatever. And it can be like chaos sometimes. But if Jesus can be at the center, right? If he's not just one more thing to add to your life, if he becomes the center, he can be one that holds all together. And he can be this cosmic glue that brings peace and wholeness and order to your life. That's what's on offer here. Not just make your life better, I don't mean that, but like makes your life make sense and gives you purpose and hope and a direction in your life. That's what Jesus does. Amen. By the way, a quick fun side note about quantum mechanics. Any quantum mechanics sort of fans or wannabe fans? Okay, yeah, okay, good. There's this thing called quantum entanglement. Here's a picture of it. Oh, oh, there this is the verse. He says in multiple things. Uh here's a picture. Oh, that's I'll skip that. You can look it up later. But uh, here it is. Okay. So quantum mechanics says that like there are particles, two different particles, that in some bizarre way, they can't even explain it, share the same quantum state. It's a weird phenomenon at the quantum, like the smallest level. So, for example, I can have a I can have a particle here in Minneapolis, if I'm holding or uh Elk River, and my buddy in Sydney can have a particle over there. And whenever I do to this particle, it will happen to that particle at the same time. They don't talk to each other. Um, they're not like, they're not the same, but it's like they're different, but but they're like, they're they're sharing the same quantum state. They're connected. It's phenomenal. It's like if I had a die, like a single die, not dice, but a die and I rolled it, and my buddy in Thailand rolled a die, they would do the exact same things. We both rolled them at the exact same time in different parts of the world. Yeah, they call this quantum entanglement. There's a connectedness, a relational connectedness to the whole universe itself. It's phenomenal. Google it. I'm not saying that Paul is teaching quantum mechanics. I'm just saying if you read, like this is unbelievable, and they don't know how to explain it. I don't know. Jesus, so I want to say theologically, Jesus holds all things together, including you and me and the whole cosmos, the whole thing. He's the cosmic glue of the whole thing. Okay, moving on. He gives it sense. Okay, uh, lastly, is this yeah, uh thirdly, Jesus is the blueprint for how to be a human. So he puts God on display for sure. How do you know what God is like? Look at Jesus. Also, he shows us what it's like to be a newly created human being. So here's what Paul writes Paul says in that third stanza, he's the start of it all, the firstborn from the realms of the dead. So, in other words, like he is the brand new creation bursting forth in the middle of this old one. We talked about this last week on Eastern. He's the model. So even when even before he dies, like that dude had it going on. He knew, I mean, he was incredibly, he was like wisdom embodied, he was justice embodied, he was love embodied. If you want to like model your life after anybody, pick that guy because he's an incredible human being. And he shows what a full, flourishing, vibrant, full of life human looks like. How he spent time alone, how he spent time with crowds, how he how he hung out with friends and even the most marginalized, you know, uh crazies of the world. He like how he was with them, like he was an unbelievable human being. Also, he shows what the new creation looks like. So because he's the firstborn from the realms of the dead. So like he's the new creation bursting forth right here, right now. So he models for what the new creation looks like. And he's calling you and I to follow him. To be a Jesus follower, a Christian, doesn't just mean like that you uh come here and pray. That's fine, that's good. It what we're what we're doing is we're trying to follow Jesus because this free gift of life is on offer to us. It's on offer. Ben did it, it's the baptism, the communion, it's all all they're all free gifts of grace. And now it's like, what do you want to do with it? Jesus, hey, come follow me. Uh exchange your life for my life. And I promise you, you you can be a full, flourishing, vibrant, full of life human being. Which means this. If the resurrection is true, and I'm just sort of recapping last week, if you weren't here, if it's true, then this whole thing isn't quite done yet. There is an ongoing creation. Remember, creation, uh, creator, sustainer, uh, redeemer. Stanza three says that God is redeeming all things in the Christ, that the Christ is the redeemer. He's the firstborn of the of the dead, and he's redeeming all things. And you and I then are not done yet. And you gotta hear this because that means that you are not done yet. When you confess your sins with Ben, Pastor Ben, as you did earlier, you're acknowledging, hey, I'm not done yet. Like, I need the Jesus, the Christ, to come and heal me and redeem me and sustain me and recreate me again, because I'm just I'm off the path. I'm the sheep wandered off by himself. Help me, Lord, you know. But I'm not done yet. So there's hope, there's forgiveness, there's restoration. The shepherd will go and get you and drag you back to the sheepfold. Which means this: that your pain, your suffering, which are real, your addiction, which is very, very real, your struggle in life, your injustice that you've experienced, you see in the world, illness that you've experienced with someone else, darkness in the world that you saw, loneliness, greed, violence, and abuse, and even bad habits, all of these things, my friends, we're not done yet. Don't lose hope. Paul wanted to encourage them don't lose hope. Stay faithful to Jesus. He's the center of it all. He will sustain you, recreate you, and redeem you. And as I mentioned last week, the last or the worst thing, whatever you're worse thing is, it's not the last thing. We are daily being made new and recreated. So keep coming and confessing your sins and talking with your friends and praying and doing all the things and know that Jesus is at the center of it all. Central, may you know that if you want to know what God is like, to look at Jesus. And may you know Jesus. Know I'm here, know I'm here. And may you know he's the creator of all the things. He created everything in him, through him, by him, for him. And he's the cosmic glue of the whole thing. He holds it all together, including you, you bag of bones. Every breath you take and every move you make. Yeah, he sustains you and the whole universe. And I really believe that the fundamental reality of the whole universe is relationality. There's a relational aspect of the whole, underneath it all, is relationality. It's unbelievable. So he's in the sustains, and that one day, uh, according to Revelation uh 4, Revelation 21, 1 through 5, um, God will make all things new again. But it's already begun in Jesus. So today, may you also have hope that you too can be made new. Amen.