LIVING A RAISED UP LIFE
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Paul has ended his theological argument of who Christ is. He pivots from his answer to the false teacher and now appeals to the Colossians to live in a manner pleasing to the Lord.
And now having stated sound doctrine, he makes some practical implications.
He starts with the Indicative — The mood in which the action of the verb or the state of being it describes is presented by the writer as real. It is the mood of assertion, where the writer portrays something as actual
Imperative — The mood that normally expresses a command, intention, exhortation, or polite request.
We see Paul use this layout also in Ephesians.
Chapters 1 and 2 are the reality of what’s been done, and now we move to what we are to do in light of chapters 1 and 2. 1 and 2 are what we must know without a shadow of a doubt or the following commands will have no effect on us. If Paul (God) would the imperatives we could easily respond SO WHAT? FOR WHAT? There’s no doubt the order of these things is a must. We must know who Christ is and what He’s accomplished, to properly live out our daily lives as Christians.
I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
For the believer its a unique calling. We must remain in the world, but not be of the world. We must be called out of the world, to have an effect on the world. In order to reach the world we must leave the world.
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Jesus reached the world from vantage point of not being of it.
who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,
Jesus spoke of this regularly in the New Testament: Go into all the world and make disciples, His high priestly prayer again take them out of the world but leave them in it.
training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,
This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
How do we reconcile this seemingly contradicting ideas. To be in the world but not of it? To reach the world from not being of the world? Rescued from it but then sent to it? Its simple really: your inside lives in heaven your outside lives here.
John Macarthur used this illustration from the life of Robert Murray M’Cheyne as he was evaluated by some of the people who knew him. And this is one man’s comment. He said this of him “The man of whom I speak seemed to have got up to the full height and to have entered into the secret places of the holiness of God.” End quote.
Here was a man who knew Robert Murray M’Cheyne, the great preacher. He seemed to have dwelled in the secret places of the holiness of God. The man went on, “When he preached the Gospel, you could see strong men, hard and stern, melt like wax before the fire. Their breasts would swell and heave as if they would burst. And the whole place became a place of weepers.” Now, there’s a man who touched the world. There’s a man who reached the world. And the comment of a man who observed was the reason he reached the world was because he lived in the presence of God.
Jesus did the same. At night Jesus would retreat to the Mount of Olives, because that was His real world, really. That’s where He communed with the Father. That’s the place He had come from, and the place to which He would go when His work was done.
Central Propositional Statement: Until a Christian, in his heart and his soul and his mind, has learned to live his spiritual life in the heavenlies, he will never be able to touch the earth with the truth of God.
SEEK THE THINGS ABOVE
SEEK THE THINGS ABOVE
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Paul is referring to what was established earlier in chapter 2
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— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed 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 verb been raised is past tense, when a Greek wanted to say something that’s already happen, its events are absolutely unchangeable, he uses the past tense.
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
The moment you came to Christ, when you were dead in sins, verse 5; when you were made alive together with Christ; when you were saved by grace, you were instantaneously raised up and given a place in the heavenlies in Christ. Spiritually speaking, you ascended. Your conscious mind is occupied with Christ. You entered, as it were, into the holy of holies. The veil was ripped, and you walked in to the presence of God.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary describes the end of this verse as this.
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Chapter 3)
“Where Christ is, sitting on the right of God” . The Head being made alive, the members are also made alive with Him. Where the Head is, there the members must be. The contrast is between the believer’s former state, alive to the world but dead to God, and his present state, dead to the world but alive to God; and between the earthly home of the unbeliever and the heavenly home of the believer . We are already seated there in Him as our Head; and hereafter shall be seated by Him, as the Bestower of our bliss. As Elisha (2 Ki 2:2) said to Elijah when about to ascend, “As the Lord liveth … I will not leave thee”; so we must follow the ascended Saviour with the wings of our meditations and the chariots of our affections. We should trample upon and subdue our lusts that our conversation may correspond to our Saviour’s condition; that where the eyes of apostles were forced to leave Him, to that place our thoughts may follow Him . Of ourselves we can no more ascend than a bar of iron lift itself up’ from the earth. But the love of Christ is a powerful magnet to draw us up . The design of the Gospel is not merely to give rules, but mainly to supply motives to holiness.
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
We have escaped the worlds system: being caught up with money, and fame, and prestige, and popularity, and fashion, and education or whatever; we no longer eat of that plate we have pushed away the plate of the worlds system.
SET YOUR MIND ON THINGS ABOVE
SET YOUR MIND ON THINGS ABOVE
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
It is a life that focuses on things above; not on earthly things. It is a preoccupation with the divine. It is the upward look
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
It is where you continually gaze on the glory of the Lord and are transformed by the Holy Spirit into His image. You have died, and have been raised to Eternal Life. Now eternal life is not just a quantity of life but a QUALITY OF LIFE . It is heavenly life. So, when you came alive in Christ, at the moment of your salvation, you came alive to the dimension of God’s heaven. You literally – your mind was open to God, and what God desires, and what God wills for your life. And you died with Christ, and you rose with Christ. Don’t forget that.
The whole goal of a Christian is to become what you are, right? This is what I am positionally; I better become like I am. I better live up to my position. Our position is in Christ. In Christ we have eternal life. Having eternal life takes us into the presence of God, and we live His kind of life.
If we would just seek those things which are above. You remember last week? Spiritual intimidation. The attack of Christs sufficiency, that we need Christ and legalism, Christ and mysticism, Christ and some extra spiritual experience.
and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;
All you need is Christ. Now, if you’d just get yourself up there where you belong, you wouldn’t get bugged by the rest of that stuff. I think some Christians get intimidated because they don’t spend enough time with Christ to find out that He’s all they need.
John MacArthur said : When somebody comes to me and says, “You know, have you had this experience,” do you know what I say? “What for?”
“Well, I was reading a book this week; if you haven’t had this certain experience, you’re incomplete. You haven’t arrived.”
Do you know what my answer to that is? Listen, I have Christ. The songwriter said, “What want I more?” I live in the heavenlies. Colton Burpo may have gone there, but he came back. I’m still there. So are you if you know the Lord Jesus and you’re living the kind of life He designed for you to live.
What does it mean to set our minds on things above? It doesn’t mean we live some spaced out life, in some kind of fog, disconnected from earthly circumstances. No, it means to let your preoccupation with heavenly things govern your earthly responses.
How do we think about heavenly things? Well, we set our minds on the one that reigns there. Jesus.
We have a responsibility, verse 1 we seek heaven, verse 2 we think heaven. Verse one tells us what to do, verse 2 tells us how. Set your mind on things above. How do we think heavenly? in a practical way?
We read scripture. Because the only thing that we know of God, and the only thing we know of Christ, and the only thing we know of the Holy Spirit, and the only thing we know of their character and their values is what we have read here. Right? And so, it’s only as we reiterate in our heart and our mind these truths. That God is actualized in our thinking. That God becomes real to our conscious mind, and that the realness of God and the values of God are then translated into our actions.
YOUR LIFE IS NOW HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD
YOUR LIFE IS NOW HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Since we’ve died with Christ, essentially separately ourselves from the system of the world, our lives are hidden with Christ.
What does this phrase mean? Perhaps it means this: My life is hidden from the world. They don’t know the real me. They think I’m just like everybody else. I look like everyone else, but They don’t know what I know, what you know.
You know, the world doesn’t know about us. The natural man – what? – understands not the things of God. Do you think they understand what makes you tick? Do they – do they know that you’re a citizen of heaven, living in a heavenly? They haven’t got any idea. All the phony legalist and false teachers attacking, the Colossians coming along and saying, “You need this, and you need that, and you need this or you’ll never make it,” what they didn’t know was they’d already made it.
And so, when I think about my life being hidden with Christ in God, and I think maybe this is the primary point of the text here – my new life is concealed from the world. And I got to realize that they’re not going to understand me; that this isn’t my domain; that this isn’t my playground; that this isn’t the place I dwell. I’m a stranger and a pilgrim.
OUR HIDDEN LIVES WILL BE REVEALED
OUR HIDDEN LIVES WILL BE REVEALED
When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Finally, there’s the revelation. Gods saying, “Now, world, we are going to have an unveiling and see who really made it.” “When Christ, who is our life” – verse 4 – “shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory.” They may not recognize us now; they may not know that we live in the heavenlies, but someday they’re going to know. Because when He appears at His second coming – you can read it in Revelation 19, we will appear with Him also. He comes back with – remember? – in the white robe, riding a white horse with all those other white horses and the armies out of heaven. And that’s us, folks, along with the angels.
Do you like this phrase, “When Christ, who is our life”? Amazing. He is our life. It’s often said that Christ doesn’t give life; He is life. He gives Himself. When He appears at His second coming, we will be seen with Him in glory.
J.B. Lightfoot said Lightfoot says, and it’s a beautiful statement, he says, “The veil which now shrouds your higher life from others, and even partly from yourselves, will then be withdrawn. The world which persecutes, despises, ignores now will then be blinded with the dazzling glory of your Revelation.
Who is the center of your life? Christ is not just the center, He transcends all aspects of it. If we remove Christ from our lives, would you still have life? Would you want to keep living?
We seek the heavenlies, by thinking on the heavenlies, the world doesn’t understand us, but one day it will be made evident.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
And if Christ is the center of your life, He has truly rescued you from the world, and has enlisted you into His army to go into the world and make disciples. But remember this warming
No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.
Augustine-“Christ is not valued at all, unless he is valued above all.”