Seek the Things That Are Above

Introduction

Every Christian knows what it feels like to be pulled downward.

Downward into worry.

Downward into distraction.

Downward into the noise and demands of earthly life.

Downward into the gravitational pull of sin, fear, and self.

And yet, in the midst of all this downward pressure, Paul issues a startling command: “Seek the things that are above” (Colossians 3:1).

Not occasionally glance upward.

Not briefly think about heaven when life gets hard.

But seek—pursue, chase, desire, hunger for—the things above where Christ is.

Paul is not calling us to escape the world, but to interpret the world from above.

He is not calling us to neglect earthly responsibilities, but to anchor them in heavenly realities.

He is not calling us to float through life with our heads in the clouds, but to live with our hearts fixed on Christ.

The Puritans used to say that the Christian must “keep heaven in his eye.”

Richard Baxter wrote, “A heart in heaven will be a life on earth for God.”

They understood what Paul was saying here: Your direction determines your devotion.

Your gaze shapes your growth.

Your pursuit reveals your priorities.

And Paul grounds this upward call in a breathtaking truth: You can seek the things above because you have already been raised with Christ.

You should seek the things above because your life is hidden with Christ.

You will seek the things above when you remember that Christ is your life and that he is coming again.

Colossians 3:1–4 is not a call to try harder—it is a call to look higher.

It is not a summons to moral effort—it is a summons to spiritual vision.

It is not a burden—it is an invitation.

Lift your eyes.

Lift your heart.

Lift your life to Christ above.

Today, Paul invites us to rediscover the joy, the freedom, and the power of a life oriented upward—a life that seeks the things above because Christ is above, and because our life is in him.

So, now let us learn what it means to “seek the things that are above.”

Scripture

Let’s read Colossians 3:1-4:

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. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Lesson

Colossians 3:1-4 teaches us that because believers are united to the risen and reigning Christ, they must continually pursue the things above, drawing strength from their hidden life in him until he appears in glory.

Let’s use the following outline:

Believers Have a New Position: They Are Raised with Christ (3:1a)

Believers Have a New Pursuit: They Are Seeking the Things Above (3:1b-2)

Believers Have a New Power: They are Hidden with Christ in God (3:3)

Believers Have a New Prospect: They Will Appear with Christ in Glory (3:4)

I. Believers Have a New Position: We are Raised with Christ (3:1a)

First, believers have a new position: we are raised with Christ.

Paul has spent two chapters telling believers what Christ has done for them.

Now in chapter 3 he tells them what Christ is doing in them.

The Christian life is not moralism, mysticism, or legalism—it is union with Christ lived out.

The Puritans called this “the life of God in the soul of man.”

John Calvin called it “the secret energy of the Spirit.”

Paul puts it plainly in verse 3, as we shall see later: “Your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

That is why Paul begins with identity and not effort.

He says in verse 1a, “If then you have been raised with Christ….”

This is the resurrection side of union with Christ.

The believer is not merely forgiven—he is made alive!

The Reformers insisted that justification and regeneration are distinct acts but inseparable: the Christ who pardons is also the Christ who resurrects.

Before Martin Luther understood justification by faith, he lived in a spiritual dungeon—fearful, condemned, and crushed.

But when he read Romans 1:17, his eyes were opened.

He understood that believers are justified by faith alone and not by faith plus works.

When that truth dawned on him, he said it was as though “the gates of paradise were opened.”

The Chilean mine disaster began on August 5, 2010, when a major collapse occurred at the San Jose copper-gold mine near Copiapó in Chile's Atacama Desert.

While the 33 miners were trapped underground for 69 days, José Henríquez led daily prayer meetings.

When they were all finally rescued and brought to the surface, one miner said, “We were dead men. Now we live again.”

This is the spiritual reality for every Christian.

You were dead.

Now you live again.

You have been raised with Christ.

So let me ask you some questions.

Do you still think of yourself as the old you?

Do you live as though you are still underground?

Or do you live as one who has been raised into the sunlight of God’s grace?

Friends, Christianity begins with knowing, understanding, and embracing your new position.

You have been raised with Christ.

II. Believers Have a New Pursuit: We Are Seeking the Things Above (3:1b-2)

Second, believers have a new pursuit: we are seeking the things above.

Paul carries on with this second glorious truth.

Because you have been raised with Christ, Paul says: “…seek the things that are above” in verse 1b, and“Set your minds on things that are above” in verse 2a.

In Colossians 2:20, Paul had a negative conditional statement (“If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations”).

Now, in these verses, Paul sets down its counterpart in a positive conditional statement.

Paul affirms that believers have already been raised with Christ.

They share in his resurrection life.

Therefore, their lives are transformatively different.

Their thoughts, words, actions, aims, ambitions, that is, their entire outlook, are to be centered on the one who gave them new life.

This does, of course, require effort, for such a focus does not come automatically.

The Christian will regularly assess where he is focusing his thoughts.

This is not escapism.

It is Christ-centered realism.

“The things above” are the priorities of the risen Christ—his holiness, his kingdom, and his glory.

The Puritan Thomas Goodwin (1600 - 1680) once described a father walking with his young child.

Suddenly, the father sweeps the child into his arms, hugs him, kisses him, and whispers, “You are mine.”

The child was no more a son in the father’s arms than on the ground—but he felt it more.

Goodwin said this is what it means to “seek the things above”—to live consciously in the embrace of the Father through Christ.

John Calvin had a personal motto.

He said, "My heart I offer to You, O Lord, promptly and sincerely."

The seal that went with his motto was a hand holding out a heart.

Calvin believed that the Christian life was the continual offering of the heart upward to God.

This is what Paul says in verses 1 and 2.

It is lifting the heart heavenward.

U.S. runner Marla Runyon, legally blind for twenty-two years, competed in the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.

She was the first legally blind person to compete in the Olympics.

She qualified for the finals in the 1,500-meter race, then finished eighth, just seconds behind the medal winners.

Runyon can’t see in color; all she sees is a fuzzy blob.

So when she races, she follows the blob of figures in front of her.

The real difficulty is rounding the final turn and racing toward a finish line she can’t see.

“I just know where it is,” she said (Craig Brian Larson and Phyllis Ten Elshof, 1001 Illustrations That Connect [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2008], 428–429).

Even though believers cannot see “things that are above,” they know they exist and focus their thoughts on them.

So, what occupies your mind when it is free to wander?

What do you instinctively seek: earthly comfort or heavenly Christ?

What shapes your decisions? Fear or faith? Earth or heaven?

Your pursuits reveal your spiritual direction.

III. Believers Have a New Power: We Are Hidden with Christ in God (3:3)

Third, believers have a new power: we are hidden with Christ in God.

Paul writes in verse 3: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

Paul now gives two reasons why believers must set their minds on things above.

First, they died to the old order with its spiritual powers, its self-denying and enslaving regulations, visionary experiences, and useless self-centered worship.

And second, their new life is now “hidden with Christ in God.”

Believers are “with Christ” because they have been joined with him in his death and resurrection.

And believers are “in God” because Christ himself has his being “in God” and those who belong to Christ have their being there too.

This means that the believer’s life is secure, untouched by anyone.

This is one of the most comforting truths in Scripture.

Your life is not in your performance.

Your life is not in your emotions.

Your life is not in your circumstances.

Your life is hidden—secure, protected, untouchable—“with Christ in God.”

In 1918, Helen Howarth Lemmel, the author and composer of the hymn titled Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, was given a tract by a missionary friend.

As she read it, Helen’s attention was focused on this line: “So then, turn your eyes upon Him, look full into His face, and you will find that the things of earth will acquire a strange new dimness.”

She related:

“Suddenly, as if commanded to stop and listen, I stood still, and singing in my soul and spirit was the chorus of the hymn with not one conscious moment of putting word to word to make rhyme, or note to note to make melody. The verses were written the same week, after the usual manner of composition, but nonetheless dictated by the Holy Spirit.”

Since that day, Helen Lemmel’s hymn has been translated into many languages and used by God to challenge believers around the world to live devoted lives for his glory.

Here are the words to Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus:

O soul, are you weary and troubled?

No light in the darkness you see?

There’s light for a look at the Savior,

and life more abundant and free!

Chorus: Turn your eyes upon Jesus;

look full in His wonderful face,

and the things of earth will grow strangely dim

in the light of His glory and grace.

Thru death into life everlasting He passed,

and we follow Him there;

over us sin no more hath dominion—

For more than conq’rors we are!

Chorus: Turn your eyes upon Jesus;

look full in His wonderful face,

and the things of earth will grow strangely dim

in the light of His glory and grace.

His word shall not fail you—He promised;

believe Him, and all will be well:

Then go to a world that is dying,

His perfect salvation to tell!

Chorus: Turn your eyes upon Jesus;

look full in His wonderful face,

and the things of earth will grow strangely dim

in the light of His glory and grace (Kenneth W. Osbeck, Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions [Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1996], 40).

When you feel discouraged, weary, or troubled, remember: Your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Satan accuses you, remember: your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When trials shake you, remember: your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Experiential Christianity means drawing daily strength from this hiddenness with Christ in God.

IV. Believers Have a New Prospect: We Will Appear with Christ in Glory (3:4)

And finally, believers have a new prospect: we will appear with Christ in glory.

Paul now lifts the eyes of believers to the future.

He writes in verse 4, “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

Christ is not merely the giver of life.

He is your life.

And when Christ appears at his second coming, the hidden life will become the visible life.

The Puritan John Owen (1616 -1683) wrote near the end of his life: “The longings of my soul are for the heavenly country.”

He believed that the Christian life is a journey toward the unveiling of Christ and the unveiling of ourselves in him.

For the believer, Christ is life.

The believer is now a new creation, and Christ is his life.

This was a precious truth for Paul, and he wanted believers to be caught up in its glory.

When Paul wrote to the Philippians, he said, “For to me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21a).

He also wrote these words to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20a).

For Paul, the most important thing in the life of every believer is Christ; more, Christ is life.

Those for whom this is true will discover themselves to be with Christ in glory when he returns.

Sometimes, people say, “Music is my life.”

Or, “Football is my life.”

Or, “I live for my work.”

Or, “My family is my life.”

These people find meaning, purpose, identity, and fulfillment in music, football, work, or family.

But for the Christian, Christ is our life.

Nothing is more important than Christ.

Are you discouraged by slow spiritual growth?

Do you feel unnoticed, unseen, and unremarkable?

Do you long for holiness you cannot yet fully attain?

Take heart: the day is coming when Christ will appear—and you with him.

Your hidden life will become a new, glorified life.

Conclusion

Colossians 3:1–4 is the Christian life in four movements:

It is a new position: you have been raised with Christ.

It is a new pursuit: you seek the things above.

It is a new power: your life is hidden with Christ.

It is a new prospect: you will appear with Christ in glory.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield flew on three major space missions during his career.

He went into space in 1995, 2001, and 2012-2013.

He said that when he looked down on Earth from orbit, everything changed.

The noise of life quieted.

The pressures shrank.

The world that once felt overwhelming suddenly looked small, fragile, and beautiful.

He didn’t escape reality—he finally saw it rightly.

That’s what Paul is calling us to in Colossians 3:1–4.

To rise above the storm.

To see our lives from where Christ is seated.

To let the things of earth take their proper size in the light of his glory.

And that is exactly what the hymn we’re about to sing invites us to do.

Helen Lemmel wrote Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus after reading the line, “So then, turn your eyes upon him…”

She understood that clarity comes not from staring at the world, but from looking at Christ.

Hadfield saw the world differently when he looked from above.

We see the world differently when we look to Christ.

When you lift your eyes to him, your fears shrink.

Your burdens lighten.

Your identity settles.

And your hope brightens.

Because your life is hidden with Christ in God, and when you look at him, you’re seeing your true home, your true future, your true self.

So as we respond, let’s do what Paul commands and what this hymn invites.

Let’s lift our eyes above the clouds, above the noise, above the pressures—

and fix them on Jesus, the One who holds our life in his glory. Amen.