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In one of the greatest novels of all time, The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky writes, “The world says: “You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy, and murder.” Later in that same passage we read this powerful conclusion, “People are more and more moved by envy now, by the desire to satisfy their material greed, and by vanity.” These words, written almost two hundred years ago, still speak to our society today.

We live in a country that has a consumer economy. For America to function we must be constantly consuming. We must be buying, needing, and demanding more every day, every quarter, every year. The graphs with lines for stocks, spending, and growth must always be going up. Basic needs for items like food, shelter, clothing, and entertainment are not enough demand. The machine must be fed, and it is always ravenously hungry.

In a world designed around manufactured demand there are many people who seek to influence us to move from one need to the next. Hoping to make the arduous climb up the mountains of influence and reach the seemingly beautiful peak where they can be powerful, famous, or desired. To “make it,” to have a huge dream house, a rare and cool car, expensive clothing, or maybe jewelry like those they look up to. But that of course is other people and never us! That is a temptation for others that we are above.

But if we are honest with ourselves, it is extremely easy to look at those who have the things we want with envy in our heart. Why do they have so many followers on social media? Why do they seem so stable when I am falling apart? Why do they have everything I deserve?

Or if we happen to get what our “hearts desire”, if we happen to reach the peak, there is only loneliness and depression when these things fail to satisfy or fix the problems in our lives. When we realize friends, family, money, or being desired cannot fulfill or heal our deep brokenness. This is not just my opinion or the opinion of God’s Word, it is a fact demonstrated repeatedly through psychological studies and surveys.

The reality is that there is only one person who can save us from this mess. He who is both fully God and fully man, Messiah Yeshua. Only through Him can we find true freedom and satisfy the true longings of our souls. This morning I would like us to revisit a passage we discussed several weeks ago but with much more left to say, Colossians 1:15-23.

In this passage we have beautifully communicated to us the supremacy and sufficiency of our wonderful Messiah. The conclusion being that we must remain firm and anchored in our faith in Messiah Yeshua, since He alone is over all, able to satisfy our deepest needs by giving us true Shalom.

We begin with a poetic declaration of the nature and supremacy of Messiah Yeshua.

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

From this passage we learn four things about Messiah Yeshua:

1. He is the image of the invisible God. He perfectly makes visible, the invisible God the Father. As we read in John’s Gospel no man has seen the Father, except the Son of God. But Messiah Yeshua perfectly represents for us His perfect nature.
2. He is firstborn over all creation. This does not mean He is “first to be created” but that He is above all things, every king, every influencer, every leader, every person who has lives or will ever live. He alone is the one true king and the Lord of lords.
3. In Him all has been created. This means everything above in heaven and below here on Earth. Every nation, every type of power, everything that has ever existed or will exist is through Him and should be for Him. Our vast technological and scientific marvels, telescopes, space shuttles, computers, medicines, all exist because of the minds he gifted us and the wonderous world we have the privilege of living in. We live on a privileged planet, perfectly able to support life and reveal to us the breathtaking artistry of the universe around us.
4. We continue to exist because He holds everything together. We exist because Messiah Yeshua exists. At the most fundamental levels physically and spiritually, we are completely dependent on Him alone, whether we realize it or not. The atoms of this universe are held together by forces we barely begin to understand if we even know about them at all. Yet our opinions and ignorance does not stop the Lord’s sustaining work. There is no one more powerful than our Creator who holds all creation together in His strong and might hands.

So, Messiah Yeshua is clearly supreme. There is no one like Him. Yet He does not rule in heaven paying no attention to His creation. He deeply cares for each one of us, a fact made clear as we continue reading.

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.

Messiah’s Community of Jews and Gentiles, the called-out ones, the Ekklesia, are all joined together in Him. We are all one body, one group, distinct as individuals yet united together. But Messiah Yeshua is the head of His community just as He is the head of creation. Our community exists to draw closer to the Lord and to follow His will. Any group calling themselves part of Messiah’s Community should be focused on at least these two things, drawing close to Messiah Yeshua, and obeying His will. When we consider false religions like Mormonism or Humanism, we see they draw us closer to an idol and encourage us to obey the will of human beings who think themselves enlightened, many of these leaders claim to God themselves.

There is no one else that can claim to have the fullness of God in them. Messiah Yeshua is not just sometimes God, or a half-God like a Greek myth, He is fully God. Because He is fully God His sacrifice on the Cross made peace available Vertically, between us and the Lord. He also made peace Horizontally, between all people here on Earth across all cultures, races, and yes even political parties. This is not a subjective truth, a point of view with which you can disagree. This is a fact, objectively true, despite how we may feel and despite the plans of Satan.

Sometimes I think we can be reluctant to talk about Messiah’s death on the cross and the shedding of His blood. It is not a pleasant topic of conversation. I remember watching The Passion of the Christ and just how brutal the crucifixion was in it. Seeing brutal human suffering should make us want to turn away, but Messiah’s death cannot be ignored just to focus on His life. It was through this horrendously painful and seemingly humiliating act, that the one who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords brought us peace in a way that can never be taken away.

We need that peace, especially in a world that is not peaceful. Our condition without Messiah Yeshua is summarized for us beautifully in verse 21.

21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.

We exist in a world covered in deep darkness as Isaiah declares in Isaiah 60. It is a world that tries awfully hard to move us away from God. When Rabbi Loren, Rabbi Glenn, and I discussed these verses a few weeks ago the analogy we produced was like being in a boat set in a raging sea. In this raging sea there are vast winds and whirlpools, the dark dangers of this world that seek to swallow us whole and pull us away from the safety of the shore. Without a firm and proper anchor, we will drift towards them.

In the middle of such dangers, you do not want an anchor that really is just decorative. You need a solid unmovable anchor that cannot be moved no matter how bad life gets. But many of us are using anchors that will fail at critical times. Anchors that are more decorative than functional. These shoddy anchors are better known as idols, false gods, that cannot save us at all.

It is the sad truth of human existence that we have always been entranced by idols. In our past these were made of metal or wood. I am reminded of Isaiah 44, which has the Lord declaring the foolishness of worshipping something that cannot save us. In that passage He talks about how a person will cut down a tree then use it to cook their food and heat their home. They will then take some of that same wood just moments ago used for cooking and declare it holy. Shaping it into an idol to bow down to and ask to save them. The Lord declares that those who do this are like their block of wood; they know nothing and cannot understand anything.

When we read passages like that, whether we are in Messiah or not, there is a temptation to feel superior to the person worshipping their hunk of wood. But idolatry is alive and well in our modern society. I like how Timothy Keller in his book Counterfeit Gods, defines an Idol as, “….anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.” Later he gives a second definition, “An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, “If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.” Too many of us have latched onto fake hope, anchoring ourselves to something or someone destructive, instead of the genuine article.

It can be hard to tell the real thing from a fake. Take for instance a fake orange. If you look at it from a distance it looks quite real. Now if you are familiar with the genuine article then you can more easily identify a fake. In the same way if we learn about the Lord from His Word, we can know real hope from false hope. But there is a powerful way to tell if this orange is fake or real, even if you are not an orange expert. By taste! Take a nice big bite out of a fake orange and you will learn quickly there is nothing in it to sustain you.  If I were to give you a nice big basket of fake oranges to live from, it does not matter how much they are worth or how pretty they look, you are going to suffer from trying to sustain yourself on them.

In this same way many of us eventually realize what at first seemed firm or desirable is just fake. We still feel alienated from God and from one another. But we move from fake oranges to fake apples and then repeat the cycle again. Changing our religions, philosophies, and desires, constantly trying to find something or someone to give us true completeness and wholeness, true Shalom.

If we could see labels on these false hopes we might see Made In China, Made In America, Made by consumerism, society, parents, friends, leaders, false teachers, greed, envy, the list goes on. However, there is one other name on that exhaustive list if we are being honest, our own. As much as idols have their origins in the society around us and those in our lives, our idols are uniquely our own.

But Messiah Yeshua, our great Creator, the king of kings, has provided real peace and reconciliation through His death on the Cross for all who will accept it. He has given us a way to be truly satisfied with a peace beyond our circumstances, a firm anchor that can never be moved.

When Dostoevsky talks about our desire to satisfy ourselves, he is really talking about idols that will lead us to destruction. As we continue reading we see Rabbi Paul through the Holy Spirit pleading with us not to exchange real, solid, hope in Messiah Yeshua for a cheap shiny knockoff.

22 But now he has reconciled you by Messiah’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, and do not move 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.

Now this is a letter to Messiah’s followers. Therefore, things are vastly different for those of us who have been reconciled, joined to Messiah Yeshua, the true head of all things. We are now holy, not because of a block of wood, but because of the death, burial, and resurrection of our Holy God, who has made us holy and blameless.

No idol can do that for us. But this reconciliation, this holiness, this peace does demand something of us. It is not something we earn, but it is something we must accept. We must be firm and anchored in our faith, not drifting away from Messiah Yeshua.

There are no other Gospels that can save us, there is no other faith that can save us, there is only one message that has been proclaimed to all creation, and that is this message. The mystery of the ages as Colossians goes on to tell us, is that Messiah Yeshua dwells in us, in those who are joined to Him. That He has made a way of hope for all people to experience His glory, His supreme power and holiness. As one of my favorite verses in all of God’s Word says in 2 Corinthians 4:6: “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Messiah.” That is a light that will never be extinguished, a light that will lead us back to the shore of true Shalom.

As we take the words of Colossians to heart there is a different response depending on where we are currently in our lives.

If we have drifted away from Messiah Yeshua or have yet to make Him the anchor of our lives, this is the day to accept with joy all that He is giving us. To reject His rest is like rejecting a priceless piece of art for a child’s drawing of it. Messiah Yeshua has prepared for those who belong to Him a wonderful banquet. In Isaiah 25:6 we have it described for us like this, “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine the best of meats and the finest of wines.” It is a feast that we do not want to miss out on, a feast in the same passage we are told also involves the end to death and suffering. That is a meal we all want to be a part of, instead of a feast filled with fake plastic food.

We are all invited to taste and see that the Lord is good, with open arms Messiah Yeshua is waiting to welcome each of us no matter our pasts or struggles. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

If we are newly in the Lord, in the beginning of our relationship with Him, or are firmly planted in Messiah Yeshua, we should be encouraged by how wonderful our Messiah is. That He is Lord over all creation and is our firm foundation on which we will not be moved. When we are in difficult times, we can be reminded just how blessed we are in Messiah.  We can remember who we used to be and who we are today. When we see others suffering, we can reach out to them with this very Gospel, sharing with them the goodness of our Messiah, praying and serving others who are part of our spiritual family when possible.

As our time draws to a close let me close with Colossians 2:6-8, which really summarizes everything we have discussed in Colossians 1. Rabbi Paul through the Holy Spirit wrote these words of warning to those he called disciplined and firm in the Lord. So, it is a warning all of us need to listen to as well no matter our current walk with Adonai. “So then, just as you received Messiah Yeshua as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Messiah.”

May each of us continue to live our lives in our wonderful Lord, Messiah Yeshua. With hearts full of thanks and minds rooted in His truth. May we be rooted in the only true anchor and hope. May we reject human traditions of every kind that cannot save us and let go of our idols. May each one of us accept His invitation and find real rest for our souls.