It’s All About Jesus

Transcribed from the video and lightly edited for reading.

All right, good morning. A reading from the book of Colossians. Is there a response? No? Okay. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. And 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, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you wholly and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. The word of the Lord. All right, thanks, Ally. It is genuinely so good to be with you. I realize that I didn't share my name. Which, you know, isn't a big deal, but my name's Drew, and I'm the lead pastor here as we start out New City, and I'm so thrilled to be with you today and to open up God's word, and I love this passage.

It's honestly one of my favorite passages in all of the Bible, because it puts Jesus at the forefront. And as you get familiar with New City, we really have four essentials. One of those, and this is specifically what we're looking at today, is that we're anchored in the gospel. Secondly, that we are known by Christ and one another. That we're formed by grace, not performance, and that we are sent on mission out into the community. And so today we are looking at this this reality that I that I hold dear and I believe we hold dear as a church is that it's all about Jesus. And why does that matter so much? And that's a great question.

For those of you that might not know, I have a 7-year-old son named Silas, and Silas has gotten really into basically one thing specifically. He used to be really into rocks, and I loved that. And then he discovered technology. And he has gotten really into this game called Minecraft. Is anybody familiar with Minecraft? Okay. Here's the deal. It's this game that you can play on a phone or a computer or a tablet, and you can basically build things out of blocks, and you can create villages, and you can farm, and you can do all these fun things, and he's so creative, and he grabs onto it. And because he loves it, I decided I want to I want to get involved in this with him, but here's the problem.

I'm really not good at this. And it's showing how old I am, and I despise it. As I've started playing this with Silas on the weekends, he gave me a name, and I and I'll be honest, I didn't love it. He said, "Dad, you're such a noob." And I was like, "A noob?" He's like, "You're such a noob. You you don't know what you're doing." And he was right, 100%. But as I've played over the weeks, he's given me a little bit, maybe a better title. He says, "You're a good noob." And he's so he started calling me a goob. And I and I personally don't think goob sounds any better, but but apparently it is.

But yeah, we were building the other day, and and you can use these different blocks, and some of them are stronger than others, and some of them are weaker. And I was building with this block called sandstone, and he said, "Dad, what are you doing? You don't build with that. It can't hold anything up. Everything will fall." And because this is a game and it's not the real world, I look for opportunities to connect Silas back with the real world, and so I told him this story that I've told many times, and I found it years ago, and it's true that in ancient Rome, when an architect, when they would build a bridge, before they would put any weight or apply any weight to that bridge to make sure that the architect knew what they were doing and they put in all the time, they did everything right, they would often require that that architect go stand underneath the bridge as they applied the first amount of weight.

Talk about wanting to get your job right, right? And that's what they would do, and they would see if it could bear the weight or if it would start to buckle and fall in and crush. And here's why I share this. Because even as we sit here today on our very first preview service, every single one of us, myself included, has an overwhelming desire to place our hope in something that won't let us down. Would you agree with We do. And I love that you guys are responsive. Yeah, cuz New City Church is going to have some juice and some energy, so I love it. You're like, yes, okay, here we go. Settle down, but we do, we have this overwhelming desire to place our hope in something that won't let us down because each and every day we are placing our hope in And if I ask you today as we sit in here, what are you placing your hope?

And a lot of us would give that good Sunday school answer, right? It's the same answer that our kids in New City kids would give, right? Jesus. And that's a fantastic answer. In fact, that's the right answer. And that would probably be true for your salvation. But what about when your relationships don't work out? What about when you don't get the grade, the degree, the job? What about when kids wear you out? What about when you don't get the approval or acceptance that you desire from others, where your health fails, or where life just does not go the way that you expected it to go, or you're sitting here right now and you do not find yourself at the place that you thought you would be here in 2026?

When you can't seem to get past that that you feel trapped in? Where is your functional hope? Because if we're being honest here, we would have to say that functionally we have a tendency to place our hope and our identity in a lot of things that aren't Jesus. Things like appearance, wealth, success, career, religious performance, a cause, relationships, approval, possessions, hobby, pleasure, status, power, and and the list can go on, either what we do have, what we don't have, or what we are longing for. Or maybe even what culture tells us we should reach for. And here's a question, how do you know where you're placing your hope and identity? Well, what do you have the biggest fear of Often times, that is where we are functionally placing our hope and even our identity.

So, let me ask you this same question. This is really our big question for today. We don't necessarily have a big idea and I can't see the TV, so I'm not even sure why I'm looking at them. I'm just going to trust Laura Trillis in the back. Here it is. What do you place in your hope in? Very simple. And will it hold I find that this is a question I need to come back to time and time and time Not just one time, but really week in and week out. It's a good heart check. So, let me do this. Let me pray for us. And and here's what I want us to do before I pray.

Maybe you walked in with all kinds of things. Maybe you walked in with joy, which is fantastic. Maybe you walked in with excitement. Maybe the week's been amazing, but maybe it's been heavy, maybe it's been weighty, maybe you're anxious, maybe you're distracted, whatever it might be. Maybe it's just been busy. Maybe there's something that even pops into your head when you hear that word hope and identity. The reality is that for many of us, maybe we haven't had a moment of silence, cognitive silence, right? All And so what I want us to do before we pray is I just want to give us one full And I want us to just sit in silence and settle our hearts.

Not so much us settle our hearts, but ask God to settle our hearts. So that we might receive what he has for us, because I believe he has something for every single one of us. No matter where you are on the journey, whether you've been in the faith for decades, or whether you are investigating the faith and you're curious about it, you're new to the area and you're looking for a church home, you've been maybe out of church for a long time and you're back in, or somebody just invited you and so you showed up. But I believe God meets us right there. So right now, let's just take a minute. Let's breathe. Let's allow God to settle our hearts.

God, we thank you that you meet us exactly where we are. Not a cleaned-up version, not a perfected version. You want to meet with the real us. All of our flaws, all of our failures, all of our anxieties, our fears. And so God, I pray that for the next few moments and as we open up your word and as we look at what you have to say through the Apostle Paul, that you would speak to us, directly to us. That it would go beyond just head knowledge, but it would trickle down into our hearts. And it would actually affect the way that we live tomorrow, Monday. And the days after. Jesus, thank you for your goodness.

It's only by your grace that we're even here in this place. Worshipping you. And so Holy Spirit, would you lead us and make much of Jesus for our good. Ultimately God, for your glory. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, we're going to start as you heard from Ally, we're going to be in Colossians 1. And we are going to start in verse 15 here. And before we do this, let me just give you a just some very brief background of what's going on cuz it's important to have this context. Paul, the Apostle, he's writing to a very young church in Colossae. We're a very young church. Interesting. False teaching had crept in to this church.

And there were a lot of different ideas being passed around and people were starting to add things to Jesus. So kind of like Jesus plus. Yes, Jesus is great, but maybe we also need this or maybe I also need that. I've got Jesus, but I'd better do these things too. So maybe some of the old laws, right? And so they're adding things and Paul hears about this. It was a hope and it was also an identity problem and 2,000 years later, it's really still ours. We can also add things, and so Paul answers Paul's answer for them is the same answer that's really for us. This comes directly into our world today. And not to oversimplify, but what he cuts through to get at so that we can't miss it is he really just says this through these verses that it is all about Jesus, In a world where so much emphasis is put on me, that it's all about me, it's about what I want, it's about what I can get, it's about how I can get ahead, it's about how I can have comfort and convenience and all of these things, Paul says something that's so completely but if we understand it correctly, is completely freeing at the same time.

And so here's what he says. He says he, meaning Jesus, is the image of the invisible God, verse 15, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And so Paul starts with Jesus' credentials because if you're going to ask people to trust and put their whole trust in someone, you'd better show them who he is. And what Paul says is that he's the invisible God that's actually been made visible. He came, he put on flesh, he came to live with us. He left heaven and came down to earth.

He's the firstborn, which is Paul's word meant to which in Paul's world meant the place of and really full rights over the He says that Jesus fully God and fully man and he is first over everything. Imagine this, that before the ocean roared and before humanity breathed its first breath, he was there. Paul is making this expansive statement that everything you see, Paul is saying, he made. Everything you can touch, everything that you smell, your senses take in, Every breath he gives, millions of galaxies light-years away, he created all of it. He says, "Thrones, dominions, rulers, every one of them is under him." Which means that we can love our country, but we shouldn't worship our country.

It means that we can have different but we should never worship a certain party. We can watch unrest in the world, but we never have to fear to the point of Paul wants to encourage us that even when things don't look peaceful, even when things look out of control or and broken, that Jesus is over all of it. See, we'll constantly live in fear if our hope is in other rulers, if it's in the stock market, our boss, government, what have But Paul wants us to know it doesn't have to be that way for us who have a relationship with Jesus. None of them gets the final word. And that's good news. And then he goes on in verse 17, and he says, "And he is before all things, and in him," this amazing little phrase here, "in him all things hold together."

I love this quote. It's by Abraham Kuyper. It says this, "There's not a square inch on planet Earth where Jesus Christ doesn't say, 'Mine.'" Imagine like a little baby. You know that this is Man, when Silas was really young, it's like, "Oh, that's mine." It's like, "No, that that's that's there." "No, it's mine." Well, Jesus can actually say that. Every square inch. And you want to know what I love so much about this statement and what I hope encourages you so much this morning is that you and I are part of the all. We're part of it. In God's common grace, he holds everything together. And in his salvific grace, he not only holds you together now, but he promises to hold you together for no matter what.

And then here's where Paul makes it That if Jesus holds all things together, what this means is that I don't have to. We're supposed to be freed up, but but most of us still try, don't we? I do. I need to be the one in control. I have to hold things together. I have to hold things together for me. I have to hold things together for them. I have to hold things together for us. And look, here's the reality. At best, it leaves us exhausted. Can anybody agree with that? It's like, my goodness. But at worst, it's absolutely Some of you, maybe you're living or you feel like you're living under this tension right now, and I'm I'm right there with you.

In fact, I feel like I teeter back and forth between trust and fear. Even in planning a new church, my goodness, you should see me on a I feel like I teeter back and forth. God, I trust you. Or God, I kind of want control over this. I'm kind of not sure about this. And yet this promise is he's holding everything together. And so, hear me here. I can relate with this, and God knows, and yet he still remains even when that voice in your head keeps trying to convince you that you need to do more, be more, have more in order to find any sense of peace. And so, hear this, you were never meant to hold it all together.

He is holding you, too. You matter that much to him. And Paul keeps going and he says that he, Jesus, he's also the head of the body, the church. He's the beginning, he's the firstborn from the dead that in he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross. We can't miss this here. The The whole Old Testament has been leaning forward and it's been waiting for Jesus. Adam was put in a garden and he lost everything and yet Jesus walked into a garden called Gethsemane and said, "Not my will, but yours."

And won it all back. Abraham climbed up on a mountain willing to give up his son and yet God provided a ram. On another hill outside of Jerusalem, God didn't spare his own Moses led God's people out of slavery in Egypt, but he never got to walk them into the promised land and yet Jesus leads us out of slavery to sin and walks us all the way home. David was a shepherd who took down a great giant, but he could never defeat the giant of his own heart and yet Jesus is the good shepherd who faced down sin and death and walked out of the grave. And so, every sacrifice, every priest, every prophet who said, "Thus says the Lord."

Every king who has ever sat on Israel's throne was a sketch of someone who was still coming. And Jesus was the one that they were all drawing. He is the king over every throne and that's why it was always about Jesus who is coming. And it still is. He's the head of the body, the church. I love reading that on a day like today. Right? And this is good news. But for this church had a building, they were incredibly grateful to be meeting in, a budget, or a single tradition, it already had a head. And it's not me. Right? And trust me, that is good news for all of you. This week I spent 20 minutes on the phone with Staples just trying to figure out how to upload a PDF the right way.

You do not want me being the head. Jesus is Here this, he's the true senior pastor. We can lead and we can serve, but ultimately we follow. And we come under his authority. So I'm grateful that he is the head of New City. Do you know this? Jesus is more invested in this church than I will ever be and any of us will ever be. And that should comfort us. And Jesus is more invested in your life than even you will ever be. And Jesus is more invested in your and he's more invested in your family, and in your neighborhood, and in your job, and in all of it, than you will ever be. Because in his authority is goodness.

And so we place our hope in him. But as we look at this, let's get real for a minute. Honest, if Jesus is really this good, as we hear here, it's like, "Amen." And he's this strong, then why do we tend to keep putting our trust in other things? Why do we have the tendency to walk out of here and by Tuesday we start grabbing on to other things? Well, I think it's because deep down deep down we're not really sure that he's really that good. He might be good for them, but is he for Is he really going to care for me? Because Drew, if you knew me I just I'm not sure. And it's a lie that was born in Eden, right?

If we go all the way back to the beginning, the serpent came to Eve with a question, "Did God really say?" And then a promise, "You won't die. You'll be like God." And underneath it all was one quiet or suggestion, "God is holding out on you." And it's continued all the way to today. And we've been believing some version of that, so we tend to settle and we take good things and we make them into God things. And when God doesn't give us maybe what we want or we think we need, we go looking for another God who will. But look at verse 19. It says, "All the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Jesus."

God isn't holding out on us. He came down and he's the king who left his throne to come and get you and not by obligation, but out of love. He was pleased to dwell. And through him, verse 20 says, "God is reconciling all things, making peace by the blood of the cross." That's really the heartbeat of New City Church. Why are we named New City Church? Because we believe that God is making all things new, including us. No matter your background, no matter how many scars you have, no matter your story, he is able to make people like the Apostle Paul who murdered Christians into one of the greatest missionaries, if not the greatest missionary, to ever live.

And it wasn't because Paul deserved it. It wasn't because Paul did something fantastic. It's because God came and found him, blinded him, chose him, reconciled him, and sent him. And so we believe that God can take the Pauls and he can take the Marys, and he can take the lame and the beggars and the broken and the outcast and the fringe and the ordinary people like us, and he places he can make us new, and then he can send us out to take this good news and this message as he is reconciling all things to himself and making all things new that one day we will be united as a much bigger church and a much bigger family than just New City and the new heavens and new earth, and we are looking forward to that day with our eyes lifted to Jesus, the one who's in authority.

And so this is the two preachers. It's my goodness. But I love this so much. I mean, there have been days and seasons and years where this is my faith is clung by a And yet I felt like when Jesus says, "Do you want to leave? Do you want to go?" And he just says, "God, where where else would we go? Jesus, you're the one who I believe holds the words of eternal life." But man I love this that there will be a day with no more war, no more sickness, no more abuse, no more broken dreams, no more hate. And Paul is slowly lifting our eyes to And then he makes it even more personal and he says, "And you It's like, "Whoa, me?"

Yes, you who were once alienated by and hostile in the mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard." I love this. Alienated and hostile. Man, that is a hard word, and some of you have heard hard words about yourself maybe your whole life from a parent, from someone who did not encourage you that you were lovable or loved, but instead dismissed that and told you other things about yourself. Paul isn't trying to shame anyone here.

He's telling the truth about where we all started so we can see how far grace was willing to go to get us. You remember that architect? You remember that bridge at the beginning? That's us. Every one of us. We built our lives on whatever we thought would hold. Our goodness, our reputation, our marriage, our career, anything and everything, our ability to keep it all together. And we built our lives in sin and we stood underneath it and the weight came. The weight of ultimately our sin and our waywardness and our rebellion, our regret, our shame, the things that we've done and the things that were done to us and somewhere above us we heard the stones begin to crack.

And here's the deal. You could be the kindest, most generous person who has ever lived and on your own it still would not hold that I couldn't hold it. You couldn't hold it. Nobody could hold it. And right as the bridge is coming down, ready to crush us, the architects of our own life and our own sin and our own brokenness, Jesus steps in. Jesus steps in and while we were still running from him, he came and found us completely. And he moves us out of the way and he stands in our place and the whole weight came crashing down on him. Every lie, every betrayal, every addiction, every secret that you've never said out loud, he was crushed so that you wouldn't be.

But the grave, and this is the good news, right? This is why we're here this morning. This is why we're a gospel-centered, Jesus-believing, it's all about Jesus church, even at a preview service. The grave could not hold him. Three days later he walked out of that tomb and he rebuilt the bridge and this time he made himself the foundation. A foundation that could take anything that you put on it. Your past, your doubts, your fears, your divorce, your diagnosis, your grief, your pride, your restlessness, your worst day, and he turned to the very people who were once his enemies and said, "Come. Come stand under this one with me. Come and rest here. This bridge will hold."

And maybe you're thinking, "Drew, you don't know what I've done. You don't know everything about me." And you're right, I don't, but Jesus does. He knows you, the real you, the 2:00 a.m. Version that nobody else sees, and this is exactly who he came for, not some cleaned-up version. You don't have to clean yourself up to come under and stand under his grace and protection because nobody under it got here clean. And maybe you've walked with Jesus for 40 years. You could teach this passage. Friend, this bridge is just is still holding for you. The grace that saved you is the grace that sustains you today. You never graduate from the gospel. You've been standing under it the whole time, and it hasn't shifted an inch.

This is the beauty of the gospel. It's not about behavior modification. You do not need five steps to a better life. You need Jesus to hold you together, to restore you, and to remind you of your truest identity in him. That's what we need. It says, "Holy and blameless above reproach." And I know that blows our mind cuz I'm like, "I'm not holy, and I'm not blameless." But can I just tell you that's how you stand before God right now? That as the Father looks at you, he doesn't see a sinner, even though we He sees a saint because of Jesus. That you are fully clothed in his righteousness. And that's why we cling to this hope.

That you're clean and that you're safe. And that doesn't change on your worst day, and it doesn't make you more lovable on your best. And so, let me just make this clear. I know it's a preview service, but I never want to pass this by because I believe Jesus can do anything at any time through the power of the Holy Spirit. And so, if you never put your faith in or you've wandered so far that you're not still sure he'd still have you, he will. And he's inviting you to bring all of your stuff, all of your worst, so he can give you his best. And you don't need perfect words for it. You can simply tell him something like this.

Jesus, I've been trusting things that can't hold me. I want to trust you. Would you forgive me of all of my sin and brokenness, and would you make me new? And Jesus promises that he will. And if that's where you are today, and if you share this with him, and you share this prayer, would you come find me after cuz we want to celebrate with you. There's nothing more exciting than new life in Jesus. And for all of us, for the rest of us, for those who have a relationship with Jesus, this is what verse 23 means when it says that if you continue in the faith stable and steadfast, we keep coming back to this bridge of grace.

That's what Paul's saying. That in good seasons and hard ones, even when faith feels like it's hanging by a thread, we trust that God's grace is At times we'll wander, but because we are secure in Christ, we he will never wander from us. And honestly, a church full of people who stay steady and hopeful through hard things might be one of the most convincing things this city ever sees. And so, what about Monday? I like to ask this. Why does this matter How does this matter tomorrow? Because I don't want this to be a simply a nice thought that's gone by the time that you hit that red light on 17, right? And somebody cuts you off.

So, let me give you three things that I would just encourage you with, very First, notice the pressure. Notice the pressure. Monday's going to test what you're That email at 8:45, the kid who melts down before school, hopefully not mine. The number on the scale or the bank account. And here's the deal, pay Because where you feel the pressure most is usually the bridge that you've been standing under. And ask yourself, "What am I trusting to hold me right And with that, secondly, tell Jesus the truth. I love this. He invites us to tell him the truth. We don't have to hide anything. He already knows our heart. It can be as simple as, "Jesus, I've been trusting this to hold me, and it can't.

But I know you can. Would you remind me of that?" Coming back to him again and again and again is what continuing in the faith looks like on an ordinary Tuesday, right? Verse 17 somewhere that you'll see it every morning. In him, all things hold together. A great reminder. And third, don't stand there alone. Don't stand there alone. That's why we're planting New City Church. And ultimately, it has more to do with just a We're not planting a service, we're planting a church, which means community. And so, we're building out city groups, and we're building out table groups, which are Bible studies. And we're going to build out a thing called The Commons for young adults and college students, but a place that you can connect and truly be known, where people are in your corner reminding you of this grace of Jesus and that he's in control.

New City at the very end of the Bible, John sees a new city coming down from heaven and the one on the throne says, "Behold, I'm making all things new." And that's, as I said, where our name comes from and it's fitting that today is this preview Sunday because that's what a church is. Can I tell you that? That's what a church really is. It's a preview. It's a taste. It's a small imperfect preview of that city full of people who have made been made new by Jesus and are waiting for him to finish making everything else new. And then on that day we party and we rejoice, but even as we look toward that with heaven in our sights, we take hope.

Not in ourselves, not in anyone or anything else, but in Jesus. The one who stands firm. The one who overcame the grave. The one who loves you enough to give his very life for you. And so New City, let's be a people who put our full trust in him and take this good news, I really mean this, out to Mount Pleasant, to Charleston, to Awendaw, to James Island, to Johns Island. Am I right, Dave? There we go. North, south, east, and west. Seriously, if you're in this room, you're invited on this mission. Maybe this isn't what you planned. You're like, "I'm only going to come there for one Sunday. I just want to encourage my friends."

Maybe God's saying, "Actually, I want you to come every Sunday." I don't know, but maybe he is. Here's the thing, it's not just about our church. It's about every church in our area that is proclaiming the gospel and pointing people toward Amen and amen. But we want to get this mission out. I'm a firm believer in this that there is no greater investment you can make than in the gospel because the only thing that has the power to bring the dead back to life. And so would you join us and and I'm so excited for this to see what God can do in a cafeteria on a Sunday morning, in a neighborhood on Monday, in our city groups on Tuesday, in our schools and offices on Wednesday, and every other day after where we go out with a singular message of hope, one name and one mission, Jesus.

And so, as we wrap this up, let me just ask you one more time, where are you placing your hope? And will it hold up? If it's Jesus, the answer is always God, we thank you for who you are. Jesus, we thank you for the gift of your life, your death, your resurrection, and the grace that you offer us. May you make us more like yourself day in and day out. We praise you. We love you. We look to you. Would you lead us forward as a new Would we not place our hope in other things, but would we remain steady in you? And when we wander and when we fall, would you pick us back up and remind us of the goodness of your For our good, for your glory, and for the good of this city, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.