As the atheist sailed head over heels, he cried out, “Oh, God! Help me!”

At once, the ferocious attack scene froze in place. , As the atheist hung in mid-air, a booming voice came down from heaven, “I thought you didn’t believe in Me!”

“Come on God, give me a break. Two minutes ago I didn’t believe in the Loch Ness monster either!”

There’s nothing that will strip your mental gears quite as much as a sudden change in theology. If you have lived your life ignoring spiritual reality, the sudden revelation of the true God can be shattering.

We can try to ignore the truth of our situation -- even as we prepare to come face to face with God. W.C. Fields was lying in a hospital bed very sick and near death. His wife came in and found him reading the Bible. She exclaimed, “W.C.! What are you doing reading the Bible? I thought you didn’t believe any of that stuff.” W.C. Fields shot back, “Looking for loopholes, my dear, Looking for loopholes!”

I don’t know if Fields was really just looking for loopholes. A genuine search could hide behind a joke. Fields, even in death, was expected to stay in character. But loopholes -- a way around the issues -- are all some people want.

Tony Campolo writes in Let Me Tell You a Story about one of his professors. The professor was Paul Van Buren who was one of the “God is Dead” theologians of the oh-so-hip sixties.

Campolo writes: “On one occasion, Dr. Van Buren was trying to show me that my religious convictions would not stand up to any kind of empirical test. He said, “If you want to convince the skeptics on this campus that your God is real, why don’t you do what the Old Testament prophet Elijah did? Why don’t you build an altar of wood and call down fire from heaven to consume it? Why don’t you go out on Broad Street, stop the traffic, build up a high pile of logs, and pour water all over it? Call all the doubters together, and when the crowd is properly assembled, call upon your God to rain down fire from heaven. Then you would have some empirical proof that God exists.”

I answered by asking, “Dr. Van Buren, suppose I did that? Suppose I really did pile up some logs in the middle of Broad Street right in the midst of our university, and I called all the skeptics to come together and watch, just as Elijah once did with the skeptics of his age? Suppose, like Elijah, I poured water all over that pile of wood and asked God to send down fire from heaven - and fire did come down and consume the pile of wood. What would you say?”

Van Buren replied, “I would have to say - there must be another explanation!”

At least Van Buren was honest about the depths of his lack of faith, Many people go through life with much less awareness of the issues.

In fact, they aren’t even aware of the things that surround us that tell us about God - and ought to lead us to know God -- much more surely even than a visit from the Loch Ness Monster or fire from heaven. I’m talking about creation.

Some years ago, a former president of the New York Academy of Sciences wrote: “Let’s say I have ten pennies and I mark each one with a number (one to ten), then place all ten in your pocket. I would ask you to give your packet a good shake so the pennies are no longer in any order in your pocket. What chance would I have to reach in and pull out penny number one? One in ten. Let’s say I put that penny back. Then I reach again into your pocket and draw out penny number two. My chance of doing that would be one in a hundred. Putting the penny back, if I were to reach in and draw out penny number three, my chances would jump to one in a thousand. If I were to continue to do the same thing, in successive order, right up through number nine, do you know what my chance would be by the time I got to number ten and pulled it out of your pocket? One in ten billion. If I pulled that off you would say, “The game is fixed!” My answer: ‘You’re right...and so is creation.’”

He was telling us that creation isn’t an accident. He knows too much science to think it was. For the existence of our world and humankind defies all mathematical calculations of chance.

But unfortunately, many scientists do not only love science but a belief system called “scientism.” Scientism is different from Scientology. Scientism is a secular religion which claims that science has all the answers -- that science explains not only what happens but also why things happen.

Many scientists are its devotees -- although I find that scientism is most popular among the scientifically oriented who have not gone all that far in their field. For example, many community college science teachers embrace scientism with much more fervor than many top-ranked physicists -- some of whom have become Christians in recent years. As one of them wrote, “I discovered that the universe is not a huge machine but a wonderful mind.” Physics led this man to trust the Lord. That’s science. Scientism, however, irrationally discards the claims of traditional religions simply because they are religious.

This was brought out by Maria Vos Savant who writes a column in Parade Magazine. She is billed as the smartest person in the world. Several years ago a reader wrote her this question: “I assume that you, like most intellectual types, are not a religious person. So what do you think of the Big Bang theory?”

I loved Vos Savant’s reply. She wrote “I think that if it had been a religion that first maintained the notion that all the matter in the entire universe had once been contained in an area smaller than the point of a pin, scientists probably would have laughed at the idea.”

Maybe Maria Vos Savant is the smartest person in the world. At least she gave a smart answer. Vos Savant describes the limitations of the scientific mind very well -- if that scientific mind embraces science his or her religion. The final result of scientism is described in poetic form by T. S. Elliot:

“The endless cycle of idea and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,

But nearer to death no nearer to GOD.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

What do we see in creation? Do we see a closed system? Or do we see that hand of God? It makes a difference what we see. In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Earth’s crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God. But only he who sees takes off shoes. The rest sit round it and pick blackberries.”

Well, we aren’t here today to pick blackberries. We are here to see. We are here to take off our shoes. For we are in the presence of the One whom Paul tells us is the very Lord of Creation.

We are looking in Colossians 1:15-19 at the question, “Who is Jesus, really?” This is the key question of this whole sermon series from Colossians. This is why I am taking this section verse by verse.

In verse 15, as we saw, Jesus is identified first as “the image of the invisible God”.

This means that we don’t need to wonder what God is like. For we can look into face of Jesus and see God. We can listen to the voice of Jesus and hear God’s word. In Jesus, God breaks through our blindness so we can understand.

God points people to Jesus and says, “Any idea about me that doesn’t fit Jesus” is wrong -- no matter how many people believe it, no matter how “nice” they are, or no matter how “nice” you want to be by being able to say “you’re right too.”

In a congregational survey we completed a year ago last April, one of the questions was whether or not we agreed with the statement that “All the different religions are equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth.” Thirty five percent of the people who completed the survey said that they either agreed with the statement or were neutral or unsure.

This is one of the main reason I am was moved to preach through this Letter to the Colossians. Colossians is perhaps the best place to turn in the Bible for helping us get our heads straight about who Jesus is and how God has revealed Himself to us.

In Jesus, God says “Here is who I am. Jesus is the model that’s your size that you can hold. Anything that doesn’t fit this is wrong. People who tells you stuff about Me that doesn’t fit Jesus are wrong. For it is Jesus who is the “image of the invisible God.”

Jesus is identified second in verse 15 as the first-born of all creation. Firstborn is not used here in a sense of time, but in the sense of special honor. When Paul says of Jesus that he is the firstborn of all creation, it means that the highest honor which creation holds belongs to Jesus.

Paul’s point is that Jesus is Lord. He isn’t Lord because we elected Him. He isn’t Lord because we believe in Him. He is Lord because that is who He is.

A great Indian teacher and writer named Ravi Zacharias was converted from Hinduism to Christianity. He writes in Jesus Among Other Gods about a trip to India: “On one occasion I stood by the side of a road, watching the golden statue of a “god” being transported from one temple to another. Thousands clamored to give an offering and to receive a blessing. The priests accompanying the god had incense and ash in their hands and generously distributed the goodwill of the deity upon any fruit or piece of clothing place before them. The sight was extraordinary. Rich, poor, young, and old stretched their hands up as this chariot went by at a snail’s pace. I asked a woman who had just received her “blessing” if this god actually existed or if he was just an expression of some inner hunger. She looked very hesitant and then said, “If you think in your heart that he exists, then he does.”

“What if you believe he does not exist?” I asked.

“Then he doesn’t exist,” she softly said.

This is not true with Jesus. He is Lord whether we believe in Him or not. He is Lord whether we worship Him or not. If we don’t follow Jesus, Jesus is not less than He has ever been. But, we will be destroyed. As Paul writes, “we will be cut off from God and without hope in the world.”

Now, In Colossians 1:16, Paul begins to talk about creation. Verse 16 is a part of Paul’s great teaching about who Jesus really is. Here Paul talks about the role of Jesus in creation.

He says of Jesus: “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through Him and for Him.”

Who is Jesus, really? Jesus is both the means of creation and the goal of creation.

When Paul tells us first, “For by Jesus, all things were created,” he is not telling us something that only He believes -- some unique Paul thing. . He is saying the same exact thing as John tells us about Jesus in the opening to his gospel: “All things were made by Jesus and without Jesus nothing has come into being which has come into being.”

Jesus is the source of all creation. Jesus is the true origin of the species. We belong to Him by right of creation. “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and earth.”

Jesus is also the source of all authority. That’s what Paul means at the mid-point of verse 16 when he speaks of “thrones, dominions, principalities and powers.”

Jesus is also the goal of creation. That’s what Paul says at the end of verse 16: “all things were created through Him and for Him.”

You may remember the poem by Robert Frost which goes:

“Some say the world will end in fire

some say in ice

from what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire

But if I had to perish twice

I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great

and would suffice.”

But Paul says that the world will end in neither fire or ice - but in Christ. History is not purposeless. The world is not out of control but in the hands of the Lord.

Then, in verse 17, Paul then says that Jesus is before all things and in Him all things hold together. This means that the real secret of life isn’t DNA. The real secret of life isn’t dark matter. The real secret isn’t the weak force of quarks. The real secret is Jesus.

Water is H2O. But there is something else - a third thing that makes H2O water. Jesus is that third thing. In fact, this is why D. H. Laurence wrote a poem about Jesus called “The Third Thing.” That’s who Jesus is.

Now I recognize that all of these cosmic claims about Jesus is why Christianity is often offensive to people of other faiths or no faith. They say, “Why can’t you recognize that all religions have leaders who can lead us into truth? Why do you claim that Jesus is different and above all the other?”

We claim that Jesus is different because that’s what He both claimed and proved.

C.S. Lewis writes, “If you had gone to Buddha and asked him, ‘Are you the Son of Brahma?’ he would have said, ‘My son, you are still in the vale of illusion.’

If you had gone to Socrates and asked, ‘Are you Zeus?’ he would have laughed at you.

If you had gone to Mohammed and asked, ‘Are you Allah?’ he would first have rent his clothes, and then cut your head off.

If you had asked Confucius, ‘Are you Heaven?’ I think he would have replied, ‘Remarks which are not in accordance with nature are in bad taste.’”

Jesus is different. When the disciple Philip asked to see the Father, Jesus responded in John 14:9, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and still you do not know Me? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’”

Jesus claims to be God in human flesh. He claims to be the only way. He proved it by rising from the dead.

That is Jesus. And that’s who Jesus is, really.

If you don’t like it -- if you feel He is exclusionary -- well I invite you to take it up with Him. But just remember who He is.