Keeping Our Eyes on Christ

So let's get into Colossians together. And the title of the message this morning is Keeping Our Eyes on Christ. And so before we begin here, let's just pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for what it means to be the body of Christ and to be able to gather together like this. and to fellowship together as we just, you know, we can't get this benefit apart from one another, and it's such a privilege to be able to share this time together and to come to your word and to learn. So we pray, Lord, that you would teach us this morning from your word. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, hopefully you've got your place in Colossians 3, if you were following along with Jim. But I want to begin actually by taking you back to the Old Testament. So hold your place in Colossians 3 and turn back to 2 Kings 6. Okay, we don't spend a lot of time in some of these sections.

And so maybe he's trying to remember, where's 2 Kings? Well, I always tell our kids, when you're trying to memorize the books of the Old Testament, tell the kings, well, who anointed the kings? Samuel came first and he anointed the kings, and so we've got 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings. And then we have 1 and 2 Chronicles, which is the record of the kings. So if you can find your area there, you can find one of those books, you can find your way to 2 Kings.

2 Kings 6, and we're going to look at verses 8 through 17. And we often call, you know, when we go to the Old Testament, all of a sudden we call them stories. I'm going to read you a Bible story, but the reality is that these things are true. This is real history. This is a record. This is an account of real history.

And what we've got going on here is we've got the prophet Elisha and we've got his servant. Now his servant isn't named here, but we know from other passages that his servant's name was Gehazi. So we're going to call him Gehazi this morning because that was his name. So we've got Elijah and Gehazi. And we've got to read back a little bit from verse 8 to get to where we want to go because we've got to understand the circumstances that they were facing.

And it says, now the king of Aram, and that's Syria is another name there. The king of Aram was warring against Israel. And he counseled with his servants saying, in such and such a place shall be my camp. The man of God, that's Elisha, sent word to the king of Israel saying, beware that you do not pass this place for the Arameans are coming down there. The king of Israel sent to that place about which the man of God had told him. Thus he warned him so that he guarded himself there more than once or twice. So in other words, the king of Israel set a heavy defense at that place. Now the heart of the King of Aram was enraged over this thing, and he called his servants and said to them, will you tell me which one of us is for the King of Israel?

And so what does he assume? He assumes that there's a spy. He assumes somebody within his inner circle, because this hadn't been broadcast, right? This was top secret classified information about their battle plans, and it got leaked. And so he assumes that somebody leaked it. But what do they say? They know something.

They said, one of his servants said to him, know my Lord, O king, but Elisha the prophet who is in Israel tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom. So he said, go and see where he is that I may send and take him. And it was told him saying, behold, he is in Dothan. He sent horses and chariots and a great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city. I love this. This is why we had to back up and set it up, right? Because for one man, one little prophet, he sends the entire army to surround this town to just destroy him. So he is enraged.

Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, this is Gehazi, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, alas, my master, what shall we do? So he answered, do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Then Elisha prayed and said, oh Lord, I pray open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the servant's eyes and he saw and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. And the story goes on to talk about how the Lord delivered them. But what's the point of sharing that story this morning? How is this connected with Colossians chapter 3?

Who saw these things as they really were? Elisha or Gehazi? And that is essentially what we're talking about this morning. When it comes to our lives, how do we look at our circumstances? Are we seeing things like they really are? Like Elisha did? Or are we looking from a human earthly perspective like Gehazi? Are we blinded to reality? Right?

Sometimes we've got that the other way around. We think, I wanna be, you know, grounded in reality. I'm only gonna look at, you know, what I can see with my own eyes and my own senses. In reality, when you do that, you're blind. You're like Gehazi. You're ignoring the reality that you can't see with your physical eyes, but it's no less true. In fact, maybe it's even more true.

And so, we've come to some really familiar verses this morning in Colossians 3, one through four. And they're right at the beginning of this new chapter, but it's really important that we see that these verses are in a context, right? Because Paul begins with the word therefore, which shows us that this is closely connected with what came before, right? And look at that first phrase, therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ. which is a first-class condition, which is assumed true, we could translate that since. I mean, it's technically not correct, but you get the idea of it a little bit better if we translate it since.

And in other words, Paul is saying, I already told you that you were raised up with Christ. Now, we're going to apply that. Therefore, since you have been raised up with Christ, what? Now, where did Paul introduce that truth? If he's saying that, I've already told you this, where did he introduce it? We gotta go back to chapter two, verses 12 through 13, and Mike pointed this out last week as well, okay?

Chapter 2 12 through 13 says having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised up with him Through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead when you were dead in your transgression Transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh.

He made you alive together with him having forgiven us our transgressions And what I've underlined there is what Paul is now applying here in chapter three. When we accepted Christ as our Savior, there was a death-to-life transaction that God carried out. Now, as a believer, as a Christian, I am dead to the power of the sinful flesh, and I've been made alive together with Christ. Those are the two sides of it, right? And then Paul, that's what Paul presents in 12 and 13, the two sides of this work, that you are now dead to the power of the sinful flesh as well as the world, right? And you are made alive together with Christ.

And then Paul applies that, and he says there are practical ramifications of this. This isn't just theology class. This has practical ramifications. And yet it can be really hard for us when we get to Colossians 3 to see how, you know, how this is all practical, right? But it is. Both our death to sin and our new life in Christ are practical.

And so in the verses that Mike covered last week, Paul introduces in chapter 2, verse 20, he says, and again, first-class conditions. So it's, since you have died with Christ, And then he applies that, and Mike taught us through that section of what's the practical outworking of that? What does that mean for you in your walk? And now, in chapter 3, he's just continuing on.

So we have in 2.20, if you have died with Christ, and you have, in 3.1, therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, and you have, and now he's going to apply it. And so the last couple of weeks, we were talking about the practical application of our death with Christ, right? And let's just review that a little bit, because here's the question that we're really answering, or the question that maybe we're asking is this, how do I control sin in my life?

So Paul is dealing with what's the natural tendency of sinful people. Every honest person, notice I qualify that, okay? Every honest person admits that they sin. But while we know, as Christians, we should know, at least at some point, we had to recognize the fact that Jesus Christ died for our sins. We usually don't know what he's done about our sinful nature. And so most Christians are struggling with sin. And because of that, we come up with all sorts of ways to try to overcome sin, which is what Paul's talking about at the end of chapter two. And what does he say about all those things that we come up with, all those strategies, all those methods that we think will work? What does he say?

They're of no value. It's not gonna work, right? They have no value against fleshly indulgence. So we don't, it's not that we need a better set of rules to live by, okay? It's not that we need a new program to follow. It's not even that we need a stronger conviction of sin in our lives. None of those things will give you the victory over sin that you need. Why?

Because if you're looking for something to help you overcome the power of sin, think about this, if you're looking for something to help you overcome sin's power, then you don't really believe you're dead to it. And that's the problem. If you don't trust the fact that you're dead to sin, then you're just going to keep responding to it. You're going to keep responding to it, and you may have a conviction of sin, and you may feel terrible about it, but nothing that you can do, nothing that you can strive to do, is going to give you the victory over sin, because you're still assuming that it holds power over you. We have to believe God when he says that we've died to sin. That's the only way to be free from its power, is to accept by faith the fact that you have died to sin's power. When we say that you've died to sin's power, that doesn't mean that sin doesn't feel powerful. I mean, when you face some temptation or you're in some circumstance and your flesh is ready to respond, it feels awfully powerful.

Right? But that's looking at things from our perspective, right? Whereas God's Word says you have died to that power. You don't have to respond. You are not a slave any longer to sin. The problem really is that that doesn't make sense to us, right? Because the sin nature seems so powerful, we look at it and we think, how can I be dead to sin when it exerts so much power over me and when I succumb to it so often, right? But the fact is we're just not trusting the Lord when he says that we're free from its power. It makes a lot more sense to us to struggle and fight against sin, right?

That has wisdom in our estimation. That's gonna work in our estimation, right? But in 233, he says these things have the appearance of wisdom. In other words, they're not wisdom. They only have the appearance of wisdom to us. Right? So where do we find out what's true, as opposed to all of the human wisdom that we buy into? John 17, verse 17, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. That's where we find the truth.

Not in some new program, some new system, some teaching, or some old teaching for that matter. These teachings have been around for an awfully long time, right? So long as there's been sin in the world, there have been strategies to try to overcome it. None of them work.

The only thing that gives you victory over sin is what Jesus has done on the cross. Not his death for your sins, but your death with him to sin. Dead to the power of sin. And God's Word says that you as a Christian are dead to sin. Not sort of dead or mostly dead. Dead, dead. There's no such thing as mostly dead, but in the case you didn't, you are dead to sin.

Sin, this is the big truth here, sin only has power over you as a Christian. I've got to be clear on this, this is only true for you as a believer, because only believers have been baptized into Christ so that they participate in his death. As a Christian, sin only has power over you as you allow it.

And how do you allow it? Well, by failing, because we don't actively choose to allow it, right? But we fail to trust God about what he said. In doing so, we're allowing sin to dominate us and to rule us. So talk about practical. How powerful would it be if you could trust all the time that you were dead to sin? That would be an incredible, practical, wonderful reality. Of course, the problem is that we don't.

That's why we continue to succumb to the power of sins, because we're not consistently trusting the fact that we're dead to it. So that's the first side. That's what we've covered in the last couple of weeks. What Paul is doing now is he's turning to the other side of that, right? That's dealing with our death to sin and to the world and to all of its trappings.

And now he's telling us that the Christian life is a lot more than just being free from the power of sin, right? Our death with Christ answers the question How do I control sin in my life? And the answer, that's kind of a trick question, because the answer is that I don't control sin, right? I stand in my freedom from sin. As long as we're asking the question, how do I control sin, we're looking for some strategy, something to choke it out kind of a thing.

And you can't do that. You have to recognize the fact that you've died to its power. And so that's how that question is answered. It's really the wrong question. But it's the question that we're always asking, honestly, in our experience. But it's the wrong question.

To get the right answer is to recognize that we've died to sin's power. But that's the negative side of the Christian life, right? That's answering the sin problem. But the next question is, well, how do I live what we call the positive Christian life, right? We've got the negative side. Well, I'm dead to that. But now, how do I live the Christian life? How do I get the fruit of the Spirit in my life? How do I walk in that righteous way, you know, pleasing to the Lord?

Because remember what Paul said back in chapter one, as he was introducing all this, and he's telling the Colossians about his prayer for them, he says, For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, he's talking about their salvation, he heard that they put their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior. From that day, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Why? So that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. That's what Paul desired to see in the life of every Christian. From the moment he found out they were saved, he began to pray towards his end that they would have a fruitful life, pleasing to the Lord.

The question is, where does that kind of life come from? Remember how Paul introduced this back in 2.13 that we looked at a little while ago. He says, for when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him. That's the answer. That's how we get this kind of fruitful life.

The secret of the Christian life is not a secret, okay? The secret of the Christian life is the fact that you've been made alive together with Christ. And it's not a secret because that's plainly revealed in his word. The only reason we think it's a secret is because we read past it and read over it over and over and over again, not realizing that it's true, often for years and years and years of our Christian walk, right? So it's not a secret. It's plainly revealed in the word that as a believer, you have been made alive together with Christ.

And that brings us to chapter three. And this is really at the heart of what Paul is saying here, because if you look at verses one through four in chapter three, notice in verse one, he's got having been raised up with Christ, out from the death into life, raised up with Christ. Verse three, your life is hidden with Christ in God. And then verse four, he refers to Christ who is our life. So this is what Paul has in view here, is the life that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, before we go any farther, I've already mentioned this, but I want to emphasize again that these verses are incredibly practical because it's really easy to read these verses You know, and we've read them often, but it's really easy to read them and think that this is some sort of vague, mystical teaching.

You know, something for super spiritual Christians, you know. But that's not, that's not at all what this is about. That's not what these verses are teaching. That's not the way the Christian life is, right? These things that we're about to study in verses one through four apply to you every moment of every day of your life.

Just because something is heavenly or spiritual does not mean that it's not practical. Think about Elisha, right? How practical was it that there was a spiritual army surrounding him that was invisible to the human eye? How practical was that? It was an incredibly practical thing to understand and to realize because he was able to walk into that situation in complete dependence on the Lord with total peace about it all and trust the Lord with it.

Well, these verses here are no less practical to us and Lord willing, that's what we're gonna see this morning. So the way that we're going to approach these four verses is we're gonna back way out, and we're gonna answer some really fundamental questions. And I think that in doing that, we're gonna see in a much more concrete way how these verses connect with our life here and now. So let's read Colossians 3, one through four, and then we'll ask some questions.

Therefore, If, and 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 the 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 here's our first question. What is the basic contrast that Paul is pointing to here? In verses 1 and 2, we have the things above. And what's that contrasted with in verse 2? The things that are on the earth. Now, we're gonna back out and we're gonna look at this concept from the 20,000 foot view, okay? Because this right here is one of the most basic distinctions in the whole Bible. Where does this concept first show up?

Genesis 1.1, the very first verse of the Bible, right? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Which means that if you divide the created order up into only two categories, this is it. These are the two categories right here, the heavens and the earth.

And our whole secular education system is geared to twist our minds about the way God has created things in every area, including this one, right? Because we have this idea of the universe that the earth is just this little speck out there somewhere between, you know, these galaxies and it's really not significant. But what the Bible says is that if you look at heaven, if you look at creation or the universe in only two categories, that's it, the earth and everything else outside of it.

So we need to get our minds consistent with what God says about reality, not with what your grade eight science teacher taught you, okay? I mean, not that they didn't have some truth, but it's so distorted. We got to get our minds thinking in line with the Bible. This is the biblical division of reality in God's creation, the heavens and the earth.

And the reason I bring this up is because this makes it concrete, right? And there's, the heavens are created, okay? And biblically speaking, and we won't go into all this this morning, but you have the earth, and then you have, biblically we have heaven, and then heaven, and then the heavens of heavens, the heaven of heavens. Or sometimes it's called the most, what's the term now, I lost it. But I think we'll come to it in a second here. The highest heavens, that's it, the highest heavens. And that's all part of God's creation. So it's concrete.

By the way, if we go all the way to the end of the Bible, what are we still talking about? Second to last chapter, Revelation 21 verse one, what happens? Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth passed away. We're still talking about heaven and earth, God's created order. So if we're going to understand why Paul is telling us to focus on Jesus seated in heaven, then we've got to understand a little bit of the biblical history about heaven and earth.

Okay, what has been going on for the last 6,000 years and how does that apply to you today? You're probably wondering at this point, how is this, how are we going to bring this down from this to where I live today? But let's bear with me, okay? Because we've got to see.

If we're to have our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ in heaven, we've got to see how this is all related. So one of the first points that we want to make, as I already said, is that heaven and earth are both created. Heaven and earth are both created, okay? And then, what kind of picture, if you go through scripture, and I did this a little bit at least while studying for this message, every use of heaven throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, what picture begins to emerge about it? And one of the main things that we get, and you'll see this if you go to this study, and we can't look at all the verses this morning, but is that heaven is seen as the seat of God's governing authority over creation, or his throne. Okay, Isaiah 66 says, Thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. By the way, that encapsulates everything, because heaven and earth is it, in terms of creation, right? And God says, heaven, the part of creation that is my throne is heaven.

And the earth is my footstool. Where then is a house that you could build for me and where is a place that I may rest? Psalm 11 verse four says, the Lord in his holy temple, sorry, the Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold, his eyes examine the sons of men.

So we get this concept, this idea that God Seated on his throne in heaven is looking down upon the earth, observing what's going on on the earth. So God is pictured as a king over all that he has made. And by the way, when we talk about heaven and earth being created, how many of you have conceived of heaven as being as eternal as God? Because of course, we always conceive of God in heaven.

And yet, God can't be contained in heaven. When Solomon is building the temple and he's in praying, he's recognizing the fact that, God, this temple can't contain you. And he says, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you. And so heaven doesn't contain God, heaven doesn't box God in, right? He's eternal, he is omnipresent, right? Which is an attribute of God that existed before there was anywhere to be present, right?

But still. God created heaven and in part for the purpose of having a localized place where it could be said of him that this is his throne. And so the concept is that this is the place from which God rules over his creation. So that's why we say God is pictured as a king over all that he has made. But God didn't choose to directly rule over the earth part of his creation, right? And this is all part of his plan. What did he do?

It's laid out really clearly in Genesis chapter one. Okay, when God describes the creation of man, and Genesis is, especially in the first few chapters, is extremely compact. Any word that's used in those chapters is really important, because the words are few and carefully chosen. And so it says, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them.

And then it tells us something about his purpose for them, God's purpose. God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So what's going on here? Right, God's plan and design, his design specs. There's an engineer that, what's God, what are God's, what is God designing Adam and Eve for? To rule over the earth under his authority. Essentially, Adam, in these verses, is being made, God is being made God's representative ruler over the earth. That's really big, really important, and we'll see why in a little while.

But what happened? We all know what happened, right? Genesis chapter 3, Adam ate a piece of fruit, right? So what's the big deal? When we think of it as a child's story, like, oh, he ate a fruit, and that's pretty bad. No, no. What was Adam doing? Adam was rebelling against God's authority. Adam, who had been placed as a ruler over the earth under God's authority, rebelled against God's authority in order to obey Satan.

And that's kind of a big deal, okay? And the ramifications of that are huge, because in Adam's one act of rebellion, the entire human race, everyone who had come forth from him, was sold into slavery to sin. That's what Paul calls it in Romans 7. He says, sold into slavery to sin. And he says, I am of the flesh. When was the flesh sold into slavery to sin? Right here, Genesis chapter three. Adam, grandpa, sold the human race into slavery to sin. Okay, and so Adam's race and the whole earth over which he was placed in authority fell into the hands of Satan.

And that's why throughout the rest of the Bible, we see these terms used for Satan and we're like, well, who made him king? But in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul calls Satan the God of this age. In Ephesians 2.2, he calls him the prince of the power of the air. But Jesus actually makes the most clear description of Satan. In John 14, verse 30, Jesus calls Satan the ruler of this world. Jesus himself calls Satan the ruler of this world. When did Satan become the ruler of this world?

Right there, Genesis 3. This is really, really big stuff. And from that point on, from Genesis 3 on, the Bible records God's plan to undo what Adam did. Because right away, what's the first thing that God says? In Genesis 3, he comes back and he's explaining the consequences to them. And what does he promise?

A seed, the seed of the woman. What does that mean? It's actually a very specific title, right? This seed, this person is born of a woman, Which tells us that he's a genuine man. He has to be. I don't know anyone who's had puppies, but if you're born of a woman, you are a man. But importantly, he's not Adam's descendant. That's the key. He's the seed of the woman. Which means that he is not born into the same slavery that all of Adam's race has been born into.

That's the promise right there in Genesis 3. And what is the specific promise regarding the son? So we have the seed of the woman, but what does God say he's going to do? It says that he would crush or bruise, depending on your translation, the head of the serpent. The idea there is a fatal wound, okay, that this seed of the woman is going to have victory where Adam failed.

So the idea is that this son would be able to replace Adam as the ruler of the earth under God. That's what God is promising, a second Adam, the last Adam. And of course we know, we're talking about this without using his name, but his name wasn't given at this point in time, but we know that this is Jesus. We know that Jesus is the fulfillment of this promise. God, God the Son, incarnated himself as a man and he came to earth To do what? To present himself as that promised seed. To present himself to mankind as the one who God had promised to send. The man who would overcome Satan and rule the earth under God the Father's authority.

And isn't that exactly what Jesus preached? It's all over the Gospels. What do you see? In the early part of the Gospels, it says that Jesus went out proclaiming what? The kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God, is at hand. What does that mean? It's everything that we were just talking about, right?

Jesus was coming as this promised seed, the one who would do what Adam failed to do. He's a representative of God's heavenly authority. He's a representative of God's throne on the earth. And he's saying, I have come to re-institute God's reign over the earth through me. That's what Jesus is saying. And this is perfectly portrayed in what we know as the Lord's Prayer.

Matthew, you can call it whatever you want, but Matthew 6, verses 9 and 10, Jesus says, Our Father, who is where? In heaven. Hallowed be your name, you're holy, you're set apart, right? Your what? Your kingdom come, your will be done where? On earth, as it is in heaven. So it's right here in the Lord's prayer that he's saying, this is what you're praying for.

That God's kingdom would be reinstituted over the earth So that your will is done on the earth the same way it is done in heaven. Because remember, heaven didn't fall when Adam fell and the earth fell into the hands of Satan. Heaven remained separate in that sense. Satan doesn't have dominion over heaven, he does over earth.

And so what Jesus is saying, this is what we're looking for, guys. This is what we're praying for and looking towards. That is fundamentally what Jesus is all about, the rule of God over the earth, okay, through a man, because that was God's initial plan. That was his original plan is that earth would be ruled by a man.

Now, what happened? Okay, did the kingdom begin? No, Jesus was rejected. So Jesus came to present himself as this king. but he was rejected, right? Mankind killed the seed. Way to go, right? He finally came into the world after 4,000 years of waiting, and what did they do? John 1, 11 says, he came to his own and his own received him not. Jesus, looking forward to this, explained it in parable form in Matthew 21. This to me is just, wow.

You've got this parable of the vine growers, or the vineyard, and the vineyard owner, right? And Jesus is explaining how harvest time comes, and the owner keeps sending servants to gather the produce of the vineyard, and they keep... beating them up, throwing them out, you know. And finally, let's read it, it says, but when the vine, so Jesus, sorry, the owner of the vineyard sends his son, right? And he says, well, they'll respect my son, right? But when the vine growers saw this son, they said to themselves, this is the heir. Come, let's kill him and seize his inheritance. They took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

That's what the world did with Jesus. That's what the world did with the Son of God, who was sent to be the Savior, right? And of course we understand, right, that that death was necessary in order to save us, but part and parcel of that is that it was the world's rejection of him.

See, because he came to a world that was hostile against him, that means the world couldn't accept him. The world wouldn't have him. The God of this world would not have him. He wouldn't allow this intrusion. And so they threw him out and killed him. And that might seem like the end of the road for this whole story, the whole promised seed, right? He's been killed. But of course, we know he didn't stay dead, right? He was resurrected.

And that, this is where we really want to begin to focus our attention because we're moving in closer and closer to what we're talking about here in Colossians 3, because Jesus was resurrected as a brand new kind of man. Paul tells us that the resurrection is like a sower sowing seed in the ground. You don't plant a tree, you plant a seed. And he says that the body is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body or an incorruptible body.

And so Jesus, he didn't just come back to life. He was resurrected and there's a big difference, right? Because we get this confused all the time because we see people that were raised from the dead. You know, Jesus himself raised several people from the dead.

That's not the same thing as what happened to Jesus. Totally different thing happened. Those people were resuscitated is a better word, frankly, because they came back in the same body, just fixed up. Jesus didn't come back in the same body fixed up. Jesus came back in the resurrection body, which is like the seed that goes into the ground and grows a tree.

There's a connection, but it's not the same thing. It's a new thing. A new thing has begun with the resurrection. And then what happened? Now we're getting closer and closer, okay? Jesus didn't—he stayed on the earth for 40 days, right? But then what? Where did he go? He ascended to heaven. Why? We've got to connect this now with what we know about heaven. What is heaven? What did we say? What is the biblical picture of heaven? Heaven is God's throne. Heaven is the seat of God's authority over the creation. Why did Jesus have to go there?

By the way, we're good for time. By the way, nobody has to go home and make lunch. It's waiting for us downstairs, so if you run a little long, don't sweat it, and please stay. What's going on with this, right? Why did Jesus have to go to heaven? And if you were raised in Sunday school, like me, you assume that all throughout history, every believer who has died has gone to heaven. Sound like what we've been taught? Biblically speaking, and I wouldn't say I challenge you, but I invite you to search this out in the scriptures. You do not have record of believers going to heaven throughout biblical history. You have record of believers going to Sheol, okay? Or a part of Sheol, known as paradise, or Jesus refers to it as Abraham's bosom, a place of waiting.

Waiting for what? Waiting for the resurrection. And where will they be resurrected? On the earth. But you don't have this concept of people going to heaven. What I firmly believe, and I've been studying this, just kind of keeping my eyes open as I study scripture over several years, is that Jesus Christ is the first man to ever go to heaven. And so when Jesus was talking to his disciples in, see this gets, you're like, what?

Nobody has been saved. No, no, no, it's not what, people are waiting the resurrection. They're saved, eternally saved. They're not going to hell because they didn't go to heaven, right? But there'll be resurrection on the earth. Jesus went to heaven okay, as a man, and it's very critical that we see that.

So when Jesus is explaining this to his disciples, we see it a lot in John 14 through 17 on that last night before the crucifixion, Jesus starts to tell these things about, I'm going somewhere, and they're like, where are you going? What are you talking about? And he's like, where I go, you cannot follow me now, but then he says, but you will follow me later, And they're just scratching their heads. And finally he says, I came from the Father in heaven and I'm returning to the Father in heaven.

And they're like, oh, now you're speaking plainly. And, but they had a really hard time with this because they didn't conceive of people dying and going to heaven, but Jesus did. And so we're answering the question, why did Jesus go to heaven? Well, this is something that's pictured in the Old Testament at least twice that really clearly that I could think of in both Joseph and Daniel, okay? Joseph in Egypt went from being a slave, imprisoned in the dungeon, Right?

Daniel went from being an exile, imprisoned, you know, or taken as a slave to Babylon, and both of them were taken from really the lowest rung on the totem pole, and they were exalted to the right hand of the world superpower of their day. Nebuchadnezzar is actually called the King of Kings, which is a term, I remember we always saying that, King of Kings, and I thought that only refers to Jesus, and then you get to Nebuchadnezzar, and he's called the King of Kings, and you're like, what? Well, the King of Kings is a Hebraism for the greatest king, the highest king. Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful king in the world, so he could share that title with the coming king of the world, King of Kings. And anyway, in both cases, both Joseph and Daniel were exalted to the highest place of authority from the absolute lowest.

That's what pictures what happened to Jesus. He went from the cross where he placed himself at the absolute lowest place. He took our place as sinners condemned to death and died in our place, and from that point, from that death, God the Father exalted him all the way to his right hand at his throne in heaven. And I think, If you understand this, you're gonna understand what the significance of something that happens in Acts chapter 7, and maybe you've, I mean, I've read this so many times and not really thought a lot about what's, what is going on here, but in Acts chapter 7, right, shortly after what? Jesus' ascension to heaven, right?

Stephen is on trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin, and near the end of his defense, or at the end of his defense, the Sanhedrin is getting ready to kill him. They're totally outraged. And what does the Lord give Stephen? He gives him this glimpse of heaven and pay attention to his words. But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God. And where's Jesus?

Standing at the right hand of God and said, behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man Purposefully using that title. I see the son of man standing at the right hand of God. That little statement that we've probably read so many times is an awful lot bigger than I think I have realized in the past anyway. It's not just Stephen saying, oh look, Jesus is in heaven. What Stephen is doing is he's giving eyewitness testimony to the fact that God the Father has placed Jesus, a man, at His right hand. at the right hand of his throne in heaven. Stephen is testifying to that fact, his eyewitness testimony to the position that Jesus holds now at the Father's right hand. And when Jesus arrived in heaven, God the Father exalted him to that highest position of authority under him alone.

We see this We see this really clearly actually in Philippians 2. So let's read that. Have this attitude in yourselves. This is so familiar, right? But hopefully in light of what we're studying and looking at, something's jumped out at you here. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. He was a man, right? Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself. He took the lowest place by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

And for this reason also, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

That is so significant. Jesus is exalted above every name, not just above every other man, but above every created being. Hebrews 1, three through four says, and he, Jesus, is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature and upholds all things by the power of his word. When he had made purifications for sin on the cross, right, what did he do? He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as he has inherited a more excellent name than they." This is all over the New Testament. Jesus Christ has been placed at the highest seat of authority as a man above every single power and principality that exists under God the Father alone, submitted only to him.

And what we're saying is, just to boil it down, is this. As a man, Jesus has been made king over God's creation. He's solved the problem that began back in Genesis 3. But let's make a really important clarification here, right? Because we don't wanna mess it up at this point. Just because Jesus has been given that position of authority in heaven at the Father's right hand, above all power and authority, does not mean that he's exercising it on the earth today.

Hebrews 2, seven through eight says this, you have made him for a little while lower than the angels. Okay, this is, he came as a man. Notice the terminology, it's really clear, lower than the angels. You have now crowned him with glory and honor and have appointed him over the works of your hands. Notice how this parallels Genesis chapter one. Right? Appointed him over the works of your hands, your creation. And you have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in subjecting all things to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. But notice the last clause. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.

And that is one of the really, most of the church out there today believes that the kingdom is going on now, that the church is the kingdom, that this is God's reign and rule over the earth. And that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that he has been given all authority in the heavenly places, but he is not exercising it over the earth as king in the way that he one day will. Okay. Jesus will not reign over the earth until he returns to earth from heaven. We see that so beautifully depicted in Revelation 19. John says, Who else? Just like Stephen, right? What does he see?

And behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. This is Jesus.

And what happens? And the armies, which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it he may strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, and he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty. And on his robe and on his thigh, he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. the king over all kings. That's who Jesus Christ is. This is the day when Jesus Christ will begin his reign as king, when he returns to the earth and sets his feet down on the soil of this earth and establishes his kingdom once and for all.

Where does this leave us? You're still wondering, how is this connecting? We haven't even really looked at the text of Colossians 3 yet, right? But I promise that this would be practical. How does this connect? What is the practical benefit of knowing that Jesus is seated in heaven? Or does this only have to do with the future, when he returns to reign? Because they said he's not reigning as king right now, so what is the big deal with all this? What in Colossians 3 would tell us that this has to do with our lives today?

It's because of the way Paul says it. He says, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. That's a present tense imperative verb, which means that we are supposed to be constantly aware of the fact that Jesus is enthroned in heaven with all power. We are to be living here on earth in light of that heavenly reality. But why? Why does that matter? Think about Elisha and Gehazi, okay? Why was Gehazi so terrified?

All that he could see was this massive human army surrounding them. All that he could see was the human side of things. And from the human perspective, this was what you would call a hopeless situation. But by contrast, why was Elisha totally at peace? Because he was looking at things with his eyes opened to the spiritual reality. He was looking at things from a heavenly perspective. He saw what was going on in the spiritual realm.

So what about in your life? What's going on in your life that seems like a hopeless situation? What is it that you can't even think about because if you think about it too long, it's just going to suffocate you? What is it that's overwhelming you today?

It could be that you're facing some really scary health challenges and you don't know what the outcome is going to be. Or it could be that a friend or a loved one has turned against you, maybe even your spouse. Maybe it's financial trouble. Maybe you're broke and you don't know how you're gonna pay the bills next month. Maybe you're struggling with an addiction and it just seems hopeless. Maybe your kids have walked away from the Lord and you don't know how they'll ever return.

And if we're seeing our situation like Gahazy, then it's hopeless. All we see is the human level of this conflict, of this battle. And we're looking around at our own resources and we're thinking, okay, what can I... And we throw all of our might against this problem that we face. And what happens? Nothing, or sometimes it just gets worse, or we solve the problem only by creating three more problems, and whatever happens, it's not a spiritual victory. It's a failure.

So what are we missing? Like Gehazi, we're ignoring the spiritual reality. Paul tells us in Ephesians that our basic struggle in life is not on the earthly plane. Our basic struggle, the conflict in which we are engaged, is not what we see with our eyes and what we take in with our senses.

Ephesians 6.12 says very clearly, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

And you as a believer, we as the church, are engaged in a spiritual battle. And the way that you respond in the battle says everything about where your eyes are, how you are looking at the battle. Are you setting your mind on the things of the earth? your resources? Are you depending on your strength? Or are you aware that your situation is tied to the conflict that rages in the heavenly places?

Because in your life, in our walk here in this world, Jesus wants to put his life on display through you. He wants to display his character through you. He wants your life and your walk to be a testimony to who he is. That's what the fruit of the spirit is all about. That's not what we produce, that's what we bear as he produces through us. Right? And that's what he desires, that's what he wants.

And Satan isn't just gonna sit idly by and tolerate that. He's doing everything that he can to overwhelm you and defeat you and cause you to fall. And we have to understand that that is what is behind all of our earthly circumstances and trials that we can only see in their earthly makeup. But we have to understand that we are no match in ourselves for the spiritual forces behind all these things waging war against us.

Elisha didn't go out and fight against the Syrian army. He stood still and he allowed the Lord to give him victory. I love his words. He says, do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. And when we face circumstances from an earthly perspective, right, that are hopeless from an earthly perspective, we need to recognize that we are in a spiritual battle, not an earthly battle. And we're not in this battle alone. Because the one who is with us is greater than any spiritual enemy.

Jesus' words, right before he ascended to heaven, are really instructive. This is one of the things he said to his disciples, right at the end of Matthew, Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying what? Notice how this is all tied in with what we've been talking about. He says, This is tied together, or you could translate this as you're going, therefore, but either way, in light of that reality, that I'm going to heaven to be granted all authority from the Father, in light of that, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, and then this line, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. If you only, if you, we've talked about a lot this morning, some of you, you know, it's been too much, but if you only, if you only remember one thing from this morning, let it, let it be this, that Jesus is with you.

Jesus is with you. And He has been given all authority, all power in heaven and on earth. There is no greater power in the entire universe. And when we're depending on Jesus, that's the power that is at work in us. And so, as we said, he's not reigning as king over the earth right now. He is at work in you. He is your life in order to live through you. And he has no shortage of power.

And this takes us back to a phrase in a paper that we handed out when we were beginning Colossians, something by a lady named Jan McMurray, and it was just kind of a personal little anecdote, but the title of it or the main line of it anyway, was this, for this, I have Jesus.

And she was talking about some of the trials and difficulties that believers go through in that paper. And this was her thought, for this, I have Jesus. And if you hear that statement and you're thinking, well, that's a nice saying, maybe we should put that on the refrigerator, you don't get it.

If that's all you think it is, you don't get it. Because when you understand who Jesus is, then these words carry infinite power. No matter what you are facing, or no matter what you will face in the future, no matter how powerful the forces against you are, you can face them, and you can say, for this very moment, I have Jesus. And he's enough. and he will deliver you, which doesn't mean by the way that he will necessarily take you out of the difficulty or bring it to an end. In fact, usually not, right? But through the trial, it would be an easy thing for the Lord to remove you from the trial. How much more powerful to give you peace when you should be afraid. to give you joy when you're suffering, to give you love for those who hate you.

That is deliverance. That is victory the way God sees it. That is the kind of deliverance that Jesus has for you. And you think about that, right? If you can know his love, his joy, his peace, all of these things, if you can know those things in the midst of your trial, then you don't need to be removed from the trial, right? You already have victory. And that's what it means. That's what it means that Jesus, that I have Jesus. That's what it means that he is enough. That's what it means to have Jesus as our life.

And that's why Paul says, seek the things above where Christ is seated. If you were to see heaven opened like Stephen did, right? You would see Jesus seated on the throne at the Father's right hand, clothed with all power and authority and all strength, high above every power and principality and all creation. And you would understand that he is the head of the body of the church, that he is able to exercise that power through you by his spirit. If you could see heaven opened like Stephen, but we don't need to, do we?

We don't need to have a vision of heaven like Stephen had because all of these things are laid out in the word of God. All of these things have been made plain and revealed to us in the Bible. And so we should know without having a vision of heaven, we can know that these things are true. And it's as we know this, as we see this in the Word, and as we depend on it, that we discover the victory that's ours in Jesus Christ.

And we should all pray like Elisha. Lord, open our eyes that we may see. We need to see this reality because it affects everything, everything we do, everything we face all day long, every day from now until the day that we go to be with him in heaven where he is. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we love you. We thank you for what you have done through your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is awesome to just scratch the surface of who He is. We thank you that you have so masterfully orchestrated the history of this whole created order in such a way that your Son, God Himself, would become a man and live for all eternity in that state as God and man, so that he could be placed in that position of authority over your creation, just like you always intended.

And not only that he could hold that place, but that we could be joined to him. that we could be united to him in such a way that he is the head of the body, lives his life through us with all that power, with that limitless power and authority, not ours at all, but his and available to be lived out through us as we depend on him by faith. Lord, we pray that you would open our eyes, that you'd make these things more and more real to us as we face the real things of life, the difficulties, the challenges, the frustrations, the things that seem hopeless. And we just pray, Lord, that we would begin to walk by faith more and more, and that we would begin to understand and realize the deliverance and the victory that is ours, not out of the trial, in most cases, but through the trial, that the Lord Jesus would be glorified through us as the world sees something in us that is totally supernatural, not of us, but of Him. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.