Christ Our Life

Good morning. It's great to be here with all of you together this morning, and great to open the Word of God with you. You know, that song, thanks to God for all things, and just the line, you know, thanks for the the thorns on the roses, and I thought, my mind's kind of going, I was like, okay, the thorns and the thistles, that's the result of man's sin, and yet if you think about it, why did God bring in the thorns and the thistles at all, right?

That in itself is not a punishment, it's an act of grace in itself that God would allow us to see the consequences, the harm that sin has has brought upon us. If it wasn't for those things, we'd be a little bit clueless to it. But God has allowed us, as sinners, hostile rebels against him, to see that sin is an awful thing. So yeah, thank God for thorns and for suffering and trials and all these things as well.

Before we begin the passage here, let's just open with a word of prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be gathered together this morning to look at your word. Lord, just reminded this morning just how packed your word is, how much is contained in even a short section of verses like this. And Lord, the things that we have to learn from it this morning are truly awesome. And we pray that you would teach us this morning by your spirit as we spend this time together. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Now you may be wondering, why are we looking at the same verses again? Is this deja vu? Didn't we just look at this last week? And yes, we did. So to answer the question, Roger. He said, Miles, you didn't finish the verses. And I said, you're right, I didn't.

And this is kind of one of the things that happens when we're sharing kind of team teaching and sharing the teaching responsibility, and everything's kind of scheduled out. And I take the blame for this, because I made the schedule. And I put verses 1 through 4 as one Sunday. And then I got to preparing it. you know, brought the message they did last week.

And there's so much to unpack and unfold and to talk about that I really hardly dealt with the, you know, the text of the verses themselves. And so, you know, last week we stepped way back and we looked at everything from this, you know, huge, you know, we called it a 20,000 foot view of what's going on here.

And we really were trying to answer the question What does it mean that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father? Just that one little thing, that one simple little phrase. What does that mean? What's all contained in that? And just exploring that unfolds huge, huge concepts, huge biblical themes.

And so we spent most of our time on that. And the exhortation was to be focused on Jesus Christ, where he is in heaven, to understand that he's seated at the Father's right hand above all power and principality, and that we can depend on him in every situation and circumstance. But we want to now focus in closely on what is said in these four verses. So that's what we're hoping to do this morning. To start out, we've got to review what we talked about last week because those themes are so big and so important. We have to have that clearly in focus and clearly in mind as we kind of go into the verse by verse.

So let's review. And I also want to hopefully make a few clarifications as we go. Now, nobody came to me after the service last week to say, hey, what was that all about? So I'm not sure. if there was any, you know, consternation about anything I said or not. But, you know, if there ever is, please feel free to come to me. I mean, I know Mike and Roger feel the same way, and share what's going through your mind as we're walking through some of this stuff.

But let's just review what we talked about last week, because what Paul is dealing with here is one of the most fundamental distinctions in the whole Word of God. And we see right in this passage in verse 1, we have this keep seeking the things above. So we have this one, whatever the things above is, right? But we know that it's where Christ is seated, at the right hand of God. And then in verse two, he says, set your mind on these things which are above, not on things that are on the earth. And so we've got this contrast between heaven and earth.

And I just wanna run through kind of a bullet point here, and you've got them all in your handout, some of the things that we observed just textually last week. Now if you're thinking, whoa, where are you getting all this from? Maybe go back and listen to last week's message or come talk to me and we can give some more scriptural backing for these things. But these are all pretty basic points that come out of scripture.

So the first thing that we said about heaven and earth is that they are both created. And sometimes we have a bit of a confused mindset about that because we think, well, heaven is where God is and God has been forever. And so heaven has been forever.

But if you go back and read Genesis 1.1, what does it say? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And so heaven is, our second point, heaven is as much a real place as earth is a real place. Okay. Number three, heaven is described as the location of God's throne.

And this connects to the fact that heaven is a created place, right? God—and doesn't contain God, right? God is eternal, he's infinite, he's omnipresent, he's not contained by any created space like we are, right? And so he doesn't need heaven to exist, right? But if you just go through scripture and observe the way heaven is talked about over and over again, you'll find out that heaven is the place where God has chosen to rule over his creation from.

In other words, this is his throne, right? God's throne over the creation is heaven. And fourth point, after God created heaven and earth, what did he do? He placed a man, Adam, the first man, over the earth to rule it. And that rule was under God's authority, okay? Very clearly laid out in the Genesis text. But what did Adam do, right?

He failed. Adam was not successful in that role. He rebelled against God. And essentially in doing so, he handed over the entire world to Satan's control. Jesus calls Satan the ruler of this world. Okay, so in doing what Adam did and rebelling against God and the authority that God had over him, Adam was forfeiting his role, essentially, as the caretaker or the ruler. Really, it's a kingly duty that God gave him, and forfeiting that to Satan.

And what does God do almost immediately? He comes in Genesis 3, and And he outlined some of the consequences, like we were just talking about, thorns and thistles, which really are a gracious thing, right? So that we are aware of the fact that there's a problem in this world. But he also did something else really, really significant, okay? He promised that there would be what's called the seed of the woman. And as we said last week, that promise is very, very specific. Why the seed of the woman? Why this strange language? Women don't have seed. So what's going on here?

Well, the idea is that this would be a man because he's born to a woman, but he wouldn't be a descendant of Adam, and that's really, really important. Because this promised seed, this promised savior would have victory where Adam failed. as a genuine man. He had to be. He had to be a man in order to fulfill God's original intended purpose. And so this promised seed would rule the world under God the Father, just as Adam was supposed to do.

And we know that this is what we speak of all throughout the Old Testament as the Messiah, right? The anointed, promised, coming Messiah. And he's prophesied all throughout the Old Testament. And we see, just go read the prophecies, right? He is this man, who would come to rule the entire earth with perfect peace and justice. That's the seed promise. And of course, we know that that's fulfilled in Jesus Christ, right? Jesus is the promised seed, the promised Messiah.

And so when Jesus came to earth, that's exactly what he came to do. And, you know, we often think, you know, in hindsight, we think, well, that Jesus came to die on the cross, and that's true. But if you're going back and read the Gospels, what did he come preaching? Actually, you go back farther than that, what did the angels announce when Jesus came? Just look at Gabriel's announcement to Mary.

And of course, we're coming into the Christmas season, right? And we're talking about some of the things for the Christmas program. What's really interesting is to go read some of the classic Christmas carols. Many of them, I was gonna throw out a percentage, I can't do that, but so many of them make reference to the newborn king. You never notice that? How prominent the kingly role is in our Christmas carols?

Well, this is why. Because when he was announced, he was announced as a king. So let's read what Gabriel says. The angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in your womb, this is the seed. This is no man involved here, okay? In your womb and bear a son and you shall call him Jesus. Now this is what we're after here.

He will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end. Now we haven't gone here today and fleshed out all this about David and his son who would reign and so forth, but it's all tied together. This is the, the seed of the woman, the son of Abraham, the son of David, who would take the throne. And we know that much more, if we can read other prophecy, much more than just ruling over the land of Israel, the nation of Israel, this is going to be a global kingdom, right, beginning in Jerusalem and spreading over the entire earth.

And so Jesus came, announced as a king, and then what do we see him preaching and teaching as he begins his earthly ministry? The kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now, when we hear that, we think, well, wait a second, didn't we just say Jesus came to be king over the earth? Why is he preaching the kingdom of heaven? Well, that's what the kingdom of heaven is, right? When the New Testament talks about the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, what that means is that Jesus would reign on the earth under God's the Father's authority, so that this earthly kingdom would be a heavenly kingdom on earth. Jesus would represent heaven's authority on the earth. So it is the kingdom of heaven over earth. But what happened, and this is where it's really key, and we pointed this out last week, that kingdom didn't come, did it? Right? Why?

Because Jesus was not accepted as a king, he was rejected, and he went to the cross. And that is really critical to understand that even though Jesus came, he offered himself as the one, the promised one, who would fulfill this role that had been prophesied all through history. The kingdom didn't come at that time. And instead, Jesus went to the cross, which was necessary if there was ever gonna be salvation provided to the rest of us, right? And so Jesus went to the cross. But what next, right? Because he didn't stay dead. And after the cross, Jesus was resurrected. Now this is really important to understand, is that as a resurrected man, Jesus is still a man, okay?

Which is part of the reason I think that he spent 40 days on the earth after the resurrection, because what was he doing? He was like, hey, you guys have some food. And why? Because he was over and over demonstrating to them, I'm a real flesh and bone man. still a man.

So this resurrection body that Jesus came back in isn't something spooky and, you know, otherworldly. No, this is Jesus Christ was resurrected as a man. But we also recognize in that short while there that Jesus wasn't going to be sticking around for long. 40 days after that, he ascended to heaven, and he was seated at the Father's right hand.

And this is where we begin to see the connection with our verses here in Colossians. This is the thing that Paul wants us to think about. He wants us to understand what it means that Jesus is seated at the Father's right hand, because what's going on there is that Jesus is being exalted and glorified by God the Father being placed in this position, which is really a place of authority and power. Ultimate authority and power as a man. Because we kind of think about that, well, Jesus, he's God. He's always had that kind of authority and power for all eternity, right?

But not as a man. Only when Jesus was incarnated and came to earth to be born of a woman did he become the God-man. And if you read in Jesus' prayer in John 17 and some of the other language around that section, and we'll be looking at a little bit of that here at one point today, but Jesus is saying, with the glory which I had with you before the world was. So as God, he had that glory, but not as the God-man.

And now what we have is that the God-man, someone who is qualified to be this Messiah King, has been exalted to the highest place of authority in the entire universe, okay? And we as the church are united to him there. That's what's behind all of this that we're talking about here. So that's kind of a review of what we went through last week. But I just wanted to pause and clarify something that I said last week that may have caused some confusion and I hope I can clarify a little bit this morning. I said that Jesus was the first man to ever enter heaven. Anybody, you can show your hand if you want. Is that, where are you getting that from, right?

Well, I said that based on the fact that the Old Testament always portrays man as descending into this place of the dead, sometimes called Sheol, and it's always, you know, sometimes it just talks about them, you know, going to sleep with their fathers, you know, but it's this place where the dead are, right?

And they go there, waiting for what? Waiting for resurrection. And if you put all the pieces together and kind of comb through the scripture, what you find out is that they're not going to heaven. They're going to a place where they're awaiting a resurrection, this place called, let's just look at a few scriptures that show this. Right in the last chapter of Daniel, talking about the resurrection, we read, many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground, will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt." So you get there the idea that there's all of the dead, believers and unbelievers, are awaiting their resurrection. Some will be resurrected to everlasting life, and others are going to be resurrected and enter into judgment, okay?

We can also look at the very end of that chapter, the last couple of verses in the book of Daniel, and the Lord tells Daniel, you know, Go your way, because Daniel's kind of puzzling over some of these strange things that are being revealed to him. And the Lord's just kind of like, it's okay, Daniel, you don't have to understand it all. Go, you're gonna die, someday you're gonna be resurrected. So Ezekiel 37, 12 through 14 also gives us some interesting insight into this.

It says, therefore prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people. and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people. I will put my spirit within you and you will come to life and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it, declares the Lord.

So you have this picture of being laid in the dust of the earth and someday being resurrected on the earth. And then we have a New Testament example where Jesus is talking to Martha after Lazarus has died, right? And Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. And Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.

So there's this clear understanding of death and resurrection, but always the context is, you know, being laid in the dust of the earth, going to where the dead are, awaiting resurrection on the earth. Always a concept that you'll read about, okay? So going to heaven, the way we kind of think of it, isn't something that Old Testament believers looked forward to. They expected, and rightly so, to be resurrected someday on the earth when the Messiah came to establish his kingdom.

And when Jesus died, he went to the same place that every Old Testament believer went. What did he say on the cross to the thief that died? He said, today, you will be with me in paradise. That's not heaven, okay? That's the place where Old Testament believers wait for the resurrection. Jesus calls it Abraham's bosom in Luke 16. And that's where he went. And it's from that place, Sheol, is the Old Testament word, that Jesus was resurrected. He came out from among the dead. That's the way the Greek often expresses it, out from among the dead. So Jesus died, went to this place where every dead person goes, and then was resurrected out of that place.

And 40 days after being resurrected on the earth, Jesus was taken up to heaven, the first man to be taken there. Does that kind of connect the dots a little bit more now why I said Jesus is the first man to go to heaven? And I don't mean to get us all sidetracked in all of this, you know, details and stuff about resurrection, the Old Testament concept, and did they go to heaven or not, except to make the point that Jesus going to heaven is really, really significant. Because nobody had ever done that. Jesus was the first man who ever was ascended to heaven to be where God is and to be seated on his throne. Okay, so this is an absolutely unique thing, and that's important to understand.

We could look at one scripture here where Peter, in Acts chapter 2, right, he's talking about Jesus' ascension to heaven, and he quotes something from King David that if you—now with this in view, hopefully it stands out to you and is a little bit clearer. It is, for it was not David who ascended into heaven, But he himself says, David said, and he's quoting David, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand. So what Peter's pointing out is that David looks at this ascending to heaven very closely tied to being placed at the father's right hand, seated at the father's right hand.

Until when? Until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet, which is referring to Jesus' return to take the kingdom. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Christ whom you crucified." And so that's just another picture of the fact that David died and he didn't go to heaven.

Jesus died, he was resurrected already, and he's gone to heaven. And Peter's contrasting it too, and he's pointing out the significance of that. He's using it actually as a proof for just who Jesus is, right? And it's a very powerful proof. So that's what we were talking about last week.

And another thing that's really important to understand is that, that maybe I didn't clarify all that well last week, is that while Old Testament believers didn't go to heaven, right? And while we can, I think we can say here fairly certainly that Jesus did go to heaven, What I didn't make clear is that the church also goes to heaven. Church-age believers, those who are part of the body of Christ, either when you die or at the moment of the rapture, you will be taken to be with Jesus Christ in heaven.

Okay, and that's when Jesus was in that upper room conversation that Jesus had with his disciples on the night that he was betrayed, he begins to kind of hint at and open up a lot of these things to his disciples. And so we can look at, it's in John 13 through 17 where we see Jesus teaching all these things and Jesus starts to talk about going, returning to the Father. And the disciples are very puzzled by this. And in John 13, 36, Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going? And Jesus answers this, where I go, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow later, pointing to the fact that they are going to follow him and they're going to be with him where he is.

And then the reference that we all are very familiar with in chapter 14, John 14, verse three, Jesus says, if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be also. So the place that Jesus Christ has been given in heaven at the Father's right hand is a place that we share. We share that position with him.

And think about Stephen's words when he was martyred. We talked about Stephen last week and how he was given this vision of Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of the Father, right? But shortly thereafter, he was killed, right? But if you remember Stephen's words, in Acts 7, verse 59, it says, they went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, what?

Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Stephen had an understanding of the fact that the moment he died, his spirit, not his body, right, but his spirit would go to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. Which is a little, like, different, right? Because Jesus is there in his body. We, as believers, when we die, we go to be with the Lord Jesus in spirit.

And Paul talked about this in Philippians. Philippians 1, verses 21 through 24. And someone asked me a little while ago about you know, where we go when we die, or something defective. I think they kind of had the concept of, sorry, like a soul sleep, that we just go into an unconscious state of, you know, I don't, you've heard those kinds of things, right? But this is what, and this was the passage that the Lord led me to correct that thinking. This is from Philippians 1, where Paul says, for to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

But if I'm to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me, and I do not know which to choose. I love that phrase. I don't know. I'm kind of torn between these two options here. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to what?

To depart and be with Christ. To depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better. Yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. So Paul also had this understanding that when he departed at physical death, his spirit would go to be with the Lord Jesus Christ in conscious existence, or it wouldn't mean anything, right? And so that's the one way that we can go to be with the Lord Jesus Christ is through death, right? Hallelujah.

But hopefully, this is the case first. Paul talks about the rapture to the Thessalonians, and so whether you go to be with the Lord in the rapture or through death, or go to be with the Lord at the rapture, you're still going to be with the Lord Jesus. And this is how he describes it. He says, And 1 Thessalonians, especially 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Paul has a lot to say about things that are to come. And we get a lot of these real gems that give us a clearer picture of what the church has to look forward to, and particularly the rapture. And this is one of those verses. But notice that it's described as our gathering together to him.

That's what the rapture is. So if you haven't died by the time the church is complete, you're gonna go in the rapture to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. So hopefully this clarifies some of what I said last week, because, you know, what we need to understand is that for the last 2,000 years, Jesus has been gathering the church together to himself, where he is, right? And when that's complete, at the rapture, and then after the tribulation period, what?

Then Jesus comes back to reign on this earth, and he brings us, the church, with him. We're gonna see that in this morning's verses when we get there. But finally, Jesus will establish his reign on the earth, the kingdom of heaven on earth, Jesus representing God's heavenly throne on the earth as a man, right? Jesus will fulfill what the job that was originally given to Adam. So maybe it seems like a lot to go into this morning just as way of review, but it's really important, okay?

And as Paul is pointing out here in Colossians 3, Understanding these things has a direct impact on our walk here and now as the body of Christ. And as I said last week, I emphasized that we need to have our eyes open to the reality that we are united to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is seated in heaven above every power and principality. And we compared that to Elisha's servant, who needed to have his eyes opened to the reality of the heavenly army that was surrounding them to defend them. And in a similar way, we need to have our eyes open to the spiritual reality of the position that we hold in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We need to understand that because not only will we one day go to be with him where he is, right? We belong there now. As those who have been joined to him, that is our position. That is the position that we hold. If you go back and read that John chapter 17, Jesus talks very clearly about the fact that he wants the church, all those who believe in him, to be joined to him, to be united to him. But notice the parts in there where Jesus says, I send them into the world. Jesus has a very specific mission for his body, the church, to be in this world, even though we belong with him where he is, because we're united to him in spirit. And all of this, we have to be so clear.

And when we get talking about Jesus seated in the heavenlies, We're not talking about some kind of poetic allegory. We're not talking about some kind of spiritual fluff that's not real. Because Jesus Christ is literally, right now, seated in heaven at the right hand of God the Father. Right? And Stephen saw that with his own eyes in Acts chapter 7. I firmly believe that when he sees a vision, you know, the Lord is placing something before his optic nerves. Nobody else could see this, but he was seeing this through his eyes, through his own senses, that Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of God in the heavenly places.

And it's not just some, we're not talking about some poetry. We're not talking about some allegory here. We're talking reality. This is a state of affairs in the universe. This is the way things are. And Stephen is given that vision in Acts chapter seven as the first, you know, martyr, I believe the first Christian who died, the first one who joined Jesus Christ in heaven. And for the last 2000 years, we've still been trying to figure out what it means, what Stephen saw there, right?

We're trying to understand how does that truth relate to the body? How does it relate to us? And why does it matter? And you know, honestly, for the most part, the church hasn't paid much attention to it, right? In the last 2,000 years. And how often do you hear someone talk about the fact that we are seated with Jesus Christ in the heavenlies, unless they happened upon that verse or passage, right? And so we haven't paid a lot of attention to it over the last 2,000 years, and yet it's right at the heart of God's purpose for the church. I'm convinced that this area is something that Satan has worked very hard to keep us totally distracted from.

Because if we understood it, we'd have a clue about the power that's related to it. Usually the kind of things that we hear in church have to do with how you can be more like Jesus. You know, we want, you know, three points of application of what you can do this week to go out in your life and to try to be more like Jesus, right? We're not used to hearing a message that's about Jesus Christ, who is seated in heaven as our life, and the fact that he wants to produce his life through you as you depend on him. That's not the kind of thing you hear very often in church.

And that's because it feels so much more concrete and tangible to us to have a checklist. Just give me some things to do this week. And to talk about spiritual realities that I can't see, that's hard for me to get my hands around. A few of us here in the room are pretty blue-collar people. just give me something concrete that I can wrap my fingers around and that makes sense to me. When you start talking about a spiritual reality somewhere that I can't see and I can't verify with my senses, I just lose focus. But what we need to understand here is that the unseen reality that Jesus is living in you from heaven is totally concrete. It's not some, you know, some unintelligible abstract thing. It's very concrete.

And the difference is that while we think our checklists and our to-do lists will get the job done, they won't. And this fact that Jesus is able to live his life through us will actually accomplish what the checklists can't do. Right? Just because you can't see Jesus seated in heaven doesn't mean it's not real. Just because you can't feel him indwelling you by his spirit doesn't mean that he's not. Right? And the thing is, we have to accept this by faith. Now, when I say the word faith, we watched—anyone get into the Christmas season yet? No?

We were out in Breckenridge, and it was snowing there, so we decided to watch a Christmas movie. And I'd never seen it before, but I thought, have a look at it. The old, it was a 1947 Miracle on 34th Street. Anyone know the film? And what do they do in that film to faith? Anyone remember? It's probably been like 70 years since you saw this film.

They talk about, of course, it's all about having faith in Santa Claus, okay, just as a, in case you, sorry to spoil it. And the whole concept is that You just need to believe things that you can't verify, things that make no common sense, you need to believe. Is that what faith is? Because if that's our concept of faith, then we live very, very foolishly as Christians. That's not what faith is, okay?

It's not illogical or nonsensical to believe that Jesus is in heaven living his life through you by his Spirit. That's perfectly logical. It doesn't violate any kind of logic or reasoning that exists, right? Just because you can't verify it with your five senses doesn't mean it's not real, right? When God says that this is real, then we can believe it. That's what faith is. Putting our trust in what he has said, and he has said that this is true. And so we, by faith, understand that and believe that.

And that's the most practical thing that you can do in your Christian life. Trusting Jesus to live through you from heaven is the only way that you're ever going to have a truly righteous walk. You might put on a walk that looks good to yourself and to those around you, but it's not the righteousness of God. That's a righteousness of your own, right? The only way that you're going to have a righteous walk that pleases God is to have a life that's lived by faith, dependence on him to live his life through you.

Okay, every other way that we come up with will fall totally flat. Everything that Paul just talked about in chapter two, right, all of these human strategies and programs that seem so wise because they seem so practical, they give us the things to do to have, you know, the kind of Christian life that we desire, right? It doesn't produce anything of any value to God. And in contrast to all of that kind of thinking, Paul's telling us that the only thing that actually produces a walk that pleases God is what he's talking about right here in chapter three.

So this is very, very practical information, not just some abstract theory. Okay, so let's read verses one through four. Now we're gonna get to the text. Paul says, therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, and you have, 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. Let's begin with verse one there.

Paul's giving an imperative command. So this is something to do. but it's not a good work. It's not the kind of thinking, not the human kind of thinking, okay, tell me how to live this righteous life. Tell me what I can go out and do this week. No, he says keep seeking.

And that keep seeking is a present tense imperative, which means that this is something that we are to be constantly or continuously doing as believers. We're to be constantly and always seeking the things above. This is supposed to be your preoccupation Christian, to be seeking, preoccupied with the things above. The word seek means to look for, to pursue, to desire, even to inquire or ask questions.

And this is really, this is just the kind of thing that we all do with anything that we're really interested in, right? We study it. We research it. We watch YouTube videos about it. We ask questions about it. You know, we obsess about it, right? Because we're seeking. We want to understand it. We're pursuing it, right?

And that's what Paul is saying. As Christians, we need to figure out what it means that Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Our focus is to be on him, okay? Who he is and the significance of his Position in heaven his heavenly throne. That's what our eyes are to be fixed on. That's what our attention is to be focused on But notice how Paul begins the verse right?

He says therefore this is there's a condition here to this Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ as we said last week, it's a first-class condition it's assumed true in other words you have been as a Christian you have been raised up with Christ and because you have You need to figure out what all this is about Because you've been raised up with Christ, you've got to figure out what your position in heaven is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And there's one Greek word behind the phrase, you have been raised up with. Sorry, I think I missed a blank there for you. One Greek word behind this entire phrase, you have been raised up with. Okay, and so, and it's sunnigero. And that's a compound word. You have the preposition soon, which tells you this is a, it means with or together with, and then you have the verb agero, which is to raise up or to cause to rise.

And so what Paul is saying is that as a Christian, it is assumed to be true that you have been raised up with Christ. And this goes back to chapter two, verse 12, where Paul began on this whole subject. He says, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with him, same word there, through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. This is the thing, it's not that you were raised from the dead, it's that Jesus was raised from the dead, But because you have been identified with Jesus Christ through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, God the Father looks at Jesus' resurrection and counts it as your resurrection, and if he does, then we should too. Because we are joined to Jesus Christ, his resurrection is our resurrection.

We share in it. And then verse 13 continues, when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions. We have another compound word there, alive together, okay, with the prefix sun. Your life can't be separated out from his life. Okay, sharing in Jesus' resurrection means that you share in his life.

Or in other words, the kind of life that Jesus has is the kind of life that he can live through you and I. Okay, literally his life. lived out through you and I. And Paul is saying, in verse one there, that in light of the fact that we've been raised up with Christ, we need to be focused on Jesus Christ where he is in heaven. If we're not focused on Jesus Christ, then we've forgotten where our Christian life comes from. And if we've forgotten where our Christian life comes from, then we'll always be sliding back into trying to live the Christian life through our strength. rather than an independence on him for his strength. So we have to be focused on the fact that we have been joined to Jesus Christ. We have been raised up with him to the position that he holds, and where he is seated, we are seated spiritually, though we remain here, right? In body, Jesus Christ lives out that position through us.

Now, verse two. What Paul does here is he gives some color to what it means to seek the things above. It's kind of parallel. He says, set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth. So he gives us this contrast, right? And Paul's using this phrase, seeking, or sorry, setting your mind as parallel to this idea of seeking. Right?

And again, this is a present tense verb, so it's a continuous thing. This is to be our constant preoccupation. I really like the way that Darby translated this, have your mind on the things above. Also, the Net translation says, keep thinking about the things above. They really express that present tense really well. And it's just like we said about the word seeking. The Lord wants us to be constantly dwelling on this fact. in our day-to-day lives.

That's the whole idea, right? What do you do from day-to-day? Well, whatever it is, in all of that, this is what you need to be dwelling on. This is what you need to be focused on, right? Which doesn't mean that we're just sitting on the couch contemplating these things, right? But in every situation and circumstance that the Lord brings in your path, that you walk into, right?

Everything that happens, We're supposed to be thinking about that in light of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is our life from heaven. So it's real. It's in all of our activities and all the things that we go into. So when my tire goes flat on the way to work, when my responsibilities at work seem totally overwhelming, when I'm frustrated with some money, When when you're facing some big decision or a little decision for that matter in everything, whatever it is What does that? Particular circumstance have to do with the fact that I have been raised up with Christ That I've been seated with him in heaven above every power and principality that Jesus is the one who lives his life in me here from his position there What does that have to do with the particular circumstance or situation that I'm in right now? That's the way we're supposed to be thinking. Okay, whatever the circumstance, we're thinking, who is my source of life? And where is he seated? What kind of power and authority does that imply? And how does that apply to my situation? And what that does is it cuts off the otherwise automatic response to the flesh.

Because if we're not focused, if we're not thinking about who the Lord Jesus Christ is as our life, and we walk into some situation, and we're kind of blindsided by it, what's the first thing that happens? We just—we respond out of the flesh, very naturally. That's our first instinct, right? But if our minds are focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's our first instinct is to think about who He is as our life, then when those things hit, We don't respond automatically out of the flesh.

We default instead to trusting him about this thing. And Paul is saying here in this verse, don't just think about things as they appear on the earth. Instead, understand that everything the Lord brings you into is an opportunity for his life to be displayed. If we're just focused on the earthly circumstances, right, we'll totally miss that every single time.

We'll naturally begin to handle things with our own human resources. But if I'm always thinking about what the Lord Jesus is doing in that situation, what he's capable of, and I'm aware of the fact that it's his job to live his life through me, then it sort of takes me out of the driver's seat a little bit. Not that I don't have to respond, but my response switches from being a response out of my own wisdom and out of my own natural resources to dependence on him. dependence on Him for His wisdom, for His love, for His joy, and His peace, and His patience, and now you hear the fruit of the Spirit, right? All of these things that are of Him are what flows out when our dependence is on Him, when our focus is on Him.

So this is the most practical thing that you can be doing in your Christian life. Don't think of having our minds set on things above as as sitting and you know some kind of meditation technique or something this is about thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ in everything that you face all the time and Then Paul tells us why we should be setting our minds on these things in in verse 3 Okay, because it won't do you any good to believe something that isn't true Okay, and Paul wants it to me wants us to be very clear that that the only reason you can walk through life with the kind of mindset that we just talked about is because of the reality of what God has done.

And so verse 3 gives us this truth statement. He gives us the reality in 12 words. It's incredibly compact. He says, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. And I was thinking about this and how compact this truth is here, and I was thinking this is like, this verse is kind of like the E equals MC squared of the Christian life.

Any physics fans here? Roger, you can raise your hand, don't be shy. I've actually got a book to lend you. Tim, we were talking about this yesterday as we were preparing this, and Tim said, I've got a great book about Einstein's theory of relativity by Jason Lyle, so I thought you might be interested in that.

But this verse is like the E equals MCs. What do I mean by that? Well, what I mean is that the most brilliant minds have a way of taking otherwise extremely complex things and boiling down and expressing them in really simple terms. You might know what those things stand for. You might. Anyone? Doesn't matter. But can any of you fully unexplained to me.

Einstein's theory behind this, I doubt it, right? I know I don't, I can't even begin to, right? What Einstein expressed in that little equation is huge. And if you know what's behind it, you know that this is behind the atomic bomb, nuclear energy, as we understand it today.

And the Christian life is sort of like that, right? On the one hand, it can be really difficult to understand. You ever had someone ask you, How can you express the Christian life just in practical terms? Boy, there's a lot that goes into explaining that, right? Because we have this, well, how do I live the kind of life that pleases God?

I want to, but it doesn't seem to be enough because, you know, I try and I fail, and I seem to have this nature that just dominates me, and you do. And, you know, sometimes we think that we've got victory in some particular area in our life, And then failure just shows up in another area, and we just can't get traction. We don't understand how it all works. And, you know, it seems like every Christian seems to have a different idea out there about the Christian life. And you're listening, and you're watching, and you're trying to understand, and you start to wonder, can anybody explain it?

Can anybody tell me how this really works? And here the Holy Spirit has given us the entire thing in 12 words. Right? For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Now that might take a bit of explaining, right? But it's all there. It's everything in 12 words. The death that has separated us out of Adam's fallen sinful race and the new life that now flows through us from God in heaven. That's it. That's the Christian life in 12 words.

And just like Einstein's little formula held the secret to unlocking this incredible power in the physical realm, Colossians 3.3 holds the secret to unlocking unfathomable power that's available to you in your Christian walk.

The sad thing is how rarely we allow that power to work in us. You know, we read Colossians 3, 3, and we say, I just don't know if I believe it. That doesn't really make sense to me. I don't really know what that means. And we don't exercise the faith that unleashes the power of God in our lives. And as a result, we find ourselves still struggling to live the Christian life in our own strength. And even when we understand this, how often do we fall back out of faith to try and live the Christian life in our own strength? But this is it.

Remember how Paul expressed his labor in ministry back in chapter one. He's talking about this. He says, for this purpose also I labor, striving, how? According to his power, which mightily works within me. He understood that the power for his ministry, his labor and service, were God's power at work in him. And so this verse, 3.3, gives us these two basic facts to believe. That's what we do when God gives us a fact. That's our job, to believe it. Okay, so he's got two basic facts. The first one is that you have died. It's an aorist indicative.

Your job is not to struggle against the sin nature. Your job is to trust the fact that you're dead to it. You have died. Do you believe it? Okay, your job is not to try to separate yourself out from the world and all that it has and all of the, you know, things in the world that deceive us and confuse us and drag us down. Our job is not to try to separate ourselves from that. Our job is to believe that we've already died to it. We've died in Jesus Christ. That's a fact.

The second thing in this verse, the other side of it, the other half of it, is that your life is hidden with Christ in God. And this is actually a perfect indicative, which means that at some point in the past, this would be at the point that you put your faith in Jesus Christ and you became a participant in his life, your life was at that point hidden with Christ in God, and Remains so that's the idea with the perfect tense. It's it's still that way your life is still hidden with Christ in God That's a fact right now. And and and so while you have died, that's a past tense thing that has I mean It also has abiding results, right? This is something your life is right now They're present all the time available and ready and and again, this is a fact so your job is what to trust it to believe that Jesus Christ is your life and to By doing that to be depending on him depend on him to live his life through you and so we've got this this your life is hidden with Christ in God and and and Now do you understand that let's turn to verse 4?

What does it mean that your life is hidden with Christ in God because Paul doesn't just leave it here, right? He could maybe just kind of hang up here And move on but he doesn't he gives us something really really important in verse 4 He says when Christ who is our life is Revealed then you also will be revealed with him in glory. So Paul just told us that our life is hidden Right the life that is at work in you is Hidden right? No one in the world can see the source of our life in heaven Okay, and by the way, that's the way God wants it to be. I The church is to be in this world as a testimony to the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. When we're depending on him to live through us, the world sees it.

They see something that, frankly, they can't understand, especially when you respond to trials. The world looks at it and they just scratch their heads. What's up with this guy? Where is this coming from? They don't see Jesus, right? But they, in a sense, they do because they see the result of our life union with him. They see something of him. See, Jesus is the source of that life, but he's, as that source, he's hidden. Our life source in Jesus is hidden. The world can't see where that is coming from.

And now, In verse 4, Paul is contrasting the present condition where our life is hidden with Christ in God to this future when the Lord Jesus Christ will be revealed, right? In other words, Paul's explaining that our life source will not always be hidden, right?

Jesus Christ is going to return from heaven and be revealed for everyone to see. If we go to Revelation chapter one, verse seven, we see these amazing words, and there are other places we could go to as well, but John writes, behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him, so it is to be, amen. Jesus Christ is coming again to this earth in a physical, tangible way that everyone will see. And at that moment, no one's going to be standing around denying that that's the Lord Jesus Christ. Every single person who lives and who has ever lived will have to admit that Jesus Christ is exactly who he claimed to be.

See, when Jesus was on the earth, he was ridiculed, and he was mocked, right? And scorned. And when he was on the cross, they said, well, if you are the son of God, why don't you come down from there and prove it? They didn't believe who he was. And you know, for the last 2,000 years, the same thing. His name has been ridiculed and mocked, okay? And the true church has been hated in the world. Why? Because it testifies to him. and the world doesn't want him.

John 15, 19, Jesus said this. He says, if you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world because of this, the world hates you. Because we have been separated out of this world by faith in Jesus Christ, the world hates us because of that. But don't get me wrong, the world is totally okay with us as long as our Christianity is nothing more than, you know, social do-goodism and outward religious ritual.

They don't care about that, right? But what they don't like and what they will not accept is a living expression of the Lord Jesus Christ, who he is and where he's seated. Because if they were to grapple with that fact, they'd have to recognize that they are accountable to him. And if they haven't put their faith in him, right, then they stand condemned before him. Jesus is their judge. And so the world shields himself from that. They push that away. But on this day, when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to the earth in all of his glory, no one's gonna be mocking. Every eye will see him in all his glory.

But notice that it's not just Jesus who's being revealed. What does Paul say? He says, when Christ who is our life is revealed, then you, Also will be revealed with him in glory. This could be one of the most mind-blowing things about being the body of Christ Okay John John writes about it this way says beloved now We are children of God and it has not yet as 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 and When we return to the earth with Jesus, we will be just like him, minus the deity. But we will perfectly share his character, and that's why we'll share in his glory, because we will be like him. For all eternity, the church will share in the glory of Jesus Christ and will stand as a testimony to God's grace.

What else could it be? Right? That God took a bunch of filthy, rotten sinners like you and I, just the same as everyone else in this world, and just simply by trusting him to do it, just by putting our faith in him, he removed us out of that, right? Joined us to his son, Jesus Christ, and then made us like him, so that we actually share his character and his nature, so we have his kind of righteousness.

That's what's coming. That's what we have to look forward to. And that is a huge, huge work of grace that we just can't even begin to fathom. So what do we take away from all this? You know, it's so easy to lose focus on God's purpose for us here as Christians. It's incredibly easy to lose focus on why God has you here as a believer. And Paul is putting our earthly existence, our earthly walk into focus. Because we're here in this world to testify to the fact or to prove that the Lord Jesus Christ is alive.

And not only that he is alive, but also that he has been raised to the most powerful position in the entire universe, that he has all power in the heavenly places. Do you realize that's what your life is supposed to be? Not by your effort, not by trying to, okay? When we say proving, it's not, that, you know, we sing this song, how I proved him over and over, but when we don't prove him by our effort and by our words, he proves himself through us as we depend on him, and he shows what he is capable of.

And so the result, as we depend on the Lord Jesus Christ, is that his power, his character, is displayed on the earth. And when the world sees Jesus Christ in you is a testimony to this fact that he is alive, that he's been granted all authority from the Father, and that he is coming again, because if he is who he claimed to be, then he must come again to fulfill what he came to do, to exercise that authority on the earth. And so living with our eyes focused on Jesus Christ as our life from heaven is the greatest thing and the most practical thing that we can do on this earth.

You've probably heard the expression, you know, and when it came to this passage, I right away thought of the expression, oh, they're so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good. And that expression couldn't be more wrong, right? As long as we understand what's meant by being heavenly minded. We're not just sitting twiddling our thumbs, you know, thinking nice thoughts, right? When we're heavenly minded, we are focused on, we are thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ. the fact that He is our life, the fact that He holds the position of all power and authority. Because the fact is that you won't be any earthly good to the Lord if your eyes aren't focused on Jesus Christ and who He is to you.

We need to be learning to live in light of that reality every single day. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you've revealed these incredible truths to us. Just absolutely mind-blowing, really unfathomable realities. Just so incredible to begin to grasp the fact that we are here in this world as the vessels of your life, as the hands and feet, the members, the parts of your body, so that you, Jesus Christ, as the head from heaven, can live your life through us so that the world might know who you are. and would respond to you. Obviously, your desire is ultimately that people will be drawn to you. But we know that when people are presented with something of the Lord Jesus, they have to respond, either positively or negatively. They either have to push that away and reject it, or they have to begin to accept it and understand that there's something here that they need. And so, Lord, we pray that our lives more and more would be this kind of testimony, not as we try to be, not as we try to keep checklists and that kind of thing, but as we depend on you for what only you can do through us. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.