Have you ever thought about how somebody might introduce you?

As a kid, I used to hear my introduction loud and clear in my head…and it always came with reverberation and echo: “Now batting (batting…batting…batting); the third baseman (baseman…baseman…baseman…); number four (four…four…four)….”

Come on, you’ve got a fantasy like that too, don’t you?

But seriously, how do you introduce yourself to somebody? How do you communicate who you are, in just a few words?

Let me ask you: when you introduce yourself to someone or to a group, what’s the first thing you say to identify yourself, after your name? [ASK]

We list what we do.

We list our relationships. We talk about the things that are important to us.

The signature I use on every e-mail has been the same for years: “Gregg Koskela, Elaine’s husband, Natalie, Hayley and Aubrey’s Dad, Senior Pastor, Newberg Friends Church.”

Those are the relationships important to me, that sort of define me. My job, especially in America, sort of defines me as well. But it’s not all of me. How in the world would I capture all of me in a few words?

We sang, “I believe in Jesus” a few moments ago.

If you’ve never been here before, that might have been your introduction to someone very important to our life together at Newberg Friends. Jesus is our reason for existing as a church, the center of who we are.

But if it’s hard to capture me and my life in a few words, how much harder is it to capture Jesus?

Today, we want to look at who Jesus is. We won’t capture everything, not even close. Through discussion and looking at the bible, we want to build a firm foundation for who Jesus is, clearing away misconceptions, and stretching our neat and tidy boundaries and definitions.

What would you say is important about who Jesus is? Throw out a word or two that helps us begin to define who Jesus is. What’s important to know, how would you introduce Jesus? [ASK]

Ian Lamm, one of our high schoolers, and Josh Reid, our youth pastor, asked several people “on the street” their impressions of Jesus.

They videoed the responses, and edited them together for us this morning. Who is Jesus? Listen to who people say he is; then, listen to words from Paul’s letters to the Colossians, words from the bible, words that we believe are God’s words to us. [SHOW VIDEO; SCRIPTURE READING 1: 15-20]

In all of the bible, this is one of the most profound and amazing set of words about who Jesus is.

It’s poetry from the life of the very early church… because capturing Jesus is more than facts, more than lists, more than resumes.

Whether Paul wrote this himself or was writing down something that those early followers of Jesus used in worship, these words will stretch anyone’s view of Jesus. Anyone! It stretches those who don’t really know much about Jesus, and it stretches those who have forgotten more than I will ever know about the bible and about God.

Look and listen to these words, beginning in verse 15: “He is the image of the invisible God.” Jesus is the way for us to concretely see, to accurately understand, who God is and what God is like. Jesus is God’s way to best introduce himself to us.

God’s introduction to us is more than words, more than doctrine to be believed or rejected.

God put on a body and entered time and space, and that’s Jesus.

Paul doesn’t say it here in this letter, but I’m confident he would point the Colossians and us to the life of Jesus, to Jesus’ story, to his living and breathing and laughing and eating and playing and grieving, and say, “THIS is who God is and what God is like!”

Jesus is the image of the invisible God! The reason it’s important for us to get an accurate picture of Jesus is that Jesus is how we get an actual picture of God.

I wish we could have done even better than the video, and actually brought the people we saw here with us today. Wouldn’t it be great to hear more of their impressions of Jesus, and hear where those impressions come from?

Not so that we could argue with them. Not so we could convince them. So that we could do what God did in Jesus. God didn’t drop the bible out of the sky on us; he became like us, lived among us, walked around with us, listened, ate, laughed, and cried with us!

Our call is to do the same: to go live, and walk among those who say as that one woman said, “he’s just a story that’s been added to over time.” We’re not called to drop the bible or glib answers on her. Our call is to walk, listen, eat, laugh, cry, with her and others like her! But back to Colossians…

Paul was saying shocking things to the people he was writing to.

Jesus is the image of God; he created everything. Anything with power and authority that you can think of, Jesus has more. He’s before all things, created everything, holds it all together. He’s supreme. He’s the ruler, the one with power even over death.

The fullness of God, everything you can ever imagine about a godlike being, a higher power, or something beyond…the fullness of God completely inhabited the man known as Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son. The fullness of God not only became a human being, God became a human being who actually had flesh and blood and died.

It’s those two things together that were shocking.

God AND a human being. And that’s exactly what’s still so shocking and hard to believe today.

Just simply saying that Jesus is God and a human being, both together, probably won’t convince many people. Just saying it doesn’t make it true. For those who don’t believe in the bible, the bible saying it doesn’t make it true.

But when you’re going to be a part of something like a church, you ought to know clearly what they think. And we, as a church, join with “the Church” around the world for 2000 years to say that we believe Jesus is God and a human being.

Most people will agree to one or the other of those. People who agree to both are harder to find.

The people Paul was writing to easily believed Jesus was God. What they had a hard time with was God becoming an intimate part of our physical world. “God in a bod” was unthinkable, disgusting, horrible. But Paul is absolutely unyielding in his approach. He doesn’t mince words.

Jesus is the fullness of God wrapped up in flesh that actually bled and died on a cross. Paul completely embraces and does not deny the humanity of Jesus.

In our day and age, as we saw in the video, most people easily believe in Jesus “the man”. What’s harder to accept is that Jesus was more than that, that Jesus was and is God.

But Paul won’t back away from that, either. He pulls out anything and everything that had divine or spiritual power in his time, and says, “Jesus beats them all!” He’s the image of God, the creator, the ruler of all.

There’s something interesting in the video we watched.

I tallied up all of the things everybody said about Jesus. You know what the highest two things were, the two things that were said the most? Yep. Jesus as a man, and Jesus as God. If we total up what that small sample of people said, they actually got to the two most important things. Jesus is a man and Jesus is God.

Where does your definition of Jesus need stretching?

Very clearly, Paul won’t let us have a merely human Jesus. These poetic words speak of something so much bigger, so much more powerful.

Will you let Jesus be God? Will you let Jesus be creator, ruler, the fullness of God? Your creator? The one who rules your life? This is what it means to follow Jesus. This is what we stand for as a church.

Will you let Jesus be human? Can you see him laughing and sweating and drinking and being rowdy and angry and bleeding? Will you let God come close to you, identify with you, walk with you? He’s walked in your shoes, This is what it means to follow Jesus.

Will you let Jesus be more than just your personal savior?

This may be the most controversial thing I say today.

The next most common thing people said about Jesus in the video is that Jesus is a personal savior and that he died for my sins.

American Christianity has made Jesus a personal savior, someone who gets me to heaven. And that’s too small a picture. It’s not enough of the answer.

Seven times in six verses, Paul mentions ALL creation, ALL things, EVERYTHING.

Jesus didn’t just die for me. Jesus didn’t just die for you. Jesus didn’t just die to make our sins and our wrongs go away.

“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.”

Friends, our Jesus has gotten too small.

Jesus is more than your and my personal savior. He’s changing all of creation, everything that is, making all of creation RIGHT again, in alignment with God.

What is so sad about the last 100 years in churches in America is that we’ve made Jesus too small in too many ways. We’ve had people over there who care about social justice and making a difference in the world, but who make Jesus just a man who taught some good things. We’ve had people over here who want people to experience the forgiveness Jesus brings, but who make Jesus only a personal savior.

This is why the question “Who is Jesus?” is so important! If our view of Jesus can grow again…if we see Jesus as completely human and completely God, in charge of everything, bringing all of creation back into right relationship with God…so much opens up for us as his followers!

Jesus died to reconcile to himself ALL things.

As we follow him, we will walk in others’ shoes and show them the love and forgiveness found in Jesus. We will work to end hunger and homelessness in this community. We will, like Elizabeth Sherwood is working towards, build relationships with and meet the needs of teenage mothers. We will, like Doug Bartlett, serve the youth and families of Yamhill County. We will, like Josh Reid and Carl Ralston tonight, find ways to act to stop human trafficking in our world. We’ll work to preserve the resources of our planet. We’ll use our creativity and the arts to make the world a richer and more beautiful place.

It’s Jesus who will be ruler of all, balancing all the world’s needs. As individuals, we don’t have to do it all. But it opens up such a bigger picture of our role as Jesus followers, and such a bigger picture of Jesus himself.

This mind-bending God/man is who we follow, who we trust with our lives. Will you let Jesus become bigger in your life today?

Nobody on the video mentioned Jesus as Creator. Nobody on the video mentioned Jesus as Ruler. Nobody on the video mentioned Jesus as the one who’s re-uniting all of heaven and earth and the entire universe with God.

Is it because we who are Jesus’ followers have made Jesus too small?

May God open our eyes. May we look at the fullness of God in Jesus who came near to us. This is why we worship Jesus, why we sing songs like the ones we will sing today.

Embrace the fullness of God in Jesus! Embrace the fullness of humanity in Jesus. Because it is then that we will be able to live in the world, and it’s then that our lives become introductions to the real Jesus.