What a wonderful hymn that is. That is the cry of our hearts: “Lord, be Thou beautiful Queen.”
Lord, we thank You. As we come from the Lord’s table, we remember Your suffering and Your great love to us—something we are not quite able to comprehend. But we do want to pray, Lord: it is Your word that when two or three are gathered under Your name, there is Your presence.
So the cry of our hearts is, “Lord, as we come under Your name, we want You to be supreme. Lord, we want You to have that authority over our time together.” So, Lord, we do want to commit this time unto You and commit myself unto You.
Even though there could be human shortcomings, we pray, Lord, that they will not be a hindrance to this expression of Your heart. Lord, grant us also an ear to hear what the Holy Spirit says to the churches. Lord, we do thank You. It is indeed the good pleasure of the Father to reveal the Son in us. We commit this time unto You. Lord, we thank You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Good morning, dear brothers and sisters.
I usually tend to say little things to break the ice so that we all can be comfortable. This is my first time standing here and looking at the camera. My wife told me that when I share, I have a tendency to walk around. She is right there, so if I am off camera, she can raise her hand and say, “No, get back, get back to your spot.”
All kidding aside, in the past people have told me that when I get to the end of the hour, my voice gets lower and lower. Maybe I have an accent—well, I know I have an accent naturally. So I just pray that this should not be a hindrance. The Lord can speak to us through Balaam’s donkey, so hopefully what I share today will be able to get through. It is what the Lord wants to express in His heart.
Let us turn to Colossians 1:18. I used to use the New American Standard Bible, but I would like to give it from the old one again.
And He is the head of the body, the church;
Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead;
That in all things He might have the preeminence.
What is preeminence? In newer translations, it says that He might have first place. It may also say that He is first. Again, “first place” is a very common expression. Sometimes we may lose the true meaning of what the word preeminence means.
Preeminence is used only three times in the Bible. We will not go to the other two places, but this is the only time it is used positively. I am not quite sure what else to say about preeminence, but young people would say, “That is a cool word.” It is a cool word. When we say preeminence, we have to think about what it really means. If I say that the Lord has first place, then you may say, “Oh, first—I know what that is.” Just bear that in mind.
The burden the Lord has put on my heart is not something new. I looked online at Christian Testimony Ministries, and there are many ministries that use these words. But I hope there is something fresh that the Lord wants to speak to us—something that would touch our hearts and touch His heart too.
I think we have come to days when we do not want merely to say the words themselves, but to have the reality. We want a practical way to enter into the reality that, in all things, He may have preeminence.
There are three points I would like to share:
I would like to share a story. When people invite me to their homes, I go around and look at what is on the walls. If you see abstract art, you say, “Oh, someone here really likes art.” Or if there are antique cars, people like old cars.
Some of you have gathered here for more than forty years. I have not. The first time I was here was in July 2002. When I came in, we all noticed that framed verse on the wall. I looked at it and asked, “What does it say?” It says, “That in all things He might have the preeminence.”
Twelve years is not a short time. If you look around here, this is probably the only meeting hall with so many Bible verses on the walls. I do not know the reason those verses were placed there; I have not heard the history. But I am sure they mean something to this assembly.
Hampton Roads is often called a city of churches. As I drive down the street, there are indeed many churches. Virginia is a state of churches. From our home to this meeting room, within two blocks, I can count four churches.
We live quite a distance away. On a good day, it takes us three hours round trip. My wife always reminds me that we have to buy gas, fill the car, and take the car in for service every other month. There is the cost, the time, and all that.
A lot of friends ask us why we travel such a distance. I use a very basic answer and say, “Well, I think we are just foolish.” Paul says, “Not many of you are wise,” right? So it is easy with that.
Sometimes I tell people that we know the brothers and sisters here, and we just keep coming. But that is not the real reason. When we come to Hampton Roads, we believe there are brothers and sisters here who are willing to have the Lord be preeminent in all things. That is our belief, and that is the real reason for all the traveling and so on.
Let us look again at Colossians 1:18, reading only the first and last portions:
And He is the head of the body, the church;
That in all things He might have the preeminence.
What is this speaking to us? On one end, He is the head of the body. On the other end, He must have preeminence.
We know what the head does. In every body, we have some knowledge of our physical being. The head makes all the decisions—or at least, the head should make all the decisions. The head is the command center.
For example, if I want to raise my hand, the head makes that decision first: “Raise the hand.” Then the command is transmitted to the arm, the muscles, and the nervous system. There is coordination, and somehow the hand gets raised. It really works seamlessly.
But if my hand does not respond to the command from the head, that means I must be sick. There is a problem. On the other hand, if my hand moves by itself without a command from the head, I must be sick too. I have a problem.
In a normal case, when there is no illness, the head has complete authority, and the body is totally submitted to the head.
He is the head of the body. That may be a revelation to us. It was a revelation to Paul. In Acts 9, when Paul met the Lord on the road to Damascus, he saw that heavenly Man. The Head is in heaven, and the members are on earth.
Christ is the head of the body, the church. That is an eternal truth; it cannot be changed. For the body of Christ to be a testimony on earth, there needs to be the reality that, in all things, Christ has preeminence. If that is not the case, then the body must be weak; the body must be sick.
The phrase in all things is important. Sometimes we leave out that little word, all. Even though it is a small word with only three letters, it really encompasses everything in the body. Whether we consider something to be of great significance or of little significance, Christ is to have complete authority. That is what it means.
We often quote Matthew 18:20:
For where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst.
Have you wondered what it means to gather in His name? I do not believe it is something we merely articulate. It is not something we simply say. It has to mean something.
To gather in His name means to be totally subjected to His authority. Matthew 18:20 is really a conditional statement: the Lord’s presence is related to whether we, as an assembly, are willing to subject ourselves totally to Him.
We may accept the concept that Christ is the head of the body and that He should have preeminence in everything. But I do not think Christ wants us merely to hold that concept in our heads. He wants that reality. He wants it to be practical in our assembly life and in our everyday life.
When I meditated on Colossians 1:18, I asked the Lord, “Can You make it practical? Can You give us some hints so that we may arrive at that reality?” He impressed upon my heart Matthew 17:1-8.
And after six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart:
And He was transfigured before them; and His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became white as the light.
And behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elijah talking with Him.
And Peter answered, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if Thou wilt, I will make here three tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
While he was yet speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.
And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.
And Jesus came and touched them and said, Arise, and be not afraid.
And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, save Jesus only.
Matthew 17 comes after Matthew 16. In Matthew 16, God revealed to Peter that Jesus is the Christ. The Lord also revealed to Peter concerning the church: “I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” We will come back to Matthew 16 later.
Jesus took Peter, James, and John to the high mountain, which we call the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus was transfigured, and Moses and Elijah were there with Him.
Peter was Jewish, obviously. In the Jewish economy, Moses and Elijah were very significant persons. So Peter, in his own way, said, “Lord Jesus, would it not be good if all three of them were here—Jesus, Moses, and Elijah? Let us make three tents so that they may stay.”
But the Father did not approve of it. A cloud came down, and God took away Moses and Elijah. When they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.
Those last words impress my heart: “They saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.” In the Father’s heart, He does not want Christ standing together with even Moses and Elijah, though they were great persons in the Old Testament.
When we speak of preeminence, Christ Himself stands alone. No one compares with Him.
Christ desires to communicate with His people, and that is true. We thank God for that. Christ is our Friend, and we can cast our burdens upon Him. But when Colossians 1:18 says that in all things Christ may have preeminence, we have to see that the Lord Himself stands alone in this regard. He stands alone as the head of the church.
If we are not brought into the truth that Christ Himself is distinct—if we do not see His distinctiveness—we will never, in practice, yield to the Lord so that He may have preeminence in all things.
American society emphasizes close relationships. We are often on a first-name basis, even between parents and children. That is good as far as relationship is concerned. Yet, if we take parents and children as an example, there are distinctions in roles and responsibilities.
Parents have delegated authority from above, and they have a unique role to play in raising children. If we do not see those distinctions, there will be confusion and disorder in the family. It is the same way in the body of Christ.
We ought to have a close relationship with the Lord. There is no doubt about that. But sometimes we may take advantage of that close relationship. We may treat the Lord as our gofer, if I may use that term.
We can ask the Lord to do this and do that without asking whether it is His will to do it. When we travel, we ask the Lord to cover our journey, which is a good thing. But have we asked whether the Lord sent us to that place?
When we are sick, we ask the Lord to heal our sickness. But perhaps we have not asked whether the Lord might use the sickness to say something to us. Sometimes we take the Lord for granted, and in that close relationship, we lose sight of the distinctiveness of the Lord Himself. He becomes merely one of us.
But the Bible says that He is the head of the church, and in all things He must have preeminence.
We emphasize that we are in Christ, but that does not mean that we are equal to Christ. I am sure none of us would say that we are equal to Christ. Yet there may be times when we act in that way. We do things without asking Him. We do things on our own, even in the assemblies.
That is not allowing Him to be preeminent. The way here is found in Matthew 17: they saw nobody else but Him alone.
We often talk about priorities. For a long time, I thought in those terms: Christ is our highest priority, then perhaps the church is second, then family and children, and perhaps we put ourselves last. But is that really right?
When you look at Matthew 17, they saw no one else but Jesus alone. Nobody stands on the same footing as Jesus. Christ is not merely a priority. He stands alone as the Head of the church, and He stands alone in the matter of preeminence.
That was really the problem with the Colossians. They would like to put Christ here as the highest One, but then someone else below Him, and someone else below that. That is heresy. In Colossians, we are told that Christ is all. He stands alone in that regard.
Let us turn to Revelation 15:4:
Who shall not fear, O Lord, and glorify Thy name?
For Thou only art holy;
For all the nations shall come and worship before Thee;
For Thy righteous acts have been made manifest.
Here is the phrase: “For Thou only art holy.” We use the word holy very commonly. I remember a brother using the term otherness. Holiness means otherness. Christ is not like us. He is the Other.
Close relationship does not mean that we are equal to Christ and Christ is equal to us. There is also the word only: He alone is to be worshipped. He alone is to have that preeminent position above all things. We have to see that. We must see it, and that will change our lives.
Isaiah saw the Lord in Isaiah 6:1:
I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and His train filled the temple.
Isaiah had already been prophesying for a while, but when he saw the Lord, it changed his whole ministry. It made that difference.
Peter, James, and John saw the transfigured Lord on the high mountain. That vision kept them going and going and going. They were willing to lay down their lives unto death for the Lord Himself.
Then there was Paul in Acts 9:3-7. He saw the Lord on the road to Damascus, and his whole life was changed upside down. It is really vital to know the distinctiveness of Christ Himself.
If that has not been revealed to us, what can we do? It is actually a simple thing: we need to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the Lord to us in regard to His majesty and His distinctiveness.
It is the good pleasure of the Father to reveal the Son in us. If we have not seen Him, we have to keep asking; we have to keep knocking. The Holy Spirit will reveal to us the full majesty of the Lord Himself and how He is preeminent over all things.
This is not merely a one-time revelation. It is something that needs to govern us throughout our lifetime on earth. Taking Peter as an example, let us look at 2 Peter 1:16-19 to see what that revelation did to him at the end of his life.
For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased:
And this voice we ourselves heard borne out of heaven, when we were with Him in the holy mount.
And we have the word of prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts.
Peter was coming to the end of his life. At the beginning of 2 Peter, he says that his time on earth is about to come to an end. Yet he recalled that occasion when he saw the Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration.
His encouragement is found in verse 19: we do well if we pay attention to that as to a lamp shining in a dark place. He encourages us to keep this in the forefront. It is not something that we say once—“Yes, I would like the Lord to be preeminent”—and then put away.
Hebrews 12:2 tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus. That is how this can be maintained: keep our eyes on Jesus. Not only seeing Him as our Savior, not only seeing that He loves us, but keeping our eyes on Him so that we may see His majesty and His distinctiveness.
Christ is the head of the body so that in all things He may have preeminence. But, as we know, there is another being who would like to have that preeminence. All the conflict and turmoil we have today come from this.
It is the Father’s will for the Son to be preeminent in all things. But there is also a created being—an angel—who craves preeminence. Isaiah 14:13-14 speaks of this being:
But thou saidst in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
And I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.
This being, as we all know, is Satan. He was not satisfied with the position in which he was created. He had a very high position in the ranks of angels, but he wanted to make himself like the Most High. He wanted to displace God’s Son and have preeminence over all things.
We all know the story that Adam and Eve fell into temptation. When they fell, this craving for preeminence entered the human race; it is in the natural man. Throughout biblical history, we see traces of it.
We see it in the building of the Tower of Babel, recorded in Genesis 11:3-4:
And they said one to another, Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.
And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
And they said, Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
When you read those two verses, what do you come away with? “Let us make ourselves a name. Let us make this tower whose top will reach unto heaven.” That is the craving for preeminence.
We find that not only in the natural man, but even among the disciples. Turn to Matthew 20:20-21:
Then came to Him the mother of the sons of Zebedee with her sons, worshipping Him, and asking a certain thing of Him.
And He said unto her, What wouldest thou?
She saith unto Him, Command that these my two sons may sit, one on Thy right hand, and one on Thy left, in Thy kingdom.
The sons of Zebedee were James and John. Their mother came and asked Jesus that, in the kingdom, her sons might sit one on the left and one on the right. They wanted positions of preeminence. We find this even in the disciples.
We may ask whether Christ’s preeminence can ever become a true reality in our lives and in the body. The answer is yes. Let us read the whole of Colossians 1:18 again:
And He is the head of the body, the church;
Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead;
That in all things He might have the preeminence.
In the church, He is the beginning. In the church, He is the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have preeminence.
This connects with Matthew 16:18:
And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
The reality of Christ’s preeminence depends on these truths. First, in the church, He is the beginning. Christ builds the church. “Upon this rock”—upon Christ—“I will build My church.” So in the church, He is the beginning.
How do we know that? John 19:34-35 gives us the testimony of the Apostle John. He recalls what happened after the Lord was crucified, while the Lord was still on the cross:
Howbeit one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and straightway there came out blood and water.
And he that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye also may believe.
The building of the church, the body of Christ, began there. The body of Christ began with blood and water coming out from the side of Jesus, from the side of the crucified Jesus. The church is the bone of His bones and the flesh of His flesh.
After Christ ascended to heaven, the Spirit was poured out in Acts 2, and the one hundred and twenty believers were baptized into one body. That was the beginning of the church.
When the Lord says, “Upon this rock”—that is, upon Christ—“I will build My church,” He will build His church. That building is based on the truth that He is the beginning in the church. This is truth; nothing can change it. It is always true.
The other truth in Colossians 1:18 is that in the church, He is the firstborn from the dead.
We know that Christ is sinless. Even though death has tremendous holding power, because Jesus is sinless, death cannot hold Him. Ephesians 1:19-20 says:
And what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might
Which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places.
This raising of Jesus is a great matter. According to the verse, God the Father showed His surpassing great power and the working of the strength of His might to raise Christ from the dead.
Christ is the firstborn from the dead. The firstborn guarantees that those who come after Christ will also be raised from the dead. We who belong to Him are also raised from the dead because of our union with Him in His death and resurrection.
Positionally, in truth, there should be no doubt that the gates of Hades cannot overcome the church. We know that the end is sure.
At the end, Christ will present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. We know the end, but we are in between now.
Spiritual things are very practical. God does not leave us in this present time without giving us a way for Christ to be preeminent in all things.
One thing I picked up from the conference is this: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Have you ever considered Christ in us as the hope of glory?
At the Lord’s table, someone mentioned Christ Himself, His life, and His obedience. Philippians 2:6-8 says:
Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,
But emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men;
And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
Consider Christ and consider Satan. They are opposites. Satan craved preeminence. Christ, even though He is God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. He was willing to become the bondservant of God, and He humbled Himself, taking the form of man and dying on the cross.
That is not only Christ’s example; that is Christ’s life. As believers, He gives us that life. That life is in us, enabling us to be humble and enabling us to allow Him to have preeminence in all things.
Christ in us answers every challenge from Satan. Satan cannot touch Christ; He is in heaven. Satan cannot touch His church unless we give Satan ground.
We have heard recently the Lord’s announcement: “Yes, I am coming quickly.” We know the end is guaranteed. The bride has made herself ready. That is the end.
What is not yet concrete is Christ’s return in the fullness of time. That fullness of time depends on how we behave. We can prolong it, and we can shorten it.
If we allow Satan to have ground—and that ground is the flesh or self-life—we prolong the days before the Lord returns to receive His bride. The self-life craves preeminence.
We all have self-life in us. It is a life that wants to be on top. It is a life that wants to have an edge over others.
But have you ever thought about this? When, in all things, Christ has preeminence, that means you and I cannot have preeminence. Otherwise, there is a contradiction.
If the self is not denied, Satan has ground in the church. Sometimes we think that in small things we can be on our own. Maybe we do not need Christ. But that is not true. The word says, “In all things He might have the preeminence.”
When Christ is not preeminent over all things in the church, we are essentially denying Christ to be the head. We can accept that Christ is the head of the church and, at the same time, say, “Let me do it my way.” We cannot have both. It is a complete contradiction.
We all know that the flesh is in us, but sometimes we do not know how serious that is. Let me tell you my own experience.
More than four years ago, I received a call from a doctor telling me about something in my body that was not functioning properly. I am not a biology major; I am an engineer. But from that time on, I became amazed by the physical body we have. It is a really fascinating organism.
Unless the body is sick, everything is in balance. Cells have a definite lifetime. A cell dies, and new cells are born. A perfect balance is maintained. You do not get too much of something.
But that balance can be upset if there is something in the body that we call cancer cells. Those cells keep multiplying without balance. Things become unbalanced.
The flesh is like that. It always starts with something insignificant, something small. Unless it is dealt with, it multiplies and multiplies, becomes bigger and bigger, and brings death to the individual and death to the body of Christ. It is a very serious thing.
Yet we find that, even though the flesh is very serious, the Lord has a solution. The Lord has a solution for everything.
If we go back to Matthew 16, after Jesus revealed to Peter that He would build His church and that the powers of Hades would not prevail against it, the Lord said to His disciples:
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
That is the Lord’s answer to the self-life, or the flesh, within us.
Deny yourself—that is what it means. Do not serve your own interests. Do not serve self-interest. We have self-interest, such as the craving for preeminence. That is self-interest, and it needs to be denied; it must not be served.
Then there is the other part: take up the cross. Take up your cross. Take up my cross. What is the cross? We may have different concepts, but in the opening at the Lord’s table today, we had a glimpse of what it means: “Not My will, but Thy will be done.”
That is how the Lord deals with it, and we have to accept it: deny ourselves and take up the cross. It is interesting to remember that James and John’s mother came to ask that her sons might be on the left and the right. The Lord’s answer is found in Matthew 20:22:
But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?
They said to Him, “We are able.”
It is not a matter of sitting on the left or on the right. The question is: are you able to drink the cup? Are you willing to deny your self-interest and accept the Lord’s will as your will?
That is a good question—a challenging question—for us. May His will be done.
We are not operating in a vacuum. Even though the Lord says, “Deny yourself and take up the cross,” there is Someone in us to help us: the Holy Spirit.
We have to enjoy the Holy Spirit. He is in us, and He reminds us whenever we serve our own interests: “You are serving your own interests.” Whenever we have our own will taking prominence over the Lord’s will, we are reminded by the Holy Spirit.
What do we do? How do we respond? This is the key: listen to the Holy Spirit and repent. The Lord has given us the way of repentance. Deal with it as the Holy Spirit brings that flesh to light in our hearts.
The flesh contradicts the finished work of the Lord on the cross. He not only died for us, but He died as us. He brought the self to the cross.
I would like to end with a set of questions. In the matter that, in all things, He might have preeminence, I think the Lord is asking these questions of us individually and as an assembly:
There may be more questions, but you know the idea.
I do not know what your answer is. I do not know how you respond when that question is put to you. But my response would be, “Yes, Lord, I want to. I want to. But no, in reality, I am not that way.”
Even when we realize that we are not that way in reality, we have to see that the Lord is always active. That is an encouragement. We should not stop at our weak condition.
If we have not seen the majesty and distinctiveness of the Lord, we can ask for it. Ask, and it will be given. It is the good pleasure of the Father to reveal the Son in us.
If He provides that revelation, then let us fix our eyes on Jesus and keep paying attention to the word of God until we see Him—until we see all His majesty and all His distinctiveness in our hearts.
The life of Christ in us enables us to yield to Christ so that He may have preeminence in all things in the church. When we are convicted by the Holy Spirit that we have put ourselves in a more prominent place than the Lord, we can repent through the blood of Jesus that cleanses all our sins. We can walk the way of the cross by refusing to serve the flesh and by allowing His will to become our will.
I believe the Lord delights to be in the midst of His people. I have no doubt about that. As mentioned in Matthew 18:20:
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.
“In My name” reminds us again that we must give Him preeminence in all things. We all desire to have the Lord in our midst. The real question is: would we allow Him to have preeminence in all things?
Let us pray.
Lord, we do want to declare that it is Your rightful place to have, in all things, preeminence. Lord, we do want to recognize all our shortcomings. Whether we have not seen Your majesty and distinctiveness, or whether we have not denied ourselves and taken up our cross, Lord, we do pray that the word shared today would have an impact in our lives.
Lord, we do not want more theories. We want something operative, something that has an impact in our lives. Lord, Your desire is to be revealed to Your people, and that is our desire: to have Your presence.
Lord, help us to offer ourselves unto You. Help us choose to yield to You, Lord, that You may have preeminence in all things. That is the heart of the Father. May it be true in us also. Oh, we thank You. In Jesus’ name we pray.