Episode 21 – Jesus is More Than Your Problem Solver

What is your greatest treasure?

We all have things and people that we treasure. Friends, family, a home, success, sobriety, etc. It can be material things as well.

Growing in spiritual maturity involved being honest with yourself about what your treasure.

This question involves more than an intellectual agreement about what you SHOULD treasure. Treasuring something involves the affections. It involves your passion, your zeal, your emotional priorities.

It involves the heart, which is the seat of your motivation.

The Image of the Invisible

READ Colossians 1:15-20

Verse 15 – He is the full and complete reflection of the Father. All that the Father is, He is, but in the flesh. If you want to know what the Father is like, look at Jesus.

Verse 16 – He was there before creation, and it was His power that created everything. Everything in the sky, on land, in the ocean. EVERYTHING. He did it a word from His mouth.

This not only shows that He is all-powerful, but it shows that He has OWNERSHIP of everything that exists. He is over it all. You and I are His creation – we do not decide who we are, where we are going, or what our purpose is. He decides. Calling, purpose, meaning, value is not self-derived or self-determined. It comes from the will of God.

Verse 17 – He created all things, and He holds everything together. If He ceases to exist (not that He can), everything ceases to exist. If He decides to stop holding the universe together, it will not hold together.

Verse 18 – He has established His Church and He is the head of it. Not only is He the head of the Church, He is the head of everything that is.

So, Jesus made everything, He holds it all together, and it is all for His glory.What does He choose to do with it all?

READ Colossians 1:19-23

He chose to reconcile you and I to Himself. He doesn’t keep His greatness walled off to Himself. He wants us to enjoy it, to be with Him.

How Does He Reconcile?

READ Colossians 2:9-14

Jesus didn’t just die for you, in your place, for your sins. He died AS YOU. He died as you. When He died, you died.

But when He raised from the dead, He also did so AS YOU. When He raised, you raised.

This is what happens when you become a Christian. This is what it means to be saved. You are unified with Christ so completely, that you die in His death, and you then rise in His resurrection life as a new creation.

All For His Glory

Why does He do all of this? Yes, He loves you. But Paul has told us already that Jesus’ primary mission, and your primary purpose, is for HIS glory. You exist for Him.

If that seems selfish, or petty to you then you haven’t yet fully seen that Colossians 1:15-20 is really, really true.

You haven’t truly seen that “in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell so that He might be preeminent.”

My Concern

My concern for you is that you not see Jesus just as your problem solver. He isn’t just the one that is going to get you out of the jam you’re in, and give you a better life.

Jesus didn’t die just to get you sober. He died so that He would become your greatest treasure. He died to reconcile you, along with all of creation, back to the Father. He died so that you could worship Him with your whole self and your whole life.

We tend to ask Jesus to come down and help us with our life goals. “I’m building a kingdom here, would you come help me do it.”

He’s not interested. Jesus is inviting you into His kingdom, to come participate in what He is doing, but you have to be willing to walk away from your kingdom first.