“He Alone Is Worthy”

Colossians 1:15-20

“Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” So wrote Paul to the Philippians.

“We declare that Jesus is Lord… his lordship is real. It demands our loyalty and sets us free from the fear of all lesser lords who threaten us. We maintain that ultimate sovereignty now belongs to Jesus Christ in every sphere of life.” So goes the 1973 proposed confessional document A Declaration of Faith.

Or as one of our praise songs so eloquently puts it: “He is Lord. He is Lord. He is risen from the dead and he is Lord. Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord.” And as Paul wrote to the Colossians, “… there is no part of the universe in which the topmost place is not his.” Jesus Christ is Lord of all creation.

More than that Jesus is God incarnate – the Word made flesh – Emmanuel - God-with-us. According to the Nicene Creed, “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made… He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”

Jesus is God. Jesus is Lord. These are among the bedrock and foundational statements of historic, orthodox Christian theology. This theology is part and parcel of the faith passed down to us. It is a faith for which Christians have fought and died. It is the truth we are called to preserve.

It is also, unfortunately, a truth that has been challenged in every generation. The challenge has come from different people in different times and places. It has gone by many names. But it has been and is essentially the same challenge that was disrupting the Colossian Church. This challenge – this heresy – was known in the First Century as Gnosticism. It was and is a heresy that denies that Jesus is fully God. It was and is a heresy that challenges the Lordship of Christ. William Barclay and Eugene Peterson had this to say about it: “The Gnostics did not believe in the uniqueness of Jesus. For [some] people Jesus is important, but not central, his prestige is considerable, but he is not preeminent.” In other words, Jesus is one lord among many lords, one way among a variety of ways, one choice among a multitude of choices.

In his writings the Apostle Paul took great pains to refute this heresy. In today’s text he made it clear that Jesus was God from all eternity. Jesus is the Creator of all that is. By way of the cross he is the Redeemer who died to reconcile a broken creation with its Creator. In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. He is supreme. He is central. He is preeminent. Jesus is God. Jesus is Lord. Not a god. Not a lord. But the Lord God Almighty.

And because he is, to use the words of one commentator, “There is no person or thing that exceeds [Christ’s] significance for the church or that should surpass him in the church’s esteem.” There is no one or no thing more significant in the life of a church or an individual Christian than is Jesus. He is to be held in our highest esteem. Jesus has told us this in his own words: “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Nothing comes ahead of Jesus: not our lives, not our families, not our nation, not our politics, not our possessions. Jesus is Lord over every facet of our lives: our time, our talents, our energies, and our resources. He is the incarnation of that jealous God of Exodus whose commandments forbid us to even entertain the notion of worshiping another god. He alone is worthy of our worship and praise. No other power can share his position of Lordship: in the world, in the church, in our hearts.

Why this sermon on this day? First of all, this is the final Sunday in the liturgical year. It is known as Christ the King or the Reign of Christ Sunday. Its theme is the Kingship or Lordship of Jesus Christ over all creation. Today’s text is one of the lectionary texts for today, a text that fits the day’s theme. And by way of the Session’s somewhat arbitrary but still providential decision, today is Commitment Sunday, more specifically the day when we bring before God our financial commitments to the church’s 2005 budget.

What better time is there to be reminded of the Lordship of Jesus Christ? As we think and pray today about the financial priorities of our lives, it’s good for us to hear again about the place Jesus is supposed to hold in our hearts. It’s appropriate to hear some more of his own words about the costs of discipleship: “… those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it… what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?” Or to use the more familiar language of the King James Version: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”

In this morning’s reading from Luke, one of the criminals dying beside Jesus on the cross is willing to bet his eternal destiny on the Kingship of Jesus. He’s already bet his life, his reputation, and his earthly future on his ability to escape Roman justice. That’s a bet he has lost. All he has left is his soul. And he entrusts it to Jesus. By faith he offers Jesus the sum total of his existence.

And when we stand before a congregation of God’s people and publicly acknowledge that Jesus is the only Lord of our lives, we are, in effect, saying that we trust him with the sum total of our existence. We are saying, in the words of one of our old familiar hymns, “Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.. Take my will and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine. Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.”

If that is true, if Jesus Christ really is the Lord and King of our lives, if he truly is the incarnation of the one and only Living God, then of what consequence are a few more dollars, or even a whole bunch of dollars? We’ve given him our life. We have entrusted him with our very souls. We have surrendered all that we are and all that we have to the One whose grace is the only thing separating us from hell itself. What do we really have to lose by upping our pledge or committing more of our financial resources to the work of Christ’s church? If we have trusted Jesus with everything, what’s so painful about a little more money, a few more hours, a smidgen more of our energy? Is there any other power, or being, or desire more worthy of our gifts than is Jesus?

No, there is not. Not according to Scripture. Not according to orthodox and Reformed theology. Not according to the faith of our Fathers. There is only one Lord. His name is Jesus. He alone is worthy of our worship and praise. He alone deserves the very best of who we are and what we have. Amen.