Seeing And Savoring The Supremacy Of Jesus Christ

A small, manageable Jesus won’t survive contact with real life. We go after a bigger vision: Christ as fully divine, eternal with no beginning, unchanging in character, and unrivaled in knowledge and wisdom. He doesn’t merely influence the universe, he upholds it by the word of his power. That means his supremacy reaches from galaxies to molecules, from storms and sickness to governments, elections, and the headlines that make you ask, “Where is God?”

We also refuse to dodge the sharper edges of the Bible’s portrait. Jesus is pure and trustworthy, patient and tender, but he is also just and holy, with real wrath against evil and real authority to judge. If you’ve ever wondered how Christians can speak about hope while facing atrocities, suffering, or a world that feels out of control, we connect the dots between Christ’s sovereign rule and the promise that injustice will not get the last word.

Then we get painfully honest about what blocks us from enjoying this Christ. The deepest obstacle isn’t distraction alone; it’s our guilt before a holy God. The good news lands with force: Jesus becomes a curse for us, absorbs wrath, and provides the righteousness we could never produce. And that leads to the surprising climax for anyone searching for “what is the gospel” or “why Jesus matters”: the best gift isn’t only forgiveness or even eternal life. The best gift is seeing and savoring Jesus himself.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:54

The supremacy of Christ. The supremacy of his deity.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Equal with God, the Father, and all of his attributes, the radiance of his glory, and the exact image of his nature. The supremacy of his eternality that makes the mind want to explode with the imponderable thought that Jesus Christ never had a beginning. He is simply there. Absolute reality with which we reckon must rise to the supremacy of his eternality. While all the universe, including this building and your body and this earth and all the galaxies, are fragile, contingent, like a shadow in comparison to the substance of Jesus Christ. We must know the supremacy of his never-changing constancy. Oh, to have virtues that never change, a character whose commitment is constant. Yesterday, today, and forever. Let us know the supremacy of his constancy. And let us know the supremacy of his knowledge that makes the Library of Congress look like a matchbox and makes all the information on the internet look like a 1940s armor's almanac and makes all of quantum physics and everything that Stephen Hawking has ever dreamed look like a first-grade reader. We must know the supremacy of the knowledge of our Lord. We must know the supremacy of his wisdom that has never been perplexed by any problem whatsoever, nor can he be counseled by any person or any being in the universe. We must know the supremacy of his authority. All authority is mine in heaven and on earth and under the earth. No change. All authority, changing times and seasons, removing kings, setting up kings, doing according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can stay his hand or say to him, What have you done? We must know the supremacy of his providence, without which not a single bird in the extended reaches of the Amazon forest has ever fallen off of any limb, and without which not one hair turns white or black. We must know the providence of Jesus. We must know the supremacy of his word, which upholds the universe by the word of his power, all the galaxies, molecules, atoms, and subatomic reality nobody has yet dreamed of down there where no one has yet looked. We must know the supremacy of his power to walk on water and cleanse lepers and heal the lame and open the eyes of the blind and open the ears of the deaf and cause storms to cease and with two words to raise the dead. Lazarus, come forth, or one word to raise the dead. In your blood I said to you, live. We must know the supremacy of his purity. He never sinned, he never sinned, he never had one millisecond of a bad attitude or a sinful lust. We must know the supremacy of his trustworthiness. He never breaks a promise, he always keeps his word absolutely without fail. We must know the supremacy of his justice. He will render all accounts settled in the end in the universe, either on the cross or in hell, no injustice will remain. When Christ is finished with his supreme justice, we must know the supremacy of his patience. He has endured you and me for decades. He has endured this city and brings the sun. Can you imagine why the sun rose on this city this morning? This wicked city, this world so full of host type sinners, and he makes paradise rise in the sky in Minneapolis. What kind of patience are we dealing with here? We must know the supremacy of his servant-like sovereign obedience, kept every one of his father's commands absolutely and in the end embraced the cross with total willingness. We must know the supremacy of his meekness and loneliness and tenderness. He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering flax. We must know the supremacy of his wrath. One day it will explode on this world from heaven, such that all who have rejected him will call for rocks to crush their brain, lest they have to face the wrath of the Lamb. We must know this when I look at the beheadings. And I hear someone ask, where is your supreme Christ? My answer is really easy. He is in heaven, storing up almighty wrath in fury to pour out on all those who commit such sins. That's where he is. And you better get right with him and repent, or you will all likewise perish. It's not a hard question to answer biblically. We must know the supremacy of his grace, which gives to the spiritually dead rebels like us. Life awakens faith in hell-bound haters of God, justifies the ungodly with his own righteousness. We must know the supremacy of his love, which dies for us while we are yet sinners, and gives to the absolutely undeserving the ability for ever-increasing joy in making much of him. And we must know the supremacy of his gladness. In the fellowship of the Trinity, infinite power, infinite energy, infinite joy rising, spilling over in the creation of a universe and becoming for you one day an inheritance for every struggling saint. We must know this is what we were made for. Press on to know the Lord. We are made to know Christ. We're not made to do little diddly things. We're made to know this massive Christ, this world, this little two-second slice, and then with him or not. Forever is what we are created to know and do and be.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

And when we know him in this place, we have begun to know the outskirts of his supremacy.

Christ Rules Over Everything

SPEAKER_02 9:03

For a time we fail to speak of his supreme severity and invincibility and dignity and simplicity and complexity and resoluteness and calmness and depth and courage. If there's anything admirable, if there is anything worthy of praise in all the universe, it is summed up in Jesus Christ. He is always infinitely admirable in everything and over everything supreme. Over all galaxies and endless reaches of space, over the earth, from the top of Mount Everest, 29,000 feet up to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, 36,000 feet down in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Rim. He is sovereign and supreme over all plants and animals, from the peaceful blue whale to the microscopic killer viruses. He is supreme over all weather and all movements of the earth. Hurricanes, tornadoes, monsoons, earthquakes, avalanches, floods, snow, rain, speak. He is free over all chemical processes that heal or destroy cancer, AIDS, malaria, flu, and all the amazing grace of antibiotics and a thousand healing drugs that we do not deserve. He is supreme over all countries and governments and armies. He is supreme over al-Qaeda and the terrorists and the kidnapping and the suicide coming and the beheading. He is supreme over Immediately and Alzheimer's. He is supreme over all nuclear threat of Iran and over Korea. He is supreme over politics and elections and debate and birthday. He's supreme over media and news and payment and sport and leisure. He's supreme over all education and universities, no matter what they teach. And he's supreme over all scholarship and science and research. He's supreme over all business and finance and industry and manufacturing and transportation. And he's supreme over the internet and all informational systems. As Abraham Kuiper famously said, there is not one square inch on planet Earth over which the risen Christ does not say I and I rule it. I am supreme all. And though it may not seem to you as though he holds such supreme rule now. Until he comes with the glory of his father and all his angels in flaming fire, giving relief to those who trust him and absolutely destroying to the uttermost in everlasting conscious torment those who have rejected him, saying, Where is your God?

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Oh help us, Lord.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Oh, help us see and savor the supremacy of your Son. Give yourself to this. My plea. Give yourself to this. Let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord. Pray that God would show you these things in His Word. Swim in the Bible every day. Give it a little touch as you head off to do what you really like to do. Swim in the Bible every day. It is an ocean of bright, glorious, weighty, all-satisfying truth about the one for whom you were made. Give yourself to being what God created you to be. You have a brain, you have a heart, you have emotions, he wants all of it, and when he shines, blazing at the center, this little planet is just going to go away as the motion of God.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Okay.

The Obstacle Is Divine Wrath

SPEAKER_02 14:06

And we don't know him like we ought, and we don't trust him like we ought, and we don't treasure him the way he deserves to be treasured. So what stands in the way? What's the main obstacle to knowing Christ's supremacy? The biblical answer to that is clear. The main obstacle to knowing Christ's supremacy is the absolutely just and holy wrath of God. We can't know God in our sin because the wrath of God rests on us in our sin. What we deserve from God is not knowledge of God, but judgment of God. And since we're cut off from the knowledge of God and the wrath in the wrath of God, we're cut off from purity, we're cut off from holiness. All the planets are out of order, no matter how secure and successful you feel.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

God doesn't owe us purity, he owes us punishment. Therefore, we are hopelessly depraved and condemned except for one thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

As it is written, cursing is everyone hangs for God hates us right.

Christ Becomes The Curse For Us

The Best Gift Is Jesus Himself

SPEAKER_02 16:45

The gospel is that Jesus Christ came into the world and bore the wrath of God, the curse. Galatians 3, 13, one of the most precious verses in the Bible. It became a curse for us. And he performed a righteousness for us, perfect which we never could perform, which is now by faith alone imputed to you. So that you may be united to this perfect Christ, him bearing all the curse, him providing all the perfection, and know paradises. I could begin to grow in knowing him. I could actually begin to enjoy him. He's not against me anymore. In fact, the wrath of God has been so totally absorbed by Jesus, and the perfection that I must produce has been so totally produced and provided by Jesus that now only one thing governs God's attitude to me, and that is mercy. All that I experience, all my pain and all my pleasures are mercy, mercy, mercy, everything working together for my good. And therefore, paradise is open to me, and I can begin to see him, know him, study him, enjoy him, grow in him, and find the satisfaction in my soul that he was meant to be. The best gift of the gospel is not the forgiveness of sins. The best gift of the gospel is not the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. The best gift of the gospel is not eternal life. The best gift of the gospel is seeing and savoring the supremacy of Jesus Himself. That's the best gift of the gospel. We had no access to that joy until we took the taste.