By Pastor Ryan Stockstrom

Harvest Church

At our church, we are launching into a study of Paul’s letter to the Colossians—a short book with only four chapters, but with some really great and deep theology.

Paul’s central theme is this: Jesus reigns supreme. 

If that is true—and Paul argues that it is—then it changes everything.

Paul writes Colossians while in prison. He had never even visited the little church in the city of Colossae, a city in the Roman province of ancient Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) , but his friend Epaphras had. Epaphras had most likely traveled 120 miles to hear Paul preach in Ephesus, was transformed by the gospel, and carried it back home to share with his neighbors. From that one spark, a church was born.

That’s often how renewal begins—not through mass movements, but through one person encountering the living Christ and then carrying his flame to others.  

Paul begins his letter, as he so often does, with prayer. “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you” (Colossians 1:3). Imagine how encouraging it must have been for this small, young church to know that the great apostle was praying for them.

Never underestimate the power of someone lifting you up in prayer!  I remember the peace that came over us when our children were born premature.  We were young and ‘freaking out’ a little. In those moments, we could literally sense people praying for us through the peace it brought.   And Paul reminds us in Hebrews 7:25 that it’s not just people praying for us—Jesus himself intercedes on our behalf before the Father.

Faith, Hope, and Love

Paul commends the Colossians for three qualities: their faith in Christ, their love for all God’s people, and the hope laid up for them in heaven (1:4–5). These three virtues aren’t random. They are the bedrock of the Christian life.

Faith anchors us in Christ. Love flows outward to others. Hope keeps us looking forward when life gets hard. And Paul reminds them that the gospel is not static; it is “bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world” (1:6).

That’s what makes the gospel contagious—it changes lives and spreads. I think of a young person I know whose personal encounter with Christ transformed not just his heart but his entire family. Faith has a ripple effect. When you grasp the hope of heaven, it cannot help but overflow in love toward others.

Christ at the Center

The heartbeat of Colossians comes in verses 15–17, often called the “Christ Hymn.” Here Paul makes some of the boldest claims about Jesus found anywhere in the New Testament.

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created… all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Paul is not describing a wise teacher or a moral example. He is describing the eternal Christ, the visible image of the invisible God. If you want to know what God looks like, look at Jesus. If you want to know God’s heart, study his Son. Jesus reveals God in the flesh—fully human, fully divine, full of both grace and truth.

And it is by him and through him that “all things were created.” Everything we see—the galaxies above, the soil beneath, the invisible realities of spiritual powers—all of it originates in Christ. He is not a created being; he is the Creator himself.

That also means he holds authority over every lesser power. We often let false authorities dominate our lives: fear, success, politics, addictions, even good things like family or career. But Paul insists that Christ is supreme over them all. When we let him take his rightful place, everything else falls into order.

Holding It All Together

And then comes one of the most reassuring lines in all of Scripture: “In him all things hold together” (1:17).

Think about that. The same Christ who set the stars in place is the one holding the pieces of your life. When you feel like everything is falling apart, he has not let go. When the world seems unstable, he remains steady. When your own grip is weak, his grip does not fail.

That is more than theology; it is hope. It is the promise that even when we cannot see the full picture, Jesus is still holding it together.

What About Us?

Paul’s message forces a question: Is Jesus supreme in your life?

It is easy to affirm Christ’s supremacy in theory but harder to surrender every corner of our lives to him. We like to keep control of our money, our time, our relationships, our future. But if Paul is right, then those areas are not really secure until we place them in Christ’s hands.

To declare Jesus supreme is not to add him as one more priority on a crowded list. It is to make him the center from which everything else flows. Faith, hope, and love spring up when Christ is enthroned in our hearts.

A Call to Continue

Paul reminds the Colossians to continue in their faith, to remain “established and firm, not shifting from the hope of the gospel” (1:23). Faith is not a one-time decision but a lifelong posture.

That call is just as urgent today. We live in a world of shifting values and unstable foundations. But the gospel holds steady. The same Jesus who was supreme when Paul wrote from prison is still supreme today.

If Jesus truly is before all things, then he deserves to be before all things in your life. And if in him all things hold together, then he alone is the one who can hold you together too.