Latitude Adjustment

Your Attitude Determines your Latitude

Zig Ziglar - your attitude in life is what will determine your outcome in life. If you want to know success, you must have a “yes I can” attitude, think positive and you’ll be positive.

That is exhausting. When you face disappointment and failure, when the positive attitude isn’t enough, when you encounter the “joy-suckers” in life; the effort to maintain that positive attitude can be overwhelming.

The False Teachers in Colossians

If you want to achieve your spiritual goals, you have to, 1) rigidly keep the laws and customs of religious orders, or 2) discipline your mind and body to achieve spiritual enlightenment.

Paul said in Col 2:23 - these have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

The Gospel Turns that Around:

It is not your attitude that determines you latitude, but Your Latitude in Christ Determines Your Attitude in Life.

Who you are in Christ, and where you are in Christ, should transform and redirect your perspective, your attitude, your direction in this life.

The Gospel In Colossians

What Has Christ Done?

Christ Has made all things, and is over all things, for the glory of God Col 1 :16 “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”

He has redeemed us, forgiven our sins - Col 1:14 “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

We have been reconciled in his body Col 1:21 “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,”

Making peace by the blood of his cross Col 1:20 “making peace by the blood of his cross.”

God nailed our record of debt and all the legal demands to the cross of Christ Col 2:14 “by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”

Christ has been raised from the dead - the firstborn, that he might be preeminent Col 1:18 “And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”

Where is Christ Now?

Christ is at the right hand of God - Col 3:1 “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”

Psalm 110:1 “The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.””

The image is one of power. The right (hand) of God was a way of expressing strength, powerful protection, and favor, and to sit at the king’s right was a sign of special recognition and authority.

Jesus is so highly favored to be God’s “righthand man,” with all the power and authority to effect God’s will and to protect his own. Our lives as Christians should be reshaped by this

A Change in Latitude

Since we believe that Christ died, and was raised, and is at the right hand of God, and he is coming again: this radically changes us. Paul hints at this in 1:13, He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.

Usually we just think that this is like a change in destination - we were originally going one place, but we’ve changed tickets, and will go another - in the end.

Our position, our latitude, has been adjusted now. We’ve been raised, promoted, renewed, transformed - now

You Have Died with Christ (vs. 3)

Here again there is, of course, no suggestion that a literal death has taken place other than Christ’s. It is simply a powerful metaphor for the fact that when they believed in Christ they were putting their previous way of life to death and having it buried out of sight. No one can rise with Christ who does not first die with him

Luke 9:23 “And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

2 Cor 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

This leads us to say, “I have died to that...”

You have been Raised with Christ (vs. 1)

God has raised us up with him in the heavenly places

Col 3:1 “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”

Eph 2:6 “and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,”

Rom 8:11 “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

Your life is Hidden with Christ in God (vs. 3)

Psalm 27:4-5 “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock.”

We are secure in Him -

Chrysostom’s response

What we will be has not yet been revealed - 1 John 3:2 “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

You will Appear with Christ in Glory (vs. 4)

When he appears - at the end - coming in glory

1 Thess 4:17 “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”

Your Latitude Determines Your Attitude

You have been lifted up -

Marcus Johnson - We cannot become what we aren’t. This is why the exhortations toward holiness in the New Testament are not exhortations to achieve holiness; they are exhortations to live out the holy existence we already have.

Note carefully how Paul says, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above…” He doesn’t say, “Seek the things that are above, then you will be raised with Christ.”

The imperative always follows the indicative. We are not called to make ourselves holy; we are called to be who we already are in our union with the Christ.

Who you are in Christ, where you are in Christ, this will determine your attitude, your success, your achievement in this life. Who are you? You are one who, by faith, has died with Christ, has been raised with Christ, and is now hidden with Christ, waiting to be revealed in glory with Christ.

So much of the application of God’s word is a reminder of your real estate.

Sin weighs us down and we become forgetful of what we’re recreated to be, of what Christ has done for us, who who we really are.

Remember the joy, the freedom, and the love from when you first knew the transforming, liberating grace of God in Jesus Christ

Seeking that which is Above

So heavenly minded no earthly good

We are united to Jesus by faith, we are already seated with Him in the heavenly places and enjoy the privileges that come with this exaltation, including power over sin and the realm of evil. Although we continue to struggle with sin, this not due to any deficiency in Jesus' work but to our failure on this side of glory to walk perfectly in all the benefits of the cross.

Living in the freedom we have in Christ demands that we set our "minds on things that are above.” Paul is not calling us to ignore the concerns of everyday life; rather, he is using spatial terminology to refer to the realities in the history of salvation. "Things that are above" refers to the age of Christ and His Kingdom, an age of sinlessness that will come in its fullness at His return. Positionally we are already members of this age to come, and as we set our minds on this reality, we begin to experience the life we will fully enjoy at the consummation of all things.

Aim at heaven you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you get neither.

—C.S. Lewis, Christian Behavior

C. S. Lewis

What are the things above - Christ and His Kingdom.

Setting your mind, your heart on him

What did he do - he lived for God, with grace and mercy

What did he teach - he forgave that we might forgive

What did he command - seeking Righteousness, the Kingdom of God

The Good News is you have been raised. Live, now, in your new life, seeking that which is above