TEXT: Colossians 1:11-20TITLE: A Child of the King

Most of us have read "Dear Abby" at some time, right? I came across a list of some of the most bizarre letters she has received:

Dear Abby, I was married to Bill three months and I didn't know he drank until one night he came home sober.

Dear Abby, My 40-year-old son has been paying a psychiatrist $50 an hour every week for two-and-a-half years. He must be crazy.

Dear Abby, A couple of women moved in across the hall from me. One is a middle-aged gym teacher and the other is a social worker in her mid-twenties. These two women go everywhere together and I've never seen a man go into their apartment or come out. Do you think they could be Lebanese?

Dear Abby, Our son writes that he is taking judo. Why would a boy who was raised in a good Christian home turn against his own?

Dear Abby, I am a 23-year-old liberated woman who has been on the pill for two years. It's getting expensive and I think my boyfriend should share half the cost, but I don't know him well enough to discuss money with him.

I suppose we all need an authority to turn to from time to time. You grow up, you're an adult, you're on your own, you're your own boss, you control your own directions-0-yet you always miss that simpler time when you had somebody else to do your thinking for you. These people who write to Dear Abby obviously need someone to clarify their confusion. But who are YOUR authority figures? Whose rules rule YOU?

Our leaders have disappointed us. They don't seem to listen to us. You get the feeling they never have. One thing we discovered in our recent Jeremiah study is that we are just like the people of Jeremiah's day. Their shepherds had failed them. Their kings had been a royal nightmare--ruling arbitrarily, putting their own interests above the interests of their people, failing to protect them from invading foreign powers, getting them involved in international politics. They also failed to provide any spiritual leadership, and worshipped whatever gods gave them political advantage at any given moment. Mainly they worshipped their own power. And Jeremiah told them they would have to answer to God for that. But he also promised--and God promised--a king to come, who would live up to their hopes and ideals, one they could trust, one whom they would gladly obey.

This year we had national elections. So I suppose if you were asked who is in charge, you could point to those who were elected. I mean, we elected them to office, we the people gave them the power to do good, to lead, to decide. But then you have to consider, do the politicians really run the world?

Take, for instance, something like the economy. Has anyone ever seen the economy? Of course not. But it's real enough to dictate the lives of millions. As a force, as a power, the economy has thrown millions of people out of work. It has pushed thousands of businesses into bankruptcy. Walk along the street of any major city and in one doorway after another you will see young homeless people, begging, struggling. Yet if you ask one of our elected officials, who or what put them there, they will most likely tell you it was the economy--invisible, powerful forces beyond our control.

Can you sense the scope of all this? The economy, politics, the national mood, investor confidence, voter indifference--all these are forces beyond our control. And yet, Paul in this text today in verses 11 thru 14 is speaking directly about these powers, these forces beyond our control, forces that shape and push our lives, forces that can throw shadows of darkness over everything that is good and suck the life right out of us. But notice also Paul's response! Rather than responding with fear or apathy or even resignation, Paul responds with thanksgiving! A word of thanksgiving and gratitude for the gifts and presence of Jesus Christ who is the one who is really in control! Paul proclaims that it is Jesus Christ who rescued us from the forces and powers of darkness and all those places where we feel powerless as victims. It is Jesus Christ who has changed our spiritual location and transferred us, reassigned and relocated us to a new place, a new home, a new calling, to a different place in a different kingdom, because it is Jesus Christ who is really in charge! It is Jesus Christ who is in control!

Then in verses 15 thru 20 Paul goes on to speak about this new king who will bring order over the chains of darkness and death. This king is Jesus, the one who was not only the historical man whose life is told in the gospels, He is also much more. He is not only King, but He is the visible image of the invisible God. He is the beginning point of a new creation, a new, healthy life order which will replace the old. In verse 17 Paul proclaims that it is in this new King of creation that "all things hold together"; He is the glue that keeps the universe together, so to speak, so things do not fall apart.

Because if you think about it, God is the one who created this world, and God is determined to have the world, to rescue the world from the grip of the powers of darkness--whether those powers are called "the economy," or "the media," or "the political situation," or any other forces that strike close to home and shake up our spiritual lives.

And Paul says clearly that it is Jesus Christ who is the CENTER of life. Everything in this world was made BY Christ, THRU Christ, and FOR Christ. Which means, despite what you may read and what you may feel that tempt us to say no one is in charge, or that chaos and darkness reign, or that there are pockets of unredeemable evil--to ALL of this Paul says "No!" This is God's world and Jesus Christ reigns supreme. And even "the powers," "the economy," and "the media" are subject to Jesus Christ. He is a force to be reckoned with, the CENTER of Creation, and the ONE who is in charge!

And yet--if all of that is true, then it raises the question, so why then do we have problems with these powers at all? Why is there seemingly so little control? Maybe it is not a problem "out there," maybe it is a problem in here. For could it be that what has gone wrong with us is that we have strayed away from this spiritual center and forgotten just exactly who is in charge? Could it be that what is wrong with us is that we have given up our responsibility for God's world, and lost our spiritual integrity that show up in what we say and what we do?

Maybe we've forgotten our place in this Kingdom of God, and when we forget who is in charge and our responsibility to the one who has the REAL authority, then of course our lives will look out of control. Think about the chaos around us. For example when we refuse to use our bodies responsibly, we end up handing over our power to the forces of sensuality and selfishness. Or when we refuse to use God's gift of money responsibly, we are handing over our powers to Mammon and the forces of greed take control.

Paul says in this passage that Jesus Christ came into the world to do business with the powers around us, to live where we live, to confront those forces and to triumph. Jesus was the one who faced those powers and tamed them. Jesus was the one who defeated them so that He might rule, so that He might have back His whole creation and might give it back to us as He meant it to be.

And we know that, because it was on the cross that Christ defeated these powers and stripped them of their power. Now He seeks to reconcile them and us and to create a new world by the power of the love of God. That is why this morning's scripture is cast on such a celebrative tone--because in Jesus Christ these powers have been put in their place.

That's why Paul calls the Colossians to a new life. He calls them to live as citizens of a new kingdom. They can live freely, because the grip of the powers has been defeated. The decisive battle has been won. Sure, there is

still some work to be done, still some struggles with evil. But in Christ we know who has won the war, and who holds the final victory.

Every time we pray in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy Kingdom come," we are claiming more ground for Christ, moving toward that complete victory of Christ.

Every time you gather around your table and say grace at a meal, you are saying that Jesus is Lord, and that the world and all it offers are His.

Every time we celebrate Holy Communion, we celebrate the victory of Jesus Christ in a way which, by the power of its symbolic action, rings out the powerful message that God is Sovereign, that Jesus Christ is His visible image, and that God has defeated the powers of evil that still try to enslave and crush those around us.

I realize those are bold claims. And the truth is, that not everyone understands or even believes it.

Maybe that's why most of us do not make very many big moves these days--because even small moves tend to scare us. It's as if we feel we're under assault, surrounded and overwhelmed on all sides. So we say, "I'm doing the best I can under the circumstances," or someone says "How you doing?" and we reply "Well, I'm doing...."

And yet, I would still propose that to say out loud that Jesus is Lord, to affirm that Christ is the CENTER, to celebrate His reign--may be just the thing to lead us into a greater sense of spiritual security. CHRIST THE KING may be just what is needed to give us the confidence we need to live BOLDLY in this world.

Several years ago, I added to my library a book by Harold Hill. titled How to Live Like a King's Kid. The author was a recovered alcoholic, who had discovered an emptiness in his life that no one but Jesus Christ could fill. His message in the book wasn't complicated. The thing he kept coming back to was a matter of attitude: recognizing that we are children of the King, and then taking steps to remind ourselves of that fact, and letting that awareness filter into everything about us.

Let me share with you a favorite story of mine that puts the whole idea of being children of the King in a different perspective:

I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us

knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money.

By 1946 my older sisters were married and my brothers had left home. A month before Easter the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially.

When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. When we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1.

We made $20 on pot holders. That month was one of the best of our lives.Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.

The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change.We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before.

That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering.We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet.

But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt rich.When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20.As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes! Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back

with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills.Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have our Mom and Dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the spoon or the fork that night.

We had two knifes that we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor.That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed—I didn't even want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor!

I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew that we were poor. I decided that I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time. We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. We'd never known we were poor. We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way.

Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse. At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week.

Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering.When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church."

Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100."

We were the rich family in the church! Hadn't the missionary said so? From that day on I've never been poor again. I've always remembered how rich I am because I have Jesus!

Are you living like a child of the King this morning? Is Jesus your spiritual CENTER as He should be? Who's really in charge of your life?

Maybe this is the day to claim that center--to say out loud that Jesus is Lord of my life!

Step out----claim your inheritance----choose to live as a child of the KING----because that's exactly who you are in Christ.