Christ Preeminent (Part Eighteen): True North

Transcript

JRNT 40
November 12, 2023
Christ Preeminent (Part Eighteen): True North
Colossians 3:1-4
Jesse Randolph


In the early 1850s in the pre-Civil War south the underground railroad, you could say, was chugging along. People like Harriet Tubman and Isaac Hopper and John Brown and Thomas Garrett and William Still were working tirelessly to free from slavery upwards of 100,000 men and women of African descent, all through that underground railroad. While there were all sorts of methods and tactics that the conductors of the underground railroad used to secure the freedom of these individuals, one of which they used that I want to focus in on here this morning, was that of song, coded song in particular. Songs whose lyrics served as roadmaps, providing southern slaves with various coordinates and landmarks to help them eventually make their way to freedom in the north. One of these cleverly crafted songs, one which was sung specifically by slaves in Alabama and Mississippi, was titled Under the Drinking Gourd. The song's lyrics were masterfully masked. They provided certain codewords and clues to the slaves in this region about the path they needed to follow to eventually find freedom in the north. For instance, this song had these clues about the best time of year to make a run for it, from the south to the north. According to that song, that was in the spring. The lyrics say, “When the sun comes back and the first quail calls.” The song contained clues about the precise path that the underground railroad followed through this region. Here are the lyrics: “The riverbank makes a mighty good road; the dead trees show you the way.” That riverbank, by the way, was one that ran parallel to the Tombigbee River which eventually connected to the Tennessee River which eventually connected to the Ohio River, which for the slaves of those days was spiritualized as though it were the River Jordan as you crossed over into the north. The song contained clues about a friendly face to look out for while making one's way along that riverbank along the Tombigbee River. The lyric here says, “The old man is waiting for you to carry you to freedom.” That old man, by the way, was a man named Peg Leg Joe, a man with an amazing nickname, interesting past, I'm sure, who was a carpenter who traveled all over the deep south, risking his life under the cover of darkness to guide countless slaves to freedom.

What I really want to draw your attention to, though, is the chorus of this song, which drives the title of this song. The slaves were to follow the drinking gourd. Those words are repeated ten different times in this song and in the chorus of this song. Follow the drinking gourd. Well, what in the world is a drinking gourd? Well, the slaves of these days, they would take the shells of these long-necked gourds with their long handles and bulbous ends, and they would use them to dip those gourds into a body of water to get a cool, refreshing drink. So, to follow the drinking gourd was to follow really the dipping ladle, because they were shaped like a dipping ladle and the dipping ladle in turn was code for “follow the Big Dipper.” The Big Dipper, of course, is that ladle-shaped constellation made up of seven very bright stars which for millennia now have pointed people who were traveling in darkness toward the North Star, pointing them toward true north, allowing them to get their bearings and to determine where is north and where is east and where is west and where is south; especially if they were offtrack or lost, to get them traveling again in the right direction.

The meaning of the lyrics of that song, Under the Drinking Gourd, and the picture the song paints of southern slaves fixing their eyes upward, searching for a constellation that would point them to true north so that they could stay on course on their way to northern freedom, I believe ought to resonate with any follower of Jesus Christ here this morning. Those lyrics ought to resonate with any true child of God who is faithfully navigating the darkness of this world. The lyrics of the hymn, I hope, prepare us for the text that we will be in this morning. Turn with me in your Bibles, if you would, to Colossians 3. We're finally moving on into the third chapter of this great book and we're going to look into verses 1-4 this morning.

Colossians 3:1-4, God's Word reads, “Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”

So, you see the commands there. As sojourners and exiles in this world, as earthly pilgrims who are just making our way through, we are to “keep seeking the things above.” We are to, it also says, “set our minds on things above.” The slaves of the antebellum south were following the drinking gourd, the Big Dipper, to stay on course. In like manner a follower of Jesus Christ as he makes his way on his pilgrimage through this world is to continually be keeping his eyes on the sky, so to speak, keeping his eyes fixed on and his mind focused on those things that are above. The title of the sermon this morning is True North, which is a reference not really to the direction—north, south, east, west—that we are to travel in this world as we walk through our lives, but instead is a reference to the direction that our gaze should be going, as those whose citizenship (Philippians 3:20) is in heaven, as those whose inheritance (I Peter 1:4) is reserved in heaven and as those who (as Hebrews 11:16 says) are awaiting a heavenly country.

Now our passage for this morning is really a hinge passage. In the first half of Colossians, we have four chapters and we're moving our way into the second half now, in the first half as Paul tends to do in many of his letters, he is making many indicative statements of theological truth. This includes statements where he is saying things like here is who Christ is. That's one category of these indicative statements, here is who Christ is. He is the image of the invisible God, He is the firstborn of all creation, by Him all things were created, He is before all things and in Him all things hold together, and He is the head of the body, the church. So, it's here who Christ is. Then there are these statements of here is who you are, Christian. You were formerly alienated and engaged in evil deeds, but “now you have been redeemed and forgiven and reconciled, now you have been rescued from that domain of darkness (Colossians 1:13) and transferred into the kingdom of His beloved Son.” So, it's here who Christ is; here is who you are, believer. Then category three; has been and here is who they are, meaning the false teachers. Those would be the ones who would seek to take you captive through philosophy and empty deception. Those would be the ones who would seek to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or festivals or new moons or Sabbath days. Those would be the ones who would seek to defraud you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels. Those would be the ones who would take their stand on visions that they say they have seen and who are inflated without cause in their fleshly mind. And those would be the ones who promote self-made religion (Colossians 2:23), self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, which he says, “are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”

But now, today in our text, Colossians 3, Paul is going to pivot. He is moving away from this is who Christ is and this is who you are, and this is who they are type of statements, he's moving away from the pure statements, these indicative statements to giving us more imperatives, giving us more commands. Now he is going to do so in Colossians 3 and 4 and be no less theological and no less doctrinal, but the words here in Colossians 3 and 4, that we’re going to cover in the months ahead, definitely have more of a finger-in-your-chest, step-on-your-toes, this-is-what-you-have-to-do-now tone to them. There is another feature of this text that we'll be in today that I think is really neat, at least I think it's neat. Maybe what I consider is neat is not what you consider to be neat, but one feature of this text is that you can really trace the flow of what Paul is saying here through his selection of Greek verb tenses. Is that neat, or what? Greek verb tenses. For instance, in verses 1 and 2, he is going to highlight events that happened at a fixed point in the past. “You have been raised up with Christ,” he says. Then in verse 3 he is going to use a different verb tense, one that has more present-day ramifications. “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” In verse 4 he is going to get into yet another verb tense, one that is more futuristic in its orientation when he says, “When Christ who is our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” So, as we survey this section of inspired Scripture this morning, what we're going to witness is Paul not only slowly transitioning from giving more imperatives than indicatives, giving more commands than mere statements. Layered on top of that we're going to see him make these statements that pull in from the past, that point to the present and also highlight the future. It's a magnificent section of Scripture. No wonder H. C. G. Moule, the old Anglican bishop, said this. He said, “It is one of the golden paragraphs of the whole Bible” and he is right. I'm sure these verses have ended up on many refrigerators around here in the years past. He says, “To countless hearts it is one of their peculiar treasures,” this text. “There is a celestial music for them in its very phrase and rhythm.” He's right; and my goal this morning is simply to get it right, to be faithful in presenting it to you, not to get in the way of its peculiar treasures or its unique rhythm.

As we start here in verses 1-2 our first preaching point here this morning, for you who are taking notes, is this: Fixed Gaze. We are to have a fixed gaze. Look at verses 1-2 again. It says, “Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.” Now “Therefore,” that first word we see in verse 1 there is a common connecting term, it's a clear word of transition. Paul has just come out of the section we were in last week where yet again he was going after these false teachers who for all of their supposed high-mindedness and for their alleged access to this secret form of knowledge, gnosis, actually showed themselves to be totally of the world, limited by the horizons of their earth-bound thinking. For instance, we saw back in Colossians 2:20 last week that the principles and the decrees that these teachers were pushing were totally earthly, they were totally worldly. Look at verse 20, “If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees?” Then in verse 22 there we saw that these false teachers were pushing the commandments and teachings of men. Again, earthbound. In verse 23 we saw that what was being promoted by these false teachers had “the appearance of wisdom,” it says, but had “no value against fleshly indulgence.” In other words, these false teachers, though claiming to be spiritually enlightened and though claiming to have this ability to supposedly peer into the divine, were totally earthbound, blind guides. They claimed to be of Christ, but they had absolutely no Christ in them.

Here in the first words of chapter 3, Paul is switching gears by saying, “Therefore.” The sense here is that he has confidence that the Colossians will eventually come to their senses, the Colossian believers he is writing to here. They will eventually smell the smelling salts that he has been waving under their noses in the first two chapters, they'll eventually recognize that the false teachers there were the frauds that they were, and they'll come to this place now of remembering the key truths that he is going to lay out here in these four verses that we'll be looking at today. Ultimately, they're going to follow the commands that we see in verses 1-2 here to “keep seeking the things above” and to “set their minds on the things above.” It all starts with that word there, “Therefore.”

Look at what comes next. He says, “if you have been raised up with Christ.” So, putting it all together, “Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ.” Now those words ought to sound familiar, if you were here last week. In fact, look up at the page again at verse 20 of chapter 2, which is where we started last week's sermon, where Paul says, “If you have died with Christ.” As we saw last week those words, “if you have died with Christ,” are what grammarians call a first-class conditional, meaning Paul here is not casting doubt on whether these believers in Colossae had in fact died with Christ. He knew that they had. In other words, a positive answer to the word “if” here was assumed, meaning that, as I mentioned this last week, this passage, Colossians 2:20, could actually be translated in the beginning there, “Since you have died with Christ.” Now we see the same thing happening here in Colossians 3:1 where Paul says, “Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ.” That's another first-class conditional. Just as Paul was not legitimately wondering whether the Colossians had died with Christ, he also wasn't wondering whether the Colossians had been raised up with Christ. This wasn't a nail-biting moment for him. This wasn't something he was genuinely losing sleep over or worried about. We know this not only from the grammar here of verse 1, but we also know this from what Paul said in Colossians 2.

Look over at Colossians 2:13. He says, “When you were dead in your transgressions.” They were once dead; and if you go back a verse to verse 12, we see that they were buried with Christ in baptism, spiritual baptism we saw when we covered that verse, and that they also, verse 12, “were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God.” These are declarative statements, not questions, not ifs, not losing sleep. Again, Paul is not viewing this matter of whether the Colossians had truly been spiritually buried and whether they truly had been spiritually raised as sort of a coin flip, like a 50/50 matter, a matter over which he needed to cross his fingers and hope for the best. No, from Paul's perspective the Colossians' salvation was a settled fact. They had, as is true of anyone here today who has put their faith in Christ, no doubt a personal faith. But at the same time, it was very much a public faith, it was on display to people like Paul, or he had heard of their faith. For instance, we see in Colossians 1:4-5 that their faith was demonstrated through love and hope in the very faith that they had. What does that mean? getting over here to Colossians 3 again, that they had been raised up with Christ? Well, before we go there to what it means to be raised up with Christ, we have to remember that before being raised we died. Colossians 2:20, “You have died with Christ.” Before the stone was rolled away, the tomb had to be sealed. Before Christ rose victorious, He had to suffer that violent death; and so, it is with us. Before we were raised with Christ spiritually, we first died with Christ. Or looking at Colossians 2:12 again, we were “raised up with Him through faith in the working of God.” But before that we were buried with Him in baptism. Before we came to life, we first died. Now what does that mean to say that we died? Well, it means this: as we as otherwise hell-deserving sinners came to saving faith, as we came to realize what a dark and sinful world we live in, as we came to see how foolish and darkened our hearts are, as we came to realize that we would never be able to approach the holy God revealed in the Bible through our own efforts or works or deeds, as we came to see that every man-made worldly system of religion is false and is a cheap substitute for the salvation that is offered through the world's one Savior, Jesus Christ, as we came to realize that true life, eternal life, is found only in Christ, as we came to realize that repenting and believing in the Gospel of Christ is the only way by which a person can be saved, do you know what happened? We died. We died. Now our bodies, of course, didn't expire physically. We're all here in this room still breathing God's air. We went on living in our bodies of flesh, but the old man, the spiritual man, is now buried, buried with Christ, placed into Christ. You could even say, baptized into Christ, like it says in Colossians 2:12. At that moment of salvation our heart kept on ticking and our brain waves kept on functioning, but the old man ended up dying, dying in the sense that that old body of sin which once defined us no longer has a grip on us and no longer has sway over us, and the debt which our sin had incurred no longer is a concern for us. We no longer have a fear that the debt will one day come due because of what Colossians 2:14 says, He has “canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” So as our Lord's body went into the tomb, we are spiritually identified with Him. We share in His death. We were buried with Him; we were put to death.

So first comes death, spiritually speaking. But then for the believer what comes also is spiritual life. Rebirth, renewal, regeneration. Having died with Christ spiritually, having been identified with His death and in His death and in His burial, we now have through faith been identified with the fact that Jesus our Lord was brought back to life through His resurrection. Having died with Christ, we ourselves have been raised with Christ and we have imparted to us His resurrection life. This is said so powerfully and thoroughly over in Romans 6. Turn there with me, if you would, to Romans 6 where we're going to see a much lengthier version of what we see Paul here saying in Colossians 3. Romans 6, we'll start in verse 3.

Romans 6:3, “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death. Therefore, we have been buried with Him through baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we, too, might walk in newness of life. For if we become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again. Death is no longer master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all. But the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Back to Colossians 3, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ we have been spiritually resurrected, we have been brought from death to life. We have, as it says here in verse 1, “been raised up.” Now as we continue to work our way through this first verse, as those who have been raised up, we are called now to lift our eyes up, as it were, not to look at the Big Dipper but rather to a place and to a realm and to a person, which is of infinitely greater glory and beauty and power. Look at the rest of verse 1, “Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ,” and then this, “keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” The sense of the command that is being given here is picked up nicely in the NASB, “keep seeking the things above.” The idea here, putting this whole verse together, is that because you have been raised with Christ, you are to continually be seeking the things above. What is being described here is this concentrated effort, this continual striving, this constant daily seeking. We ought to be always seeking the things above. This idea here of seeking the things above is intentionally being set in contrast by Paul here against what he mentioned in the last few verses there of chapter 2 where the false teachers were promoting the elementary principles of what? The world—man-made, earthbound, legalistic decrees pertaining to food and drink and such. As we saw last week those commandments and teachings have the appearance of wisdom, but they ultimately have no value against fleshly indulgence. The one who has truly been raised up with Christ is not to go after those legalistic man-made decrees. Instead, he or she is to pursue the things that are above.

Now you can see how that language, this is where eisegesis happens, taking things out of context. You can see how these words, “seeking the things above,” if you just put an ellipsis on either side of those words, can easily be misunderstood, can easily be taken out of context and easily abused when placed in the wrong hands of people who still have foolish and darkened hearts, when these words are detached from their original meaning of what is being described in the original context. I mean, think about it. In today's world religious and irreligious people alike can claim that they are doing some version of seeking the things above. There are mystical spiritist types who claim they see God in clouds and falling leaves and snowflakes and sunrays. There are mystical Roman Catholics who say they have received visions of Mary or Jesus or the saints they venerate. Both would say they are seeking the things that are above. Then there is the Islamic suicide bomber who claims that the mass carnage that he has caused, that he can secure a richer eternity with Allah. He would say he is seeking the things that are above. Or think of those desert dwellers out in 115-degree Mojave Desert who claim that every gleam or glimmer or streak in the sky is a UFO. What are they saying? Well, I'm just seeking the things that are above.
Clearly, Paul must be referring to something else here. Clearly, when he is talking about seeking the things that are above, he is not talking about visions of Mary or finding God in the clouds or supporting a Muslim extremist or UFO hunting. Thankfully, the text clarifies the matter for us. Note right after the words of the command, “keep seeking the things above,” we're given these words— “where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” We are to “keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” Christ was not only buried, Christ was not only resurrected, we know from Scripture that Christ eventually ascended. Luke 24:51 says, “While He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.” Or Acts 1:9 says, “After He had said these things He was lifted up while they were looking on and a cloud received Him out of their sight.” Paul then here in Colossians 3:1, is saying that the believer is to keep seeking the things that are above, not as some interest in secular astronomy or cosmic geography. No, the only reason, the only reason there is value, the only reason there is any point to seek the things that are above is that it is in that realm, the heavenly realm, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God the Father.

Now if I may, just a brief rabbit trail. One dimension of what Paul is saying here is that just as the believer has died with Christ and just as the believer has risen with Christ, there is a sense in which, spiritually speaking, the believer has ascended with Christ. Our citizenship, Philippians 3:20, is where? In heaven. In fact, flip over with me to Ephesians 2 where you're going to see exactly what I'm referring to here when I say there is a sense in which we have spiritually ascended. Look at Ephesians 2, I'll give us a running start by starting in verse 1 here. Ephesians 2, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we, too, all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.” That's usually where we stop reading. We got the death part, we got the life part, we're good, close the Bible, go home. But look at what comes next in verse 6, “And raised us up with Him,” that's resurrection language, “and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

Now are you physically in heaven today? Am I physically in heaven today? I mean, our family loves Lincoln, we love Nebraska even after the loss yesterday, but I certainly hope this isn't heaven, hope this isn't it. No, but we are, spiritually speaking, citizens of heaven. We are, spiritually speaking, seated with our Lord as He sits in heaven enthroned at the right hand of God. Paul's whole point here in verse 1, as we look at how this passage fits in with what he is saying in the letter to the Colossians as a whole, is this. He is warning these Colossian believers against fiddling with and fretting over the things of the world—philosophy and empty deception and traditions of men and the elementary principles of the world—when the reality is our citizenship is in another realm, a heavenly realm where Christ is. He is focusing our eyes on the fact that positionally we have already been transferred to that heavenly realm. Colossians 1:13, “He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,” and now he is saying that's where Christ is.

Then there is this other detail at the end of verse 1, “He is seated at the right hand of God.” He is not only above, He is seated at the right hand of God. That takes us all the way back to King David's often quoted psalm in Psalm 110:1 where it says, “The LORD,” (all caps, L-O-R-D, Yahweh) “says to my Lord, sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” And those words, though they were originally authored by David, “sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet,” they found their fulfillment ultimately in Jesus Christ. How do I know that? Because Christ Himself declared that they did. In three different Gospel accounts He attributes those words to Himself and His own role as the Messiah.

The Lord Jesus Christ, getting back to Colossians 3 here, is “seated at the right hand of God,” it says. That reflects this position that He has that accounts for the fact that He has completed His work of redemption. It is finished. He is seated. Hebrews 1:3 says, “When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Hebrews 10:12 says, “He,” meaning Christ, “having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time sat down at the right hand of God.” So, it's a position of completion, of redemption, specifically. But it's also a position of exaltation, reflecting Christ's majesty and His authority. I Peter 3:22 says, “He is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven after angels and authorities and powers have subjected to Him.”

Tying all of this together, verse 1, to “keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” is to remember that we have died with Christ, and it is to remember that we have risen with Christ, and yes, we have even ascended with Christ, spiritually speaking. But also remember that we have a new status and also a new way of life. It means recalling that we have waved farewell to that old way of living that we once engaged in and now we are committed with God's help to living a totally different type of life. It means remembering that we are in Christ, we are ambassadors for Christ, and that ought to motivate us to strive to live progressively more Christ-honoring lives. The unbeliever, the pagan, they seek after something else. Matthew 6:33, Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount says, “Do not worry, then, saying what will we eat, or what will we drink, or what will we wear for clothing.” He says, “For the Gentiles eagerly seek,” same word, “all those things.” But for those who have been raised with Christ, the type of seeking that we do is different. We seek the things that are above. J. B. Lightfoot in his commentary on Colossians says, “Cease to concentrate your energies, your thoughts on mundane ordinances and realize instead that your new and heavenly life is of Christ, the polestar.” He is right. As Christians we look upward, we are always in pursuit of true north, which ultimately is not a place but a person, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who Lightfoot called our polestar, our North Star, our true north, our source of direction.

As we turn to verse 2, we see a similar sounding command to what we just worked through in verse 1. Look at verse 2, it says, “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.” We're still under this first heading of this fixed gaze, the fixed gaze the believer is to have, and as we come upon this second command, we see it is, the command is right there at the head of verse 2, “Set your mind on the things above.” In verse 1 it's “keep seeking the things above,” in verse 2 it's “set your mind on the things above.” Now is there a difference between these two terms? Is seeking different than setting your mind? Or is Paul just being redundant here? Paul is not being redundant or repetitive or superfluous or tedious, like I am being. Nobody got it? No, he is using a different term with a different meaning and a different purpose here. Verse 1 when he says, “keep seeking the things above,” he is really referring to striving. But here in verse 2 when he says, “set your mind on things above,” he suggests concentrating, devoting one's entire mindset, devoting not just their mind but all of one's affections to that which is above. This is talking about a comprehensive and a fundamental orientation of the entire person, the entire will. The sense is to continuously be applying your mind to what is above, to constantly be giving your heart and your affections to heavenly things, to set the compass of your entire life at all times to true north, who, I just mentioned, is Christ. Paul here recognizes that a person's actions inevitably flow out of their thoughts and their affections. Rebellious children who face no discipline go on to become incarcerated adults. Flirtatious chatter eventually leads to the lover's bedroom. A century of godless feminism inevitably leads to 60 million murdered babies. Actions inevitably flow out of thoughts. Actions inevitably flow out of affections. So here, especially as he is about to lay on these believers’ commands, things that govern their actions, what they must do, Paul is getting to the level of thought and to the level of their minds and to the level of their affections. He is making sure that their minds, their thoughts, their affections are rightly oriented toward things that are above and those things above, again, are not some nebulous concept, it's where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Now look at the contrast he draws, right here in the middle of verse 2. There is a comma right there that divides it in half. He instructs the Colossians, “set your mind on the things above,” and then he makes this distinction to those things that are on the earth. “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth.” Now in the immediate context here Paul is referring to, when he is speaking of those things that are on earth, those legalistic and ascetic regulations that were being pushed by the false teachers there, those matters of self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body: do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. Looking ahead in Colossians we're going to see that this term, “not on the things that are on the earth,” also refers to those various forms of earthly involvements and pursuits which stunt a person's spiritual development. We see them later here in Colossians 3. Like, look at Colossians 3:5, “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed, which amounts to idolatry.” Or Colossians 3:8, “But now you also put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech from your mouth.” and verse 9, “Do not lie to one another.” These are each clear biblical examples of not merely morally neutral actions, but sins, which clearly indicate that while a person is practicing them their minds very clearly are not on things above but are very much on the things of earth. Note Paul here is not merely providing this prohibition on sinful conduct here, though he would certainly condemn that, He is highlighting, instead, the necessity, and again it's a command, it's an imperative of having a certain mindset, a mindset that is set on things that are above, not on the things that are on earth. This is the mindset that is committed, as Philippians 4:8 puts it, to “think on whatever is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and whatever is of good repute.” This is the mindset of Romans 8:5 where the person is pursuing the things of the Spirit and not the things of the flesh. This is the mindset that's committed, as II Corinthians 4:18 says, to looking “at things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” This is the mindset that is committed to the truth of I John 2:15, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world. The world is passing away and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” This is the mindset, here in Colossians 3:2, that honors the words of our Lord in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:33 where He says, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.” In other words, this is the mindset that ultimately doesn't care if the Huskers make another bowl game. It ultimately doesn't care if the barista gets your coffee order wrong and it ultimately doesn't care who Taylor Swift is dating. Like seven of you got that. This is the mindset which ultimately seeks more of God than of the world. This is the mindset which concentrates its concerns on the eternal, not the temporal. This is the mindset where a person fixes his eyes, not on what is seen but what is unseen.

Now as we saw last week as we finished Colossians 2, Paul was going hard after these false teachers in Colossae and their pushing for severe treatment of the body. The definition of the term, its asceticism is what it is called, that rigorous, attention-seeking practice of self-denial, practices which were later duplicated in church history, hence monasteries and practices of self-deprivation. See, Paul here as he turns to chapter 3, he is not speaking out of both sides of his mouth, he is not saying here in Colossians 3 that when you set your mind on the things above and not the things that are on earth that we are supposed to somehow check out of life here on planet earth. He isn't saying that we aren't to be in the world or that we're supposed to pull the cord and ask the bus driver to let us off. Not at all. I mean, if you've done any reading of Colossians and as we'll get to it in the months ahead, what is the book of Colossians in these later two chapters about if it's not about how the Christian is to navigate various earthly spheres with their feet here on the ground in their thought life, in their personal actions, in their social interactions, in their families, in their workplaces? The reality is that we are each called to various earthly domains and realms and spheres. There are various earthly tasks that we are each called to perform. That baby needs his diaper changed and that spouse needs a hug, and that boss needs his deadline met and those employees need their paycheck, and the government needs its taxes. These are very much things of the world, things that are on earth. So, to set your mind on the things above and not to set them on the things that are on earth does not mean having a total lack of interest in life in this world. Rather what Paul is saying here is that in our earthly relationships and as we carry out our earthly responsibilities, we are not to have an earthly mindset as we do so. Rather in accomplishing all of those earthly tasks, the believer is to set his or her mind on things above, to remember who he is in Christ and then to go out and live like it, to seek to faithfully represent Christ in each of those earthly realms to which he or she is called. We do so in our personal interactions, we do so in our social interactions, we do so in our families as we'll get into in Colossians 3, we do so in our workplaces. We do so everywhere.

One final point here in verses 1 & 2 and this whole idea of having one's gaze fixed above, let's see what the opposite of that looks like over in Philippians 3. Turn with me, if you would, over one book to the left for Philippians 3. Philippians 3, we'll start in verse 18. It says, “For many walk of whom I often told you and now tell you even weeping that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite and whose glory is in their shame.” Then look at this language, “who set their minds on earthly things.” Those are enemies of the cross of Christ, and they do what? Verse 19, they “set their minds on earthly things.” That's the same verbal construction that we see Paul using in Colossians 3:2 where he tells us as believers that those who are not enemies of the cross of Christ but rather grateful beneficiaries of the cross of Christ, that we are to set our minds on the things above. The enemy of the cross of Christ, the unbeliever, they set their mind on earthly things; the follower of Christ sets their mind on things above. As we stick with Philippians 3 here, look at these next two verses, familiar ones, I am sure, to many of you. Verse 20, “For our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly await for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion of the power that He has, even to subject all things to Himself.”

Our citizenship is in heaven and so our thoughts ought to be continually going there. I love how A. T. Robertson commented on that passage, Philippians 3:20. He says, “The Christian is seeking heaven and thinking heaven. His feet are upon the earth, but his head is with the stars. He is living like a citizen of heaven here on earth.” We are to be so heavenly minded, not so that, as the old saying goes, that we are of no earthly good. But we are supposed to be so heavenly minded that we are of maximal earthly good in the various spheres and domains and realms that God has placed us: in the church, in our families, in society, even out there in culture, in interactions with non-believers. In fact, you could say that if somebody is of no earthly good in their earthly spheres which God has assigned to them, if the pastor doesn't tend and feed, if the husband doesn't lovingly lead, if the wife doesn't joyfully submit, if the children don't consistently obey and later in life honor, you really have to ask whether they were ever heavenly minded enough.

We've seen verses 1and 2, believers need to have this fixed gaze: keep seeking the things above and set your mind on the things above. Next, we're going to see that the follower of Christ stands on firm ground. That's our second point, Firm Ground. Look at verse 3, “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” For you have died, it says. Those words are logically linked to what we just saw in verses 1-2. We keep seeking the things above and we set our minds on the things above. Why? Because we have died, “for you have died.” That's again referring to the believer's identification with Christ's death at Calvary. When Christ died, God counted believers as being in His Son. When He died physically, we died spiritually. Then through faith we are born again and then that old life, that life of sin that we loved and wallowed in like a pig in filth is now gone, it's dead, it died with Christ.

Now having been united with Christ in His death, “for you have died,” having been buried with Him in baptism, Colossians 2:12, having had the penalty of our sin paid, having risen with Him to newness of life, we see here in the next part of verse 3, “and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Your life is hidden with Christ in God. That word hidden has a dual meaning, it's of dual significance. It has shades and connotations of safety and of secrecy. Safety, you might think, okay I get that one. But secrecy? That doesn't make any sense. Yes, secrecy. Secrecy, meaning the believer is hidden away. Not hidden away like they're hiding their faith from other people but hidden in the sense that the world can't understand the believer's new life. Unbelievers don't understand us. They think it strange that we live the way that we do. They think it is odd when we don't go with the flow and join them in their sin. They can't comprehend our thoughts, our motives and our ways. I Corinthians 2:14 says “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them.” Or I John 3:1 says, “Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know Him.” To unbelievers Christians are odd, fanatical. That should be the way it is. I mean, Christians should be looked at as odd by the unbelieving world. That means they are doing something right; and that's all because, as Paul says here, the believer's new life is hidden. It's confusing to them, to the unbeliever. It's a mystery to them, they are mystified by it.

Now I mentioned that that word hidden has two meanings, safety and secrecy. We just looked at secrecy, what about safety? In what sense is that word hidden, does it mean safety? The believer is hidden in the sense that they are safe and secure in Christ, who is an exact representation of God the Father. So, the Christian in a sense is doubly secure. His life is hidden with Christ in God. His salvation is eternally secure, forever secure, protected from all spiritual enemies and never to be taken away. John 10:27, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, “My sheep hear My voice and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” Or Hebrews 7:25 says, “Therefore, He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him.” The believer's new life is hidden with Christ in God. There can be no safer refuge than that.

It reminds me of a story I read this past week while I was studying for this passage about this man who was struggling with this whole topic of security and the security of the believer in Christ. When he came to this very passage, Colossians 3:3, it clicked. He is reported as saying this, “Hallelujah! Whoever heard of a man drowning with his head that high above water.” Which I think is just such a wonderful summary of what is being said in this passage, Colossians 3:3. If you are in Christ, you have not only died but your life is hidden with Christ in God. Though it may sometimes not feel this way, your head is perpetually above water, and it will always be that way.

Okay, we've seen the importance of having a fixed gaze in verses 1 and 2, we've just looked at the firm ground upon which we stand in verse 3, now in verse 4 we're going to look at the future glory that awaits us as followers of Christ. That's our third heading this morning, Future Glory. Look at verse 4, it says, “When Christ who is our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” Don't you just love how Paul has this knack for throwing out these incredibly powerful truths in like six words at a time? Right? For me to live is Christ, to die is gain. We walk by faith, not by sight and here, Christ who is our life. There is power and there is profundity to these words, Christ being our life. There is no question that Paul is dead on here, theologically speaking, that Christ is the believer's life. Jesus is, John 14:6, “the way, the truth and the life. And no one comes to the Father but through Him.” We know that when a person has Christ, the Scriptures testify to the fact that they do, in fact, have life. I John 5:12 says, “He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” We know that Jesus testified that He Himself is the living bread. John 6:51, He said, “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” We know that Jesus testified to being a living vine who provides spiritual nourishment to each of His branches who have trusted in Him. John 15:4, “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.” If we have believed in Him, if we have believed upon the name of Jesus Christ, we've already passed from death to life. I thought that was beautiful that I think three or four of the hymns we were singing this morning had those very words, passing from death to life, in them. But John 5:24 says, “Truly, truly I say to you,” the words of Christ here again, “he who hears My words and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and does not come into judgment but has passed out of death into life.” All that to say Paul's statement here in Colossians 3:4, when he says, “Christ is our life,” that is a theologically true statement of any believer in Jesus Christ today. But the question that is on the table for each of us this morning is, is this true of us practically, practically speaking. If you were told to renounce your faith in Christ or take a bullet in your head, what would you do? If you were told that you were to renounce your faith in Christ or lose your children, what would you do? If you were told by your unbelieving spouse that you need to renounce your faith in Christ or he or she is leaving you, what would you do? I mean, admittedly those are some pretty drastic examples, and the Lord willing none of us will ever have to face such drastic decisions or drastic consequences. But how about in the more mundane scenes and margins of our lives? I mean, does the way that you have allocated your time over the last week indicate that Christ is your life? Does the record of your thoughts over the past week indicate that Christ is your life? Does your search and scroll history over the past week indicate that Christ is your life? Would your spouse be perplexed if you were to come up here and testify that Christ is your life? Would your children be confused if you got up here and said, Christ is my life? Would your neighbors think you are joking if you said that Christ is your life? Well, this is the Christ who is to be our life, the ascended Christ, the One who is above, seated at the right hand of God. He is there on His heavenly throne today while you and I sit here on earth.

But it's not always going to be that way, is it. No. Look at the next part of verse 4. A day is coming, we see here, when Christ will be, there's the word, right in the middle, “revealed.” At that time as believers, it says, “you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” Now big picture time. The main idea that Paul is communicating in this whole section is that right now, today, if you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, you've already been raised up with Him. You've already been positionally made right with the God that you stood in opposition to, you have, theological term here, been justified. Now, if you are in Christ, as you make your way through this journey on this spinning ball of dirt known as planet earth, you are to be, as we saw in verses 1-2 here, to keep seeking the things above. You are to set your mind on the things above and as you do so, you recognize, as we saw in verse 3, that your life is already hidden with Christ in God. You have the security of knowing that Christ is yours and you are His. You have the security of knowing that nothing and no one could ever snatch you out of His sovereign hand. At the same time, you experience secrecy, a hidden life. Again, not a hidden life like it is light hidden under a bushel but hidden in the sense that as you live your life as a Christian, it doesn't make sense to the unsaved. It is confusing to them; it doesn't add up to them.

Here is really the point of this end of verse 4. A day is coming when all of that is going to change. A future day is coming, a day that we know as the rapture when the Lord Jesus is going to come for His people. I Thessalonians 4:17 says we are going to meet Him in the air, and on that day when Christ appears for the believer, faith will become sight and what once was invisible will become visible. At that moment, I Corinthians 15:51 says “we will all be changed.” Finally, as we see here at the end Colossians 3:4, it is at that moment that you also will be revealed with Him in glory. We see a parallel statement of this very truth over in I John, in fact turn over with me to I John 3 as we get ready to close. I don't mean close your Bibles; I mean turn to I John 3 please. I John 3:1 says, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God. And such we are. For this reason, the world does not know us because it did not know Him.” and then look at verse 2, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears we will be like Him because we will see Him just as He is.” So, the world doesn't know us now, but a future day is coming when the world will. On that day and at that moment, back to Colossians 3, when Christ appears, we will be like Him, as John says. We will be revealed with Him in glory, as Paul says. Remember that old golden link of salvation in Romans 8, those whom He predestined He also called, those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified. Hidden no more. Revealed.

For the Christians in the room this morning what really ought to stand out here, what ought to jump off the page from the section we've been working in is what privileged people we are. We have died with Christ, we've been raised with Christ, we live for Christ, and we do so knowing that He lives in us. Not only that, He is our very life and so we “fix our gazes on the things that are above,” Colossians 3:1-2, to focus on true north, Christ Himself. We do so” knowing that we stand on firm ground, solid ground.” Colossians 3:3, our “life is hidden with Christ in God.” We do so knowing what a glorious future awaits us when Christ is revealed and we are revealed with Him.

Let's give glory in prayer now to our great God who has given us these amazing privileges and that status. Let's pray. God, thank You as always for this time together in Your Word. Thank You for revealing to us such incredible, powerful truths of who we are in Christ, of Your salvation, of Your redemption, of Your plan whereby You would provide forgiveness of sin to all who would trust in the name of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank You that we who are in Christ know that Christ is our very life, and our life is hidden with Him in You, God. Thank You that we have this glorious future to look forward to when we will be revealed and He will be revealed, and then the world will know, no longer a secret, no longer a mystery, who we are and who we belong to and who You are. God, I pray that these truths today would not be in one ear and out the other for any of us, myself included. I pray, instead, that we would seek the things that are above, that we would set our minds on the things above, that we would realize that we have work to do here on earth, but we're not to be earthly in the way we do those things. God, I pray that we would seek to give You glory and praise in each aspect of our life, not only here on Sunday mornings but every single day of our life, every hour of our life, every minute of our life. May we truly live as living sacrifices unto Your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.