The Worship Paradox

Colossians 1:15-23

^15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ^16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. ^17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ^18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ^19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ^20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

^21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. ^22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— ^23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved 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.

This morning we are going to examine the paradox. A paradox is a statement that seems to contradict itself, but is nevertheless true. A common paradox used by atheists, which we talked about in our family recently, is the omnipotence paradox. That is, can an omnipotent God create a rock that is too heavy for him to lift? If he can’t create a rock that is too heavy then he is limited in his ability to create, but if he can create a rock that is too heavy, then he is also limited in his ability to lift the rock.

Another type of paradox is called the Birthday Paradox. With the number of people in this room right now, what do you think the chances are that at least two people share the same birthday? You would think that there has to be at least 365 people in the room because that would give us at least 365 days o the year to cover all of the birthdays, but that is not the case. Let’s do a little experiment. I will pick someone at random and see if anyone else in the room shares the same birthday.

(I checked ahead of time and found that the following people all share the same birthdays: Merry Clough/Brittany Sandvick/Brian Larrington; Kellyn Maurer/Stephany Boisen; April Boisen/Jeannie Holmberg/Levi Hamilton; Lorraine Harnwell/Hannah Voehl; Whitney Boisen/Jacob Eisermann)

Isn’t that amazing?! This graph of the Birthday Paradox shows that if there are 23 people in a room, there is a 50% chance of two people sharing the same birthday. If there 57 people in a room, there is a 99% chance of two people sharing the same birthday.

There are many types of paradoxes, some are silly and others are difficult, but the kind of paradox I want to talk about this morning is what I call the Worship Paradox. The Worship Paradox is two truths about God which may seem like they contradict one another, but when you understand them, they cause you to worship.

The first Worship Paradox is that Jesus is divine and Jesus is human. Most people say that all religions are basically the same, but nothing could be further form the truth. No other religion shares this same paradoxical truth. Some claim that Christianity is just another form of Greek religion, but in Greek mythology, the Greek gods had relations with humans which produced a half-human, half-god hybrid. These Greek half-breeds are neither fully human nor fully divine. They may possess super human strength or abilities, but they cannot compare to the God-man Jesus Christ, who is both 100% human and 100% divine.

Most people can accept that Jesus was human, but they struggle with his divine nature. This is why this passage in Colossians is one of the most clear presentations of Christ’s divine nature in all of Scripture.

Verse 15: He is the image of the invisible God.

Verse 16: For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.

Verse 17: ^ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Verse 19: For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.

After reading this you have to ask, what part of the divine nature of Christ do you not understand? Let’s say you were on trial to defend the deity of Christ. If you could prove Christ’s divine nature form Scripture, you go free, if you can’t defend his deity, you are executed. How many of us would be able to walk out of that courtroom alive? Most of you could probably point to John 1:1—In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Good, but do you know any other Scriptures? Your eternal destiny stands or falls on the deity of Christ. If Christ is not God, then salvation is not possible and Jesus is merely one of the dozens of half-breeds in Greek mythology.

Jesus is fully divine, he is 100% God, but the paradox arises when Scripture claims that he is also 100% human. Verse 22 reads, But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death. In order to be our substitute on the cross, it was necessary for the Messiah to become a man, to be born and live as Jesus the man. It was through his physical body that we are reconciled. Jesus is fully God and Jesus is fully man. We cannot fully understand how God could take on human flesh, but we believe it by faith. This wonderful mystery is a paradox—a worship paradox that should cause us to worship Jesus Christ with our whole lives.

But the wonder of the incarnation does not stop there. Let me ask you—when did Jesus cease to be God in human form? When he died? When he rose form the dead? When he ascended to Heaven? Jesus did stop being God in human form, in fact, his incarnation is an eternal incarnation. He is and always will be Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man. He did not just become a man in order to save us. If that were true, we might reason that after he had finished his work on the cross and was raised from the dead, he would return to his former state of spiritual being before the incarnation. But he didn’t do that. His incarnation is an eternal incarnation. If Jesus could have saved us by a temporary incarnation, what then is the purpose of an eternal incarnation? It’s not for our salvation, but it is for Christ’s glory. As verse 18 says, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. It’s a paradox that results in our worship for his glory.

The second worship paradox is similar to the first one: Jesus is the Creator but he also enters into creation. This past week Ethan wrote a story about a knight who slew two giants. Can you guess the name of the giant-slaying knight? The knight’s name was Ethan. We love to put ourselves into a story, whether it is about giants and knights or romance and adventure. What sports fan has not imagined themselves on the field of glory, catching the game winning touchdown from Brett Favre or hitting a grand slam to clinch the final game of the World Series? But when we enter a story in this way, we are still outside of the story. If I am writing a story where I am being chased by giants, the last thing I want to do is actually enter into that story for real. I would much rather observe the story from a distance. I would not really want that to become my actual existence. But God has not only written the story from the first page as Creator, but he has actually entered into the story. He has placed himself completely inside his own story. The whips that tore Jesus’ back were not literary imaginations but real, flesh-tearing whips. The nails that pierced his hands and feet were not placed in the story to spice things up a bit—to make the book into a page-turner—they were real nails that were driven though his very real flesh. To write the story and enter the story is the same as being Creator and entering your creation. It is a great paradox—a worship paradox—that should inspire our worship and devotion.

The third worship paradox is that we were enemies of Jesus but he still chose to die for us. Verse 21 reads, ^ Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. We so quickly forget that we were once enemies of Christ. If you have been a Christian for a long time you may have forgotten that you were once a sworn enemy of Jesus Christ. On Friday I emailed a movie review about the soon to be released film called The Golden Compass. If you didn’t get a copy, I put some on the back table. This movie is based on a trilogy of children’s books written by an author who is on record as saying that he hates the Chronicles of Narnia with a passion. In his trilogy he presents God as a tyrannical deceiver who he then kills at the end of the story.

Frankly, I was shocked by his overt atheism and God-hating boldness. We are quick to judge such a person and write him off as an enemy of God who is hopelessly lost. But such were all of you. We were enemies of God. This verse says we were alienated from God, which means we were estranged, cut-off—literally, that we belonged to another owner. We were slaves of Satan and the Devil was our daddy. We were just as lost as the author of this trilogy is lost, and if you don’t understand that, you will never understand the gospel. I think it is safe to say that most of us in this room were not murderers, drug dealers, prostitutes or thieves before we became a Christian. Collectively we spent little if any time in jail, we never stole more than a piece of candy or a few dollars. Before we became a Christian, we were pretty good. In fact, some of you might think that God got a pretty good deal when he added you to his team. Nothing could be further from the truth. You may not have ever looked to the sky and shook your fist at God, but you were no less an enemy of God. If you can’t see this, the reconciliation of Christ will never make sense to you. If you cannot understand verse 21, then verse 22 will never be a worship paradox to you.

The final worship paradox is that while we still sin, we are also declared to be holy, without blemish and free of accusation. I am going to make a huge assumption right now. I am going to assume that you stumbled and fell this past week. I am going to assume that each one of you sinned at least one time this past week. Furthermore, I am going to assume that each of you felt the sting of accusation as a result of your sin. Is all of this a fair assumption? If you have any sense of the holiness of God, then you should feel the sting of your sin. This is the work of the Holy Spirit telling you that all is not well. But at the same time we feel the sting of sin, we are also told that Christ has made us holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation. We have the blemish of sin upon us, yet we are without blemish in the sight of Christ. We feel the sting of accusation, but we are also free of accusation in the sight of Christ.

It doesn’t make sense, does it? That’s why it is a paradox—a worship paradox. It is a paradoxical truth that Jesus could be both fully God and fully human, and that his being God in human flesh would last for all eternity. It’s a paradox that Jesus would create his own story and then enter into the story. It’s a paradox that that Jesus would die for those who hated him. These things can’t be true—but they are. It’s a paradox that after Christ reconciled us from our alienated state that we could still sin, but also be declared holy and free of accusation. These are wild and wonderful truths—each of them a worship paradox—a paradox that causes us to live a life of worship.

What is this worship? Is it a fall down flat on your face in the sight of God kind of worship? That’s a good place to be sometimes—a flat-out worship of the King, but the kind of worship inspired by these paradoxical truths is gospel-infused, daily worship. The application of this is gospel-centered marriages and gospel-centered parenting. Let me give you one example of gospel-centered parenting. About once a week for our family devotions, we read from the book titled, Wisdom and the Millers. In the book are twenty-five chapters from the life of the fictional Miller family. Each chapter includes a story along with a Proverb that teaches wisdom. For example, chapter six is based on Proverbs 10:26—as vinegar to the teeth and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him. Then the dad or mom tells a story that illustrates the Proverb. These are good moral stories and I would recommend the book to anyone, but there is one problem with them. All of these stories are based in the Law. A proverb tells you what you should do or shouldn’t do, but it doesn’t give you the reason why you should do it. All of us would like our children to obey all of the Proverbs. If they did, they would be well-behaved children, right?

But what about a Mormon family, couldn’t they also follow the wisdom contained in the Proverbs? Of course they could. We know that Mormons are really nice people. Take Mitt Romney for example. He is a good man who follows Mormon principles. In fact, he is the only Republican front runner who hasn’t been divorced. Fred Thompson has been divorced. John McCain has been divorced. Rudy Guiliani has been divorced twice, but Mitt Romney has been married to the same woman for thirty years. He is a good, moral man, but is he living a gospel-centered life? He has not even been saved by the gospel, let alone living by the gospel. Good parenting is not just about producing well-behaved children. You don’t even need the gospel to do that.

Colossians 2; Ephesians 4, Romans 12

Note to reader: This sermon manuscript is not complete. Please listen to the message online or download it and listen.

Rich Maurer

October 28, 2007