The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 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. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 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. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 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. Colossians1: 15-20
I sometimes wonder if our faith is too small. We find a way of accommodating God in our lives and it all becomes rather safe, cosy even. Jesus was continually challenging those first disciples to see a bigger God, a bigger picture of reality and a bigger sense of what he was calling them to do and to be, and he is challenging us, 21st Century disciples in the same way.
We too need to grasp the vision that the whole of the creation matters to God. When we fall into a sacred-secular divide that hints that some things are more important than other things, we reduce God’s creation to less than he intended. And I think one of the reasons we may do that is because it makes life easier to deal with. It can give us permission to stop engaging with the difficult areas of life – Those areas where things are unresolved, difficult, threatening. It can allow us to believe that God is not involved there, so maybe we should not expect anything to change. If we are to live whole lives, we need to see that God’s mission is about all things –not just some things. God has a desire to transform all things, to put right all things which are wrong with the world. The cross and resurrection are the realities that enable us to see that Jesus created all things in the beginning; he holds all things as the ruler of the universe, and God will reconcile all things through Christ at the end of time. In the meantime, we live between the ages – part of the kingdom, part of God’s rule in the here and now, but longing for the kingdom to fully come. The point of the big picture laid out by Paul is that we can be reminded that all things matter to God – because the work of Jesus has changed things for everything and for everyone. There is nothing he didn’t create, nothing that he doesn’t hold together, nothing that will not be reconciled. So people’s workplaces come into this: it’s always easy to see that the work that involves people is worthwhile – teachers, doctors, nurses and so on, after all, God loves people. But there’s more: there is creativity and beauty – so the work of painters and decorators and chefs matter to God; there is order – so IT consultants and mechanics find that their work matters; there is the work that allow others to thrive – accountants and therapists. For those who are retired then, how you use your time matters to God, your hobbies and interests, your families and friends, all matter to God. Children at school, young people at college and university – all those places, all the relationships they involve, matter to God…. But for all of us there is a sense that for us to live with this big picture feeding our imagination, we need to offer our lives so that we live worthily of the calling – the calling that is embraced by the lordship of Jesus over every area of creation, the lordship that redeems, renews, recreates and reconciles. God wants us, his church, the Jesus Movement if you like, to be working with him in the world doing all these things. In short he wants us to be disciples, followers of Jesus, who live the whole of our lives for him. The following video makes this point pretty well......