Some Things Never Change: Jesus Still Reigns

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

Well, welcome to Eastside. My name is Micah. I’m one of the leaders around here and I have the honor and the privilege to bring a message that I believe God prepared for people here at Eastside. And so I don’t know if it’s your first time or if you’re a thousand time, but I just want to update you with just some things I’m excited for that’s been going on this summer. This summer we kicked off with a night of worship who was there for the night of worship. Yeah. Unforgettable, right? It was so awesome. We’ve had life groups going on throughout the summer. We have David Linder coming in next week. Yeah, give it up for him. It’s going to be an awesome time of worship. If you don’t know who that is, we sing tons of his songs, so you could just put ’em in Spotify and you’ll find a song that you like of his. And in just a couple weeks, we have Kids Blast going on. Yeah, come on, come on. We have Kids Blast. And then we’ve had summer camps. Middle school’s already gone. High school’s about to go. That’s going to be super exciting. And this week we are actually sending some people on a mission trip to down in Guatemala. That’s happening this week and that’s going to be super exciting. Let’s get up for that.

Again, there’s just so much going on here at Eastside and I’m thrilled for you and your family just to dive in and to grow deeper in your faith and strengthen our community together this summer. But you know what else really gets me excited? I mean super excited where I could jump off the stage and just act crazy is when I start to talk about the nature of our God. I mean in a world where everything else changes, people are going to come in and out of our life. People change seasons, the weather. I mean it is hot outside right now, but who now is tomorrow? It could be like 60 degrees, but then there’s also technology that’s always changing. But you see God remains stead fast. I’m so thankful that it’s written in Malachi. God is speaking and he says: 

“I, the Lord, do not change.”

You see, it doesn’t matter if you’re in a storm right now. If you’ve left a storm or maybe you’re preparing for a storm to come, you see God’s word still speaks. His Holy Spirit still empowers and his church still prevails. Yeah. Isn’t that just incredible that we get to know a God that stays the same forever, not just on our life here on Earth, but for eternity when we live with him forever. And this morning, I’d like to start with a fun exercise. So if you came in and you saw a note card, I want you to go ahead and grab that note card, grab a pen. You may need to share a pen with somebody. That’s okay. If you’re watching online, I’m giving you time to run through your office, grab a piece of paper and a pen. You’re going to join in with us. And so once you’ve got it, I want you to do one thing. The first thing is I want you to write God.

And once you get it up there, you just show it to me so I know you’re with me. Ooh, yeah. Some people are like, I’m first place. Love it. God. Yes, yes. Now the next thing I want you to do, I’m going to give you some time on it. I want you to write on the back of it, I want you to draw your best picture of what you think God looks like. Best picture of what you think God looks like. And while you’re drawing, I just want to explain about this exercise. I first did this exercise when I was in college at EKU. My professor did this and she was doing this to help bring up a topic that she was going to be talking about. And so before we start, now that you’ve drawn this awesome picture of what God looks like in your imagination, and now that you’ve wrote his holy name, I want you to crumble it up, crumble it up, throw it to the ground and stomp on it.

I love that. Yeah. No, right. You see, when I first did this experience, this exercise, I had a lot of feelings going through my body. I was like, and I want to share those with you. There was some feelings I had that maybe you could relate to. I had this feeling of just being surprised. What in the world is going on? Why are we drawing this? Why are we writing God’s name? I was just completely stressed out and overwhelmed. The next thing I kind of felt was anger. I couldn’t believe that my professor was attacking God. I felt God was attacked and I need to go to defend God as if God really needs me to defend him. I felt this sadness because even though I didn’t want to participate, I was follow the rules and I was writing it down and I was slowly crumbling it and dropping it and stomping it, then I felt fear.

Fear that what I just did, now God’s going to punish me for it. Like, oh no, as soon as I leave this classroom, God’s going to strike me down. And then I felt this feeling of disgust. I mean, why would my professor do this? Why would he even bring up God? But then I saw this man, this guy that I knew, his name was Jake, and I met him through a campus ministry and Jake had this awesome big grin on his face the entire time. He was excited to do all of these different things as he was watching me freak out. And so as he was continuously to do this with all joy, the professor told us, Hey, I did this for you guys. I did this exercise and I did this for you guys to bring out the topic of perspective. Because of our perspective on God, it can really change how we see things.

And so this morning, if we’re honest with ourselves and we reflect on our perspective on Jesus, not all the time but more time than we like to admit or even recognize our perspective on God is quite small. And so if you can’t see it, I have a little Jesus with me, just a little one. And so in this, our perspective is quite small on Jesus, who is the invisible God who we will read about later. But see, when our perspective is small, what we like to do is kind of drop ’em in here like a little goldfish because in here our perspective is Jesus is quiet. And if he were to talk, you really couldn’t hear him because he’s muffled through all the water. But then we also start to think that he’s contained, he fits into this small thing that we could put up on our shelf.

And then also that he’s undemanding just like a goldfish. Like a goldfish doesn’t come and say, “Hey, let me go sit on your couch. Hey, let me get that piece of food. Hey, let me change your life.” And see, as I was listening to this book called: “Jesus, the God Who Knows Your Name,”  Max Cato says that this perspective, this goldfish perspective on Jesus is not the real Jesus at all. You see, he’s not attained predictable figure, but,

a powerful force that changes and transforms us from the inside out.

You see, he doesn’t fit on our shelf, but he reigns supreme shaking up our lives with wonder and hope that is the real perspective on Jesus. And so this morning, I want us to expand our perspective on Jesus because what comes to mind when we think about Jesus changes everything. It changes how we talk. It changes how we live our lives, how we treat our spouse, how we treat our neighbors. It treats how we parent our kids, how we come to worship, how we come to praise him, and how we go to prayer with him. It changes everything.

And so I hope as we talk about a perspective that it may grow as mine did when I was learning about these three truths about Jesus found in Colossians chapter one. And so if you have your Bible app, go ahead, go to Colossians chapter one. If you have your Bible. Amen. You got brownie points. So we’re going to go Colossians chapter one, verse 15, and this whole scripture that I’m going to be going through is about Jesus being supreme. But in here we see verse 15, this is the image of the invisible God talking about Jesus, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Right here we see that Jesus reigns over creation like he is the creator. He is the mastermind behind the universe and our galaxies and Genesis one, one, let’s read this together. What do we read? 

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Colossians 1:15

 He was before everything and he’s going to out laugh everything and he created the heavens and the earth. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been to heaven. But I imagine what he created up there is pretty awesome. It is something that we look forward to. Those who have been born again, we’re like, yes, we can’t wait to get to heaven. But here’s the thing. I do live here on earth and I do know, and I can see taste, feel, touch, smell what he’s created down here. And so if we go through what he has created, maybe you could smell the smell of coffee as you walked in and it smells great, right? Coffee’s brewing, it’s all free. It’s so good. Maybe you could smell the cleanliness of the building.

Shout out to the facility team. Yeah, let’s go. Maybe you could hear my voice right? I can hear myself talk, but God’s created this. He’s created all these things for us to have, and then he has also created us to see things on earth. We can see things that he has created. I can see you because you’re created in the image of God, right? I can see everyone and you guys can see me. And so in this, we see that Jesus, if you can’t see up close or far away, he also creates tools for us to use like a telescope. Jesus has created the person to create the telescope. Therefore, Jesus is the creator of the telescope. And with a telescope, we are able to have a glimpse of just really how we can’t contain Jesus, how really our perspective is quite small. And so what I want to do with you is these are pictures from the Hubble telescope and these are just pictures of things that Jesus has created. And so the first one is the bubble nebula, and no, not Nebula from guardians of the galaxy. The next one is the galactic center. So this is the Milky Way in which we live in like, come on, don’t you just see how small we really are? Next. They call this the pillars of creation as if they were there when Jesus spoke it into existence.

Next, it’s called taken under the wing. I don’t know who would name that because only Jesus knows the name. He’s the one that spoke it into existence. He knows the billion and trillions of stars that are added up for this. And this is where I think Jesus is just showing off. This is called the Swan. Jesus just showing off his abstract art. Isn’t that just incredible? All the things that he spoke into existence. And the funny thing is to me as I was preparing for this message and looking at these pictures is that NASA can’t even keep up with Jesus, can’t even keep up with how many galaxies that are out there. And the article I read, it says this:

 “One such estimate says there are between a hundred and 200 billion galaxies in our observable universe.”

 Just things that we can see that there might be a hundred to 200 billion galaxies. And as I continue to read on in the article, it even says this, there’s also an estimated because they can’t keep up 2 trillion galaxies that were missed in past studies. Incredible. There’s one last picture I want to show you, and this is the one that really caught my awe because this is called the whirlpool galaxy. And here’s some of the facts that Jesus created. This is how Jesus created this whirlpool galaxy. It has a mass 40 million times larger than the sun. And so if you can imagine a golf ball, well, it would take 53 trillion golf balls to be equivalent to its mass. I can’t even imagine a million golf balls that just seems overwhelming. So to go to a trillion is way, way, way up there. Then there’s also this galaxy is 31 million light years away. And if you didn’t know, I didn’t know one light year is about 6 trillion miles.

So do some math. It’s very, very far away. And the coolest thing to me is we know that this is created by Jesus because at the core, he does something special. And at the core, I want to save that to the end. I want to bring it up in the end. So remember this picture. Remember that we’re going to go back and we’re going to see what Jesus created at the core. You see, I can go all day bringing you different pictures of things I found just in the galaxy or I could bring up pictures of animals and all these different things that God has created. But really I think David sums us up pretty well. He says, Psalm 33:6-9 says:

“By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made Again, he just spoke their starry hosts by the breath of his mouth…”

Psalm 33:6-9

It’s as easy as breathing that He just creates things. And I love this:

“He gathers the waters of the sea and to jars…”

Psalm 33:7

I mean, he scoops up, takes all the water, puts ’em in jars, sort of like how we fill up our Stanley cups with water, with ease, super easy for God to do this. And then it says he puts the deep into the storehouse, which means after he scoops up all the waters and puts ’em in the jar, he places it wherever he wants. It’s not like they overwhelm him. It’s not like they are in control of him. No, he’s in control of it because he’s created it. And what I love is at the end and it says came to be all the stars, everything that he has created us, it came to be:

“…he commanded it and it stood firm.”

Stood firm. And Colossians verse 17, as we continue to read it says this commanding to stand firm actually means that he’s holding all things together because it says he’s before all things. And in him, all things hold together. And what we see is the second truth that Jesus sustains everything. He is the sustainer of life.

Remember all the pictures I have shown? He sustains all those. Not one of those go out of place. And in Hebrews one, three, it says:

“He’s the radiance, meaning he’s the reflection of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.”

Hebrews 1:3

And he upholds the universe by the word of his power easy, just like breathing. It is easy for him to hold all these things together. And the cool thing is whenever I was learning, I don’t know, we could share similarities, but whenever I was learning about the solar system in school, I thought it was really exciting. I was like, oh my gosh, I had no idea there was other planets outside of ours. I didn’t know there was other galaxies. I didn’t know there was all these different stars that are bigger than the sun. And what we would do is me and my buddies, we would gather together after we learn about the solar system and we’d start playing our role of God thinking of: “Hey, I wonder what would happen if the sun didn’t shine.”

I wonder what would happen if the ocean dried up. I wonder what would happen if the moon came crashing in to the earth? Anybody else have these? What if questions like in school, what’s going to happen? Yeah. And so the cool thing is now there’s actually a simulator that you could type in and you could see what happens if these things actually happen. And so what I did, I found this on YouTube and I was watching all these different videos and I got lost. I got to tell you, I spent probably an hour just scrolling through like, oh my gosh, this is insane. But in this, I just want to share some of the what ifs. What if the oceans were to dry up? Well, the earth would freeze. How does that even make sense? How is it that the water is keeping everything warm enough to not freeze, have no idea, but if the moon collided with the earth, everything would burn. Sounds pretty self-explanatory, right? I kind of suggested that or thought of that even when I was a kid, if the sun gave no light for a year and just seven months, it would freeze over and life wouldn’t exist seven months without the sun.

And I thought this one was pretty cool. I just had to share this one. I thought this was funny. If a needle hit North America at the speed of light, half of North America would be completely destroyed. Something as small as a needle could destroy half of the us. And the thing is, Jesus is holding all this stuff together with ease. And Isaiah, it says this. It says, have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God in the creator of the ends of earth, he does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. I don’t know about you, but sometimes whenever I have to put up a shelf or I’m holding something for someone to put into a wall, my arms get kind of tired, right? I’m up here and I’m just waiting for my dad or my brother just to be like, Hey, go ahead. Let’s drill this thing in. And I’m switching arms because it just gets so heavy. But Jesus doesn’t do, he just doesn’t grow weary or faint.

And sometimes we are, well, I’ll use I statements. Sometimes I’m at the time questioning Jesus, questioning Jesus like, hello, do you not hear my prayers? Do you not see what is going on in my life as if he is too busy or overwhelmed with all the things that he is holding together? And even though we can’t fathom or begin to understand really everything Jesus is holding together, we could see it and we can experience it. We can see his sustaining power and we can experience it for ourselves. One of the ways that I have seen it is in the Bible, in Exodus chapter 16, we’re going to read about Jesus sustaining power. But just two months before or two months after, the Israelites had been freed from Egypt, freed from slavery, they’re in the desert and they’re complaining. They’re just like: “Oh God, why? You should have just killed us back in Egypt. At least there we had food.” But he says they’re complaining and they’re saying: “Hey, you have brought us out and now into the desert where we’re going to starve to death, they’re complaining to God, you know what that looks like today?” It says: “Oh no, Lord, you delivered me. You blessed me like crazy. You have changed my life from the inside out and now I’m going to go do my own thing.Thank you, but I don’t need you anymore.”

That’s what it looks like today. And so we see in Exodus chapter 16 verse four, the Lord hears them. He hears my prayers, he hears your prayers, and he says:

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will rain down bread from heaven for you.'”

Exodus 16:4

The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. He says, guess what, Moses? Here’s what I’m going to do. He said: “I’m going to give bread out of my oven.” Something they’d never tasted, something they’d never seen. But guess what? It’s going to sustain them. And it didn’t sustain them just for one day, not just for one week, not for just one month or one year, but for 40 years, over 14,000 days, Jesus sustained them with this thing, this bread from heaven. Again, if I had to encourage you right now is don’t grow weary and walking with the Lord because he does not grow weary when he’s walking with you. And what we see is not only in Exodus six, chapter 16 that I see his sustaining power, but I also see it in some of you guys. See, I’ve been on staff since 2018, been coming since 2016, and I’ve seen a lot of people in here go through a lot, a lot, a lot of bad things.

And the crazy thing is when tragedy hits and someone loses a spouse, someone loses a sibling, God forbid a child, and we host the funeral here, I’m stuck in awe as how are they even even standing? How is it that they’re making it through? What’s because in Jesus is sustaining everything, he’s sustaining them. And we read in two Corinthians chapter 12, he says:

“My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in your weakness. And so I have seen this power sustain some of you who have gone through tragic things, but his grace is sufficient and he holds you through.”

2 Corinthians 12:9

He walks you through some of the deepest and darkest parts of your life. So not only have I seen it in scripture, but I’ve seen it in your guys’ life, and I’ve also experienced the sustaining power. I want to take you back to my eighth grade year. Crazy things were happening. And I remember I was praying before I went to school that day, and I was on the couch, knees bent, head bowed, and I was praying about my day. And all of a sudden my brother came up and he shoves me. And he says: “What are you doing? God’s not real. If he was, he wouldn’t allow this to happen to us. He doesn’t see us. He doesn’t care. How could you pray to him?” I mean, I was completely crushed because my brother was in a deep, dark place and his perspective was quite small on God of how he could sustain him through this thing that we were going through.

But fast forward five years again, my brother dropped out when he was a sophomore in high school and went on his wayward way and did all these crazy things. And fast forward five years, I go to church with him. And what I didn’t realize is before my brother left, he came in contact with this guy named Wesley. And Wesley was a child of God. Wesley was a son of the one true king. He had a great perspective on who Jesus was. And the next five years, Wesley talked with my brother, loved on him, connected with him, all these different things. And in that service, five years later, my older brother got baptized.

Oh, I just couldn’t imagine because his sustaining power was holding my brother, even when I couldn’t see it, even when it didn’t feel like it, his sustaining power was there holding my brother. You see, from the smallest situations in our life to the vast galaxies, he holds everything together. Speaking of galaxies, I want to bring up the whirlpool galaxy again, and this is going to help close our last truth about Jesus. And I told you that in here there is something special. It’s something Jesus created, and I know he created it because it has his signature on it. And so the Hubble telescope, as it was zooming in to the core of this galaxy, we see Jesus’s signature. We see this.

You see at the core of this galaxy, we see the cross. And this reveals to me that Jesus is the Lord of it all. He’s at the center of it all. He created everything. He sustains everything. And Jesus, he is the Lord over all. Colossians at the end, verse 18 says this, and he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn and among the dead. So that and everything, he might have supremacy. He’s supreme over it all. And I had trouble really figuring out how do I really wrap my mind around the supremacy of Jesus? Well, thankfully there’s a pastor that wrote this poem talking about King Jesus. Now it’s going to be long, but it’s going to be okay. You guys are willing to say amen and cheer me on and not just cheer me on, but cheer on who Jesus is. And now I’m just going to keep going. Does that sound good? 

So it says this:

The Bible says he’s the king of the Jews. He’s the king of Israel. He’s the king of righteousness. He’s the king of ages. He’s the king of heaven, and he’s the king of glory. He’s the king of kings and he is the Lord of lords. Now, that’s my king. David says, the heavens declare the glory of God and the heavens show his handiwork. No means a measure can define his limitless love. No far seeing telescope bring into visibility the coastline of his shortlist supply. No barriers can hinder him from pouring out his blessing. You see, he’s endure strong. He’s entirely sincere. He’s immortally grateful. He’s imper powerful. He’s impartially. Merciful. That’s my king.

Amen.

He’s God’s son. He’s the sinner savior. He’s the centerpiece of civilization. He stands alone in himself. He’s a gust. He’s unique. He’s unparalleled, he’s unprecedented. He’s supreme. He’s preeminent. He’s the loftiest idea and literature. He’s the highest personality and philosophy. He’s the supreme problem and higher criticism. He’s the fundamental doctrine and true theology. He’s the cardinal necessity of spiritual religion. That’s my king.

He’s the miracle of the age. He’s the superlative of everything good that you choose to call him. He’s the only one able to supply all of our needs simultaneously. He supplies strength for the weak. He’s available for the tempted and the tried. He sympathizes and he saves. He guards and he guides. He heals the sick. He cleanses the leopards. He forgives sinners. He discharges debtors. He delivers the captives. He defends the feeble. He blesses the young. He serves the unfortunate. He regards the age. He rewards the diligent and he beautifies the meek. Do you know him? You see, my king is the king of knowledge. He’s the wellspring of wisdom. He’s the doorway of deliverance. He’s the pathway of peace. He’s the roadway of righteousness. He’s the highway of holiness. He’s the gateway of glory. He’s the master of the mighty. He’s the captain of the concourse. He’s the head of heroes. He’s the leader of the legislators. He’s the overcomer of the overcomer. He’s the governor of the governors. He’s the prince of princes, and he’s the king of kings, and he’s the Lord of lords.

He says, that’s my king. That’s my king. My king. His office is meant a fold. His promise is sure his life is matchless. His goodness is limitless. His mercy is everlasting. His love never changes. His word is enough. His grace is sufficient, his reign is righteous. His yoke is easy, and his burden is light. I wish I could describe him to him, but he’s indescribable. He’s incomprehensible, he’s invincible. He’s irresistible. I mean, I’m trying to tell you the heavens of heavens cannot contain him, let alone a man. Explain him. You can’t get him out of your mind. You can’t get him off your hands. You can’t outlive him, and you can’t live without him. The Pharisees couldn’t stand him, but they found out that they couldn’t stop him. Pilate couldn’t find any fault in him. The witnesses couldn’t get their testimonies to agree, and Herod couldn’t kill him. Death couldn’t handle him, and the grave couldn’t hold him. That’s my king. You see, he always has been. He always will be. I’m talking about he had no predecessor. He will have no successor. There has nobody before him. There will be nobody after him. You can’t impeach him. And guess what? He’s not going to resign.

He says, that’s my king. That’s my king. Do you know him? And if I were to put that into what Jesus says about do you know him? Jesus says, are you born again on John three, three? It says, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again. And what is he saying? He’s saying, you want to be extracted from hell into heaven. You’ll be delivered from darkness into light. You want to be brought from death to life. You want a clean slate. You want all your sins forgiven, not just from the past, but for your present and the future. You want to be a child of God, you want to be a redeemed saint, then you must be born again. And Jesus says it’s possible for you to be born again today. It’s easy. We say around here, it’s as easy as the A, B, and Cs.

And so how do you be born again? Well, you admit that you’re a sinner. Admit that you have this sin issue that you cannot fix and hell know about you. But I know that there’s no pastor, no parent, no grandparent that could ever fix the sin issue. There’s no money that I can spend to gain enough knowledge to try to fix myself. Because at the end of the day, this spot that is empty in your life and in your heart, and what was mine in my heart is that Jesus is the only person that can fulfill that. And so we need to admit that we have the sin issue and we can’t fix it. And then the second thing is we must believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sin to fix this sin issue for us to be reconciled back to him.

And guess what? Here’s the cool thing. You don’t have to come in wearing your Sunday best. You come in just as you are. You don’t have to dust yourself off or clean up all your acts. Jesus wants you just how you are. And so we admit that we’re a sinner. We believe he died for our sins. And the second thing is we confess, or the third thing we confess, we confess our sins to him. God, here it is. Here’s all my junk. Here’s all my problems. Here’s all my brokenness right before you. I confess all of this to you. And then we confess him as our Lord and Savior so that he can redeem all of this stuff. And so today, the Lord wants to be the Lord of your life. He wants to remove guilt and shame and turn them into joy and peace. You see, he wants to wipe the slate clean. He wants your name written in heaven. He wants a relationship with you, not just here on earth, but then for eternity. And so will you bow your heads this morning? You see God created this moment. You see, he created this town, this city, this church, this state, the country, the earth, the universe. For this moment right here, I believe that there are people here that want to be born again, that want to have a clean slate, that want to have their name written in the book of Heaven. They want delivery from hell into heaven, from darkness, into light and from death to life and to be created new.

And in a moment, if that is you, I want you to raise your hand and I’m going to count. And the reason I count your hands is so that I can include you into the born Again prayer, but also because I just want to celebrate the decision you just made. And so right now, knowing that Jesus is the creator of all, he sustains everything and he is the Lord over everything. If you want to be born again, your name written down in heaven, to be transferred from hell to heaven, darkness to light, will you just raise your hand right now as I count 1, 2, 3, keep him up high. Yep, four, five. I see you six. Yes, Lord.

Now, will you raise your heads? And this is the born again prayer that we’re all going to read. And this is especially for you that just said yes to being born again, but for us who have been born again, this is a great reminder of really how great Jesus is. And so let’s read this together. It says:

Dear Lord Jesus, I believe you’re the son of God. I believe that on the cross, you took my sin, my shame, my guilt, and you died for it. You faced hell for me so I wouldn’t have to go. You rose from the dead to give me a place in heaven, a purpose on earth, and a relationship with your Father. Today, Lord Jesus, I turn from my sin to be born again. God is my Father. Jesus is my Savior. The Holy Spirit is my helper, and heaven is now my home. In Jesus’ name, amen. Can we get out for those?Yes. Yes. Well, my hope today is that maybe your perspective may have grown as we got to see and witness and feel that Jesus is the creator of all. He’s the sustainer of all, and he is the Lord of all. Let us pray. Father, I’m just so thankful, God, that you are so good that God, you are before creation and you spoke it into existence, and yet by your word, you’re still sustaining it. You’re sustaining me. You’re sustaining these people all these years we’ve been alive. Father, I just want to thank you for being the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. You always have been, and you always will be Lord of all in Jesus name. Amen.