which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right
hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion,
and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
And he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him his head over all things
to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Jesus Christ is the ultimate authority.
He is supreme in every respect that we can think of or imagine.
There really is no authority that is secure until his authority is fully acknowledged.
Here in this paragraph that we've read tonight, we learn first that the Lord Jesus Christ
is supreme over death.
He was raised from the dead by the power of God.
Secondly, we notice that he is supreme over the heavenlies, for that is where he is seated
at the right hand of the Father.
The heavenlies meaning, as we have seen, control central, the realm of true reality, where
the action takes place.
That's the heavenlies.
It is another dimension from our own.
It is very real.
It is a literal realm of reality.
And that is where the Lord Jesus Christ reigns.
He is supreme in that dimension.
That is where our citizenship is, and that is where our blessings are rooted.
Then we saw last week as well that the Lord Jesus is supreme over angels, which seem to
be suggested in verse 21 by these words, rule, authority, power, and dominion.
These are titles or ranks of angels.
He created the angels.
Today he is ruler of the angels.
There is a group of angels that we call demons, which one day will be completely subdued when
Satan, their ruler, is cast into the lake of fire, Revelation chapter 20.
The Lord Jesus Christ now calls these ministering spirits, the holy angels, as his servants
to perform his bidding.
Now tonight we pick it up in the next phrase, which says that the Lord Jesus Christ is supreme
over all humanity, for it mentions every name that is named.
The Lord Jesus is supreme over humankind even right now.
As he himself said in Matthew chapter 28 and verse 18, all authority is given unto me in
heaven and on where?
On earth.
Not only in heaven, not just in the realm of the heavenlies, but on the earth, he is
supreme.
He possesses absolute assurance that one day all will be in subjection and subjugation
to him.
As it says in Philippians, the second chapter, he is given a name, the name Lord.
That title is his, L-O-R-D.
And that name, Lord, every knee will bow in heaven, on the earth, and under the earth,
referring perhaps to the realm of the departed.
But every knee, it says, will be bent to him and acknowledge his lordship, whether they
be pagan or Christian, whether they be born before the lifetime of Christ or after his
birth.
Every person from Adam down to this day will one day be resurrected in his proper order
in time, and his knee will bow to the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Our Savior may at this time be mocked, ignored, and blasphemed.
But one day, folks, one day he will be glorified and his rule will be enforced upon the earth.
Turn with me, if you will, to Revelation, chapter 19, where we see recorded for us as
John moves ahead in time and views these events, we see recorded for us his return in glory.
Now, beginning in verse 11, he is described in amazing words, symbolic words, to be sure.
But John is describing as best he can what he literally sees.
And in verse 15, it says, and from Christ's mouth comes a sharp sword so that with it
he may smite the nations.
That's humankind.
And he will rule them with a rod of iron, and he treads the winepress of the first wrath
of God the Almighty.
And on his robe and his thigh he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
What we have described in these verses is his return to the earth and what is called
the Battle of Armageddon, when the world forces will be gathered together in the mid-east
and suddenly their attention is focused upon a heavenly event as the heavens are opened
and the Lord Jesus Christ descends from heaven in his glory, followed by his hosts of angels
and we believe ourselves included.
He will return to the earth and in coming he will subdue the armies of the nations.
And from that time onward he will reign for a thousand years on the earth in what is called
the Millennium.
Now, this is mentioned in chapter 20 and verse 4 where it talks about thrones and they set
upon them and judgment was given to them.
And then down at the end of the verse for times sake, look at that last sentence, they
came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
And again in verse 6 it says, blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first
resurrection.
And it says at the end of the verse that we will reign with him for a thousand years.
And so our Savior is destined to reign upon the earth and with him his saints.
This will occur during that millennial reign of Jesus Christ.
In our interpretation of scripture we are what are called pre-millennialists.
We believe not only in a literal second coming of Jesus Christ, but we believe that after
he comes he is going to reign upon the earth on the throne of David his father and will
rule the nations.
That is his right.
It has been declared of him in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament that he will
thus reign.
I wish we had time to go to the book of Zechariah, the 14th chapter and read there of the same
day that is mentioned in Revelation 19 and 20.
And notice that the nations bring their worship to Jerusalem where he will reign.
And all through the millennium that's the plan.
The worship will come to him.
The nations will bring their homage to him.
The son of righteousness who has risen with healing in his wings for the earth during
that millennial reign which is his.
But not just during time, but in the new heaven and the new earth he will reign.
I turn to chapter 21 of this book of Revelation and notice with me as he describes in breathtaking
terms the New Jerusalem it says in verse 24 and the nations shall walk by its light.
Now these are not the nations as they are today, but these are the nations as they shall
be then.
It says and the nations shall walk by its light and the kings of the earth shall bring
their glory into it.
And in the daytime for there shall be no night there its gates shall never be closed and
they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.
And nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying shall ever come into
it but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.
What is said here?
Well it's said that even during the time when the New Jerusalem is created and there is
a new heaven and new earth during that time the glory will be brought to the Lord Jesus
Christ.
He will reign supreme over all of redeemed humanity.
That is his destiny.
Rise is the person who now claims him as Lord.
Rise is the person who now bows the knee to Jesus Christ in this life.
Now let's go back to Ephesians as we push ahead to the next phrase in verse 22.
Excuse me, verse 21.
It says not only in this age but also in the one to come.
This suggests what we just talked about but I want to apply it in this way that the Lord
Jesus Christ is supreme over time.
He is the eternal one without beginning or end who entered into time and space in the
incarnation.
Being apart from his creation he nonetheless was able to enter into it and lived, died,
rose again all in time.
And then he ascended again to timelessness from which he came.
And he sent the message back to us through the Apostle John, I am alive forevermore.
He is supreme over time.
He himself is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
And he is able to see yesterday, today, and tomorrow for they are all alike to him.
So while he is a part of time in the glorified God man, he is a part of time and space, he
is nonetheless apart from it as well.
That is a mystery to us how he can be both at the same time.
It's an antinomy.
But nonetheless he is able to see all of the panorama of history.
It is all alike to him.
Time is his servant.
He is its creator and master.
He came into the world and communicated to man in time and space by the incarnation,
but at the same time he is not bound by time.
He is the one who is the King, eternal, as well as immortal, invisible.
And he says of himself in Revelation 22, 13, I am Alpha and Omega, first and the last,
the beginning and the end.
It is hard for us to grasp this because we have a limited view of time.
I wish I could share with you tonight some of the things that I've been reading regarding
time.
Time is really a mystery.
Scientists have a difficult job to try to explain what time is.
It's more than linear time, there's a past, present, and future, but they are deciding
now that time has dimensions.
They talk in terms of time one, time two, and time three, which has to do with the future.
If you're interested in reading that, I would encourage you to get a book by Ken Boa, which
is entitled God I Don't Understand.
In that book he covers a lot of difficult things, these antinomies that I mentioned,
apparent contradictions, and time is one of them that he goes into.
It is really mind-boggling to an amateur like me and perhaps like you as we think about
something like time, but however we define it or describe it, the Lord Jesus Christ is
supreme over time.
It is all his servant.
He has given to us eternal life.
That means that our life is never ending.
It means that we shall share with him a certain kind of timelessness.
We cannot become God and become eternal in that ultimate sense as he is, but there is
some way in which we will share a type of timelessness so that through the succession
of infinite ages to come, we will be with him.
Abiding outside of the measurement of a calendar or a clock, he is nonetheless both aware of
our circumstances and he is able to give us timely aid.
Hebrews 4.16.
Grace to help in the what?
Time in the time of need.
He is supreme over time.
Number six, he is supreme over the universe.
Mark mentions in verse 22, he put all things in subjection under his feet.
The one who fills all in all, verse 23.
Here we get into the expanse of the creation, which is unknown and unmeasured by man.
Whatever the universe is, and again it defies description, there are those who feel that
the universe is finite and limited and there are others who feel that it's infinite and
unlimited.
Scientists do not know what the universe is.
They cannot describe it in adequate terms.
None of us can.
But God knows for God possesses it.
He created it.
Calls sake and notwithstanding, Jesus Christ is the owner of the cosmos.
Men seek to explain its origins.
There are some who feel that matter is eternal, that it's always existed, it just changes
in its form.
But that theory is somewhat laid on the shelf today and scientists are inclined to believe
what they call the Big Bang Theory.
The idea is that at one point there was this glob of super dense energy that exploded and
the universe today is that energy and matter moving outward from the center of the explosion.
Now there are some scientists who believe it's going to keep on going.
There are some scientists who say no, there's gravitation involved in this thing, it's all
going to come back together one day.
And then there will be another explosion, not in your lifetime or mine, but billions
of years, billions and billions of years are involved in this whole process.
Well, the thing about the Big Bang is that it's a big bust.
Because you see they still haven't described for us where it all came from in the beginning.
They haven't talked about its origin.
If it's possible you could go to the edge of the universe, to its farthest limit, and
you would still find God there.
The Lord Jesus Christ is holding those elements together, Colossians 1.17.
By Him they all subsist.
He is the cohesive force of the atom.
And whether you take the microscope out and you look into the microcosm of small things
or you get the telescope out and you look into the macrocosm of things, you cannot find
an end to it either way.
Sometimes at various points they felt that they found the smallest particle or unit of
matter.
Other times they felt they've reached the edge of the universe.
And always there's someone else who comes along and says, no, there's something beyond
that.
But Jesus Christ is head over all of it.
There's none of it He does not possess, that He does not know, that He does not control.
You know it's interesting that only the biblical account of creation, did you know there were
other accounts of creation in literature, ancient literature?
And therefore there are those who say, well you see the Bible is just like all these others.
Just another religion with another idea about creation.
We know there's something unique about the Bible's creation record.
It is that time, energy, matter and space, the basic elements of the universe, were created
out of nothing.
All of the other creation accounts say that these things, they don't deal with the origin
of them.
It's just how they were formed into the present state of affairs.
But only the Bible goes back to the origin and says these things once did not exist,
but now we understand that by the word of God these things were created out of nothing.
Now it doesn't explain how it happened, it doesn't tell us when it happened, but the
Bible is the one record of creation, it's the only record, the others are myths, legends
passed down, but it's the only record of creation that deals with origin and it says, out of
nothing God called it to be.
Now look, if God can create out of nothing the universe, if he can possess the expanse
of it, and if he is supreme in it all, if all things are indeed in subjection under
his feet, do you not think that he can manage your life?
Don't you think if he can manage the universe he can take care of the details that cause
your mind to be boggled and you're confused and perplexed?
Be that way no more, look to Jesus Christ and trust him who is the Lord.
Well we need to look at one more item here in Ephesians 1 and it will be done.
He is supreme over the universe and finally he is supreme over the church, his body.
God gave him Christ as head over all things to the church.
God has given Christ to the church as its head.
The church is his body.
The church of course is a living organism.
It is an organism into which the child of God is placed at the moment of his regeneration
by the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is the head of his body.
We are all connected directly to him.
To him we are connected and him we serve as members of his body.
Here in Ephesians the fourth chapter he says, we are to grow up in all aspects into him
who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, and that includes every single
one of you who is saved, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies
according to the proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the
building up of itself in love.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the head of our church, the head of every local church and he is the
head of the universal church.
How is his supremacy practically experienced in a local church?
I think that is a legitimate question to ask.
If we say that Jesus Christ is the head of the church, how is it that he expresses his
headship?
I want to suggest to you three ways.
First of all by his word, his infallible revelation of himself and his will.
Within his word we find his instructions to us propositionally expressed.
That is in sentences, in thoughts, in black and white, God has told us what he wants of
us, his body.
So how is it that he expresses his supremacy in our church through this book?
That's why we emphasize it so much.
That's why we teach it and talk about it.
I do not believe that we are guilty of bibliology which some accuse us of, that is worshiping
the Bible.
That's not the point.
We worship the Christ of the Bible.
The one cannot worship the Christ of the Bible and ignore the book.
For this is the written word that reveals the living word, Jesus Christ, our head.
In this book which we love, which we believe, which we teach and we seek to obey, he our
head tells us, his body, what he wants of us.
Secondly he expresses his desires for us in the church, his body, by his spirit whom he
has sent to glorify himself, whom he has sent to teach us, to guide us, to sanctify us and
so on.
It is by the working of his spirit in our midst that he is able to mediate his headship.
As we through the word fellowship with him, the Holy Spirit moves us in our wills, enlightens
us in our minds, changes us in our emotions so that through that sanctifying process he
is able to tell us as a church what we need to know.
We each have a part of that.
We each have a voice.
God speaks to us as a church through the body as the spirit of God works in us.
And his voice is not going to be contradictory.
He is not going to be saying different things to different people.
He is going to be saying the same thing to us, bringing us together in a blessed unity
which we are commanded to maintain and keep.
And thirdly, he expresses his will to us, his body, by his order, by his order in the
church.
Of this I am thinking of his appointment of elders as human overseers who as we read this
morning in Hebrews 13, will one day stand before him to give account.
How is it that he works in his body?
Well, it is by his orders, well as by his spirit and by his word.
And his order is that we as a congregation should seek to appoint over us men who are
called and qualified to serve as shepherds, as overseers, who are then given the responsibility
by Jesus Christ to rule the church, not to rule it as overlords, but to rule it as fellow
servants with the others of Jesus Christ.
They are given responsibility for decision making.
They are given responsibility for direction in the church.
And their heavy responsibility must weigh upon them.
For one day at the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, elders in a local church, or whatever
the controlling board is called, those people must give a stricter account to Jesus Christ
because of their responsibility.
And how do I acknowledge the supremacy of Jesus Christ in my church?
First by obeying his word, as he tells us to.
For the word of God is the expression of the will of God for us.
I acknowledge and obey the headship of Jesus Christ by obeying this word.
Secondly, by obeying the spirit.
I acknowledge his headship by obeying the spirit, as did the church in Antioch in Acts
13, when the spirit said, separate these men and send them out.
And the church did that.
They separated Paul and Barnabas and sent them out.
They obeyed the spirit of God.
The spirit of God can bring us together in unity of mind as to what we ought to do.
And we must obey the spirit.
And thirdly, by obeying our leaders in Hebrews 13, 17.
Obey them that have the rule over you, it says, and we read that verse this morning.
I acknowledge the headship of Jesus Christ in the church by submitting myself, as he
tells me to, to the appointed men of God who are called as elders in that fellowship.
The Lord Jesus Christ is given by the Father to the church as its head.
Jesus Christ is supreme in every realm.
There is nothing that is left unsubjected to its ultimate authority by God the Father.
He has subjected everything to Jesus Christ.
But it is possible for you and for me to walk in such a way that we refuse to acknowledge
that.
Whatever realm it may be that we've talked about, man is the one part of God's creation
that is able to walk in rebellion and sin.
Not always, but for a time.
God gives him that choice.
We are able to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, his Savior, if we will.
Whosoever will may come, said the Lord Jesus.
If you have never trusted him as your Savior, you tonight have that opportunity.
There is a choice for you to make.
Within the parameters of God's elective purposes, he says to you that you may make that choice.
If you have not trusted him, we plead with you tonight in the name of Christ to receive
him as your Savior.
And the Christian, the Christian may walk in his flesh.
The Christian may be carnal and deny the Lordship of Christ in his life, in his circumstances,
in his choices, his motives, his goals.
And all of us know what that means because we've been there.
But if any of us is there tonight, I pray that we will understand that Jesus Christ,
our Savior, has appointed the Lord in how foolish it is of us who own his name, who
call upon him to walk in our own strength, to walk self-directed, to walk in the flesh.
What misery that brings to us.
What unhappiness.
What devastation it brings to us.
How much better for us to acknowledge him as Lord and to give him his right in our lives
now tonight.
And name him as Supreme, not just in all the realms we've talked about only, but tonight
in my life and in yours.
Let's pray.
Lord, we acknowledge tonight what you have declared in your word, that you have established
Jesus Christ as Lord, as Supreme over every realm.
And we acknowledge that he is right here in this very room with us.
And I pray that as we close this service, there will not be one of us who would have
an area of the life unyielded, unsurrendered.
That may we right now in the quietness of these moments give ourselves to him afresh
and anew as Lord of our lives.