Colossians: The People of God in the Age of Empire
Colossians: The People of God in the Age of Empire – A reorientation around Christ as the image of God and center of all things—countering empire, fear, and cultural conformity with a community formed in resurrection power, bound by love, and commissioned for renewal.
The Unco-opted Christ - Colossians 1:15-20
April 27, 2025
Speaker: Rev. Donnell Wyche
Description
In this opening message of our new series on Colossians, Pastor Donnell Wyche invites us into a powerful re-centering of our lives around the crucified Christ. Preaching from Colossians 1:15–20, he reminds us that in the midst of empire, cultural pressures, and leadership failures, Paul does not begin with fear or anxiety but with a bold proclamation: Christ is the image of the invisible God, the one who holds all things together. Pastor Donnell challenges us to see worship not as private devotion but as public resistance — an act of allegiance to a kingdom that values humility, peace, and sacrificial love over the power, dominance, and platform of empire. Drawing on rich historical context and vivid contemporary parallels, Pastor Donnell names how empire continues to shape our world through fear, fragmentation, and injustice. Yet in a world that feels unstable and disillusioned, Christ invites us to a different imagination — one rooted not in scarcity but in abundance, not in domination but in reconciliation. He reminds us that Christ’s death was not a defeat but the planting of a seed that bursts into new creation, calling us to participate in God’s ongoing work of healing, resistance, and restoration. Throughout the sermon, Pastor Donnell gently yet boldly calls us to faithful resistance: to make Christ, not empire, the center of our lives; to embody peace, generosity, and mercy in a world hungry for hope; and to trust that even in the ruins, Christ is making all things new. As we contend with grief, fear, and low trust, we are invited to breathe deeply, to anchor ourselves in Christ’s sustaining love, and to live as witnesses to a kingdom that does not co-opt or conquer, but sets us free.
Scripture References
Sermon Notes
Colossians: The People of God in the Age of Empire –The Un-Coopted Christ
April 27, 2025
Welcome and Opening
We’re grateful for you and the gifts of God that you bring into this space.
As a church, we want to live in God’s unfolding story, being transformed by Jesus, learning to belong to each other across our differences, as God invites us into freedom, joy, and boundless generosity. If you are looking for a church home, we would love to become your church home, and I, in particular, would love to become one of your pastors.
Today, we launch a new sermon series in Colossians. Paul writes to a community navigating life in the shadow of empire, leadership failures, and cultural disillusionment. Sound familiar? Paul doesn’t begin with fear or ambition. He begins with Christ—at the center of everything, holding it all together.
The Image That Refuses to Co-Opt You
Paul writes this poem to the Colossians 1:15-20:
15The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For 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. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And 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. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and 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.
This is poetry. This is resistance. This is worship that defies empire. Worship that centers Christ reorders the world around a different axis. In the Roman world, worship was political. To say “Jesus is Lord” was to say “Caesar is not.”
Paul offers not just awe, but allegiance. In a culture saturated by illusion, Paul insists that reality itself is held together by a suffering, reconciling God—not Caesar, not success, not platform. Christ, and Christ alone.
Centering a New Imagination
Paul is not simply offering a theology lesson. He is shaping the church’s imagination.
Everything—governments, systems, economies—was made through Christ and for Christ. But Paul does not deny that we live in a fragmented world. A world where trust is low and leadership often fails. Yet, Paul dares to proclaim that Christ is before all things, and in him all things hold together. This is a protest. This is a re-centering of reality. Paul invites us to imagine a world not built on scarcity, but on abundance. Not on domination, but on grace. This reshaping of imagination—what theologian Willie Jennings calls “the decolonizing of desire”—is the first step toward becoming a new creation people.
Why It Matters That Christ Is First
So much clamors to be first: ambition, pain, fear, politics.
Paul reminds us that Christ is not just the Savior of individuals—he is the head of the resurrection parade, dancing in the dragon’s jaws of death, carrying with him the fullness of God. Christ is making all things new—including the broken, hidden parts of our lives. Survival mode is not the end of your story. Resurrection is. You don’t have to make yourself new. Christ is already at work making all things new—including you.
This Happens on a Cross
This reconciliation happens not through domination, but through peace made on a Roman cross.
The cross was the empire’s warning: stay in line, stay afraid. But God turns the cross into an altar of love. In a world built on fear and coercion, Jesus models a power that is vulnerable, a love that forgives, a strength that suffers. In the words of Colossians Remixed: the cross is where empire does its worst and God does God’s best. If this is who our God is—not a God who demands sacrifice, but a God who becomes the sacrifice—what kind of people are we called to become?
Re-Formation as a Church
This has been a season of betrayal, disillusionment, and grief. Many of us are lamenting not just institutional loss, but the deeper loss of trust.
Yet Paul dares to proclaim that Christ is the head of the church.
The local church still matters.
Community still matters.
Resurrection still happens.
We don’t need to build a platform. We need to build a community where love takes the lead, where mercy outweighs image, where justice is not optional but essential.
In Christ, a new creation is rising.
And we are invited to begin again—right here, right now.
Practical Tip:
This week, when you find yourself overwhelmed, anxious, or unmoored, pause and say out loud, “Christ holds all things together—including me.” Take a deep breath. Hold it for a beat. Then exhale.