A Heavenly Walk

Whenever we have a service like this that's affected by weather, I'm reminded of the story that I've heard probably told before as well. Although I'm getting to where I can't remember what I've told to whom, where, when. So if it doesn't matter to me, I guess it shouldn't matter to you, right? Heard about a young man who just graduated from Seminary and took his first church out in the rural area out in the Midwest, Kansas, or somewhere. One Sunday it was snowy and really bad weather and he showed up at the church and just one farmer showed up. That was it. Nobody else showed up. One farmer. And being his first church and with no experience, he wasn't quite sure what to do. So he asked the farmer, he said, well, what do you think? You think we should go ahead and have church today? And the farmer said, well, you know a young man when I'm feeding cattle, if just one cattle shows up, I go ahead and feed him. And so the young man got the message and said, okay, all right, let's go ahead and have church service. And so they did. He led the music. He took the offering. He preached the message. He did everything that service. And then he got up to preach and he just preached long and hard and loud and just banged on the pulpit and went after it and just preached about an hour. And finished the service, gave the invitation, you know, just regular thing, just like you always did. Went back to the back, shake hands and the farmer came through and said, young man, one other thing I'd like to tell you. And that is when I just have one cow show up, I don't give him the whole load of hay. So I'll try to remember that this evening. Try not to give you maybe the whole load tonight. Colossians chapter three this evening. Colossians three. We're going to look at the first four verses of Colossians three this evening. It's really kind of a gate, a hinge between chapter two and the rest of the book. It closes out a section, introduces another section, kind of serves to hinge one part of the book to the other. The verses read like this, the very familiar verses, chapter three verse one. Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your heart on things above, not where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. When I came to this passage and thought about it again this evening on the way out here, I was thinking of our weather today and how it has, at times, have been very dark and cloudy and snowy and then it would lighten up and the sun would come out and seemed like the storm was over and then all of a sudden it would start again. In those moments of sunshine, I thought of this passage because this passage is like a ray of sunshine at the end of a storm. We've been looking in chapter two at false teaching, at least we did last week, looked at false teaching, false doctrine that was troubling the church at Colossi, doctrine in the form of legalism and asceticism and other types of false teaching that were plaguing the church at Colossi. Paul has been talking about how Christ is the answer to all that. In fact, Christ's Lordship is the theme of this book. He is Lord in the church. He is Lord in creation in chapter one. He is the Lord of doctrine. He is the foundation of all of our true doctrine in chapter two, but he ends chapter two by talking about false teaching, false doctrine, some of the things that were plaguing the Colossian church. Now that bridges, this passage we've just read, bridges that dark scene, that stormy passage of all the false teaching that was troubling the church and introduces us to a new section about the Lordship of Christ. The last two chapters of Colossians deal with the Lordship of Christ in the Christian life. He is not only Lord in creation and the church, he's not only Lord of doctrine, he is Lord of our lives. And these two chapters are very practical about how to live the Christian life, but they are introduced by a section, these four verses, that give us kind of the backdrop of what it means to live the Christian life. The Christian life is to be a heavenly walk, and that's what these four verses are all about. In contrast to the very earthly walk, the very worldly walk of the false teachers, this legalism, this false humility and the asceticism and so forth that we talked about last week, in contrast to all of that, which has no power to really help us live the Christian life as we should, Paul introduces the Lordship of Christ in the Christian life, and how Jesus himself is to be the focus and the center of our Christian lives. Our walk is to be not an earthly walk, but a heavenly walk, not a worldly walk, but a heavenly walk, a heavenly life, and we're going to see what that is all about this evening. As we look at the heavenly walk that is introduced to us, we're going to see the specifics of it, what it means to really live this way when we get to verse five and go on through the end of the book. But to introduce it, Paul gives us the manner of the heavenly walk and the motivation for the heavenly walk, and let's see what he has to say about that. First of all, the manner of the heavenly walk. This is the manner in which we are to live, to walk the Christian life. Verse one says, set your hearts on things above. Verse two says, set your minds on things above. So those two commands really form the manner of a heavenly walk. They describe how we are to live a heavenly walk or live a heavenly life. Let's look at the first one. Set your hearts on things above. I'm calling this pursue heavenly things because to set your heart on something means to pursue it with all of your might, with all of your energy and your focus. Now in chapter two verses 16 to 23, Paul has talked about this legalism, this false mysticism, this asceticism, you know, punishing the body to try to be more spiritual. He's talked about how those have no power to produce holiness. But in order to live a holy life, to produce holiness, we actually have to begin with a mindset and a particular frame of heart when Paul says, set your heart on things above. He is talking about having a desire for something, striving for something to set as the goal of your life, to mold all of your attitudes around this. Your whole outlook on life should be focused on this. That's what he means by setting your heart on something. It's the same idea as an athlete. I don't know if you've been able to watch any of the Olympics yet, but the Winter Olympics started this weekend. And sometimes you will find tremendous stories in those athletes, stories of people who set their heart on obtaining a certain level of excellence in a sport. And setting their heart on that, they dedicate themselves fully to pursuing that. They give up some things in their lives. They focus their time and energy and attention on that particular sport. And they set their heart on it. That means all of their passion and pursuit is directed toward that one thing. Or it may be true of a student. When I was in Trinidad, I had five students. They were all wonderful young adults. But one of them in particular impressed me so much. Ronnie Bagg was his name. And Ronnie was really eager to learn the particular subject matter we were covering. And so I had given one exam, the first class period of the second week I was there. And he did very well, made a 96. He came up to me the next day after he'd gotten his exam back. And he said, you know what, I was giving another exam on Saturday morning. He said, you know what, I am going to make 100 on that exam. I am going to study, I'm going to work hard. I am going to make 100 on that exam. And so we had class up to about 9.30 on Friday night. And the exam was going to be at 8.30 Saturday morning. He came in Saturday morning and he walked up to me and he said, I stayed up all night studying for this exam. I've given them a study guide of two or three pages to cover some of the material and let them know what they might expect. And he said, I stayed up all night studying for this exam. And I looked at him, I said, you got to be kidding. We got eight or nine hours of class today after the exam. You're going to stay up all night, take the exam and then hang with me for eight or nine hours while I teach the class. He said, yes sir, I'm ready. And that passion is what Paul is talking about here. That eagerness, that passion to do well. He set his heart on a particular goal that he had and he reached it. He made a hundred on that exam. He did very, very well. That's exactly what Paul's talking about here. Set your heart on things above. That means to concentrate our efforts on heavenly things, rather than earthly things or worldly things. It is not this world and it's pleasures and passions that ought to drive us, that ought to be our ambition, that ought to really motivate us. We are to pursue heavenly things, our interests, our attitudes, our ambitions, all the focus of our heart ought to be on heavenly things. Now that does not necessarily mean that you need to stop doing anything of an earthly nature. Stop your job, forget about keeping your house clean, all those kinds of things and just read your Bible and pray all the time. It doesn't mean that. What it does mean is that your whole heart focus is to be geared towards spiritual things, which may mean that in relationship to your job, you're going to do your job in a way that you're serving Christ and not just the person you're working for. That you realize you're going to receive a reward from Him, that you're going to work for Him and not just for someone else. That's the passion and the heart focus that we're talking about. It means when you clean your house, that you're going to clean with a song in your heart and say, I want to clean this house up for the Lord as though He were going to be my guest tonight. That's the heart focus. So a spiritual heart focus doesn't mean you've got your head in the clouds and you don't know anything that's going on here on earth or participate in anything here on earth. It means that everything is looked at through that heart focus. Set your hearts on things above. That's the manner of this heavenly walk. But notice the second part of this heavenly walk in verse 2. Set your mind on things above. So we are not only to pursue heavenly things, we are to think heavenly things. Not only is our heart passion and ambition to be on heaven and heavenly things, our minds are to be on heavenly things as well and not earthly things. It's interesting that the particular word that's used here is not the normal word for the mind. It's the Greek word from that O which has to do not with the rational capacity or cold reasoning, just the ability to think. It has to do more with moral reflection, thinking about things from a godly perspective. So setting our minds on things above means that our minds are controlled by a biblical perspective. God's view of things, biblical morality, biblical teaching, molds and directs, everything we think. Now again, let me say this does not mean that we don't ever think about anything else. We don't ever think about the things that we must take care of here on this earth. And our mind is always in the clouds, doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean you're always reading your Bible or always spending time in prayer. What it does mean is that a godly, biblical mindset is kind of the filter through which everything else goes. And so when you're reading a book or when you're doing your job or you're looking to the future of the company you're working for or whatever you're doing, when you're driving to do some errands in town, whatever it may be that you're doing, everything you're doing is flowing through a biblical grid or filter so that decisions you make and the way you look at things become a biblical way of looking at things. That your mind is being formed and molded and controlled by the teaching of the Word of God. And what the Bible says about things. So that you're not looking at things from an earthly perspective or a worldly mindset, but you're looking at things from a heavenly mindset. Now, whatever we put into our minds is what is going to form that filter or that grid that we think through everything from. If all you're putting into your mind is things from this world, then you're going to think through things from a worldly perspective. You're going to make decisions from a worldly perspective. And so you're going to think of things in terms of how does this benefit me? What's this going to do for me? How am I going to be able to get ahead of the next guy? You see, that's a worldly mindset. And so you'll always be thinking and making decisions that way if you're pouring that kind of information into your mind. If your mind is being renewed, to use biblical Word, Romans 12 too, if your mind is being renewed by the Word of God, and you're being transformed from the inside out so that you're beginning to think through things as God would think through them. As the Bible would teach, so every issue becomes, okay, what would the Bible say about this? To use a very common phrase, what would Jesus do? How would He respond in this kind of a situation? What does the Bible dictate that I think or believe or act in this situation? So when I'm responding to people at work, is it going to be to bite their head off or is it going to be gracious and kind and forgiving and generous to others? Is it going to be a biblical mindset? It's going to be a worldly mindset. See the difference? So setting your mind on things above, setting your mind on heavenly things, is not just forgetting all the things of this world, of this earth, things that you have to think about from time to time, or may even enjoy thinking about hobbies and activities. It doesn't mean to set all those aside and just spend all of your time that you possibly can't reading your Bible and praying, doesn't mean that. But it means that this book is forming the way you think about things so that everything your mind is occupied with, you're passing it through that filter of God's Word. So you're setting your mind on things above. That's living a heavenly walk. So it's exactly the opposite of what we talked about last week of running off to a cave somewhere and getting away from everything in this world and thinking, well if I just punish my body and remove myself from everything in this world, then I can have a heavenly mindset. No, it's the exact opposite. It's living life fully in this world, but just living with a different philosophy than this world lives. It's living everything with the mindset that this is what the Bible teaches, this is how I should respond in this situation to honor my Lord. So everything is filtered through that biblical mindset. It makes a tremendous difference in the way we live and treat our families and deal with people at work and even people that we meet out in the marketplace, tremendous difference in the way we live life, if we think heavenly things. So the manner of a heavenly walk is to set our hearts, pursue heavenly things, and to think heavenly things. That's a summary of what it means to walk a heavenly walk. But there are some motivations for doing that. You see, just to know that that's what we ought to do is not enough. There are some motivations, some reasons why we ought to do that. And Paul talks about the motivations for a heavenly walk. There are three of them in these four verses, three motivations. In other words, why do I do what I do? Do I want to live a heavenly walk simply because I have to? God's going to get me if I don't. Do I live a heavenly life, a heavenly walk because preacher might be watching or might see a deacon in the store and so I'd better shape up. Is that the reason? Is that the motivation? Is it because, well, I want to be able to compare myself to other people favorably? Is that the reason? Those are not worthy motivations. Paul gives us three worthy motivations for living a heavenly life and walking, a heavenly walk. The first one has to do with our union with Christ, our union with Christ. First one, since then, you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. The first motivation very clearly is since you've been raised with Christ, has to do with our union with Christ. Now, Paul is assuming their salvation here. Let's go back to chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, where Paul says of these people, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. Our union with Christ means that we died with him, we were buried with him, and we are raised with him. In chapter 20 of chapter 2, he says, since you died with Christ to the basic principles of the world, why is though you still belong to it, do you submit to its rules? And then he gives some examples of those in verse 21. But you died with Christ, he said. Now, chapter 2, he's focused on the fact that you died with Christ. Chapter 3, he begins by saying, since you have been raised with Christ. Now, since you died with Christ, put away the past, because all that is gone, that died with him. That's the focus of chapter 2. Now, the focus of chapter 3 is since you have been raised with him looking to the future, not the past. Now, walk in a way that is worthy of a new life, a resurrection life. So, this is a very important concept, evidently in Paul's writings, and this is not the only time he talks about this, he talks about it in most of his epistles, our union with Christ. So, let's delve a little deeper into what he's talking about when he talks about our union with Christ. He's talked about our death with him, being buried with him, being raised with him to live a new life. What is that all about? Well, it has to do with how God looks at us when we trust the Lord Jesus as our Savior. You know, there are certain truths in the Bible that are kind of positional type truths. They have to do with our position that God sees us in. They really have nothing to do or very little to do with our practice the way we live. Now, they lead to Godly practice, but the position itself is simply the way God sees us. Now, here's how it works. When Jesus died for you on the cross, and then when you in turn placed your faith in him, there was an exchange that took place. Your sin was transferred to Jesus Christ in God's eyes, in God's record keeping system of heaven. Your sin was transferred to Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 521, he had made him who knew no sin to be sin or a sin offering for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So, your sin is placed on Christ, and Christ is now punished for your sin. So, there's an exchange there. Christ is dying for your sin. When you receive the Lord Jesus as your Savior, there's another transfer or exchange is made. Christ's righteousness is placed on you actually on the record books of heaven. Because your sin was punished in Christ, when you receive Christ, his righteousness is transferred over to you. So, in the record keeping of heaven, sin is marked off of the record books with your name on that page. And the righteousness of Christ is put on that page in the record books of heaven. It's a legal transaction, it's a positional truth, it's how God sees us. It's something that takes place in the heart and mind of God and in his record keeping system in heaven. And it's all because God sees us as united with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection. This union with Christ works like this. God looks at us once we have joined Christ in faith, we have been joined him in faith, God looks at us as having died with Christ, which means our old life is passed. It is dead. The old life, all that we were in Adam, all of its sin, all of its condemnation, all of the fact that we were headed to hell, all of that is gone. It's behind us, it's passed. And we have been buried with Christ, which means that was a complete death, and then we have been raised with Christ. Because Christ was raised from the dead, we have united with him in faith, God sees us as though we have been resurrected already to a new life. Basically what this means, this union with Christ means that our old life is behind us, it's passed, it's gone along with all the judgment and condemnation for our sin. And we have a new life in Christ, that's why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 517, if any man be what? In Christ, again there's our union with Christ, God sees us in him. If any man be in Christ, he is what? A new creature, a new creation, the old has passed, the new has come. So our old life has gone, the new life is now in front of us. Now obviously we have to accept that, understand that, and live in light of that. Because we still have a sinful nature that seeks to pull us back to where we were and to live sinfully. And so we have to continually recognize that we are new creatures in Christ, and we have to yield ourselves to him. This is all Romans 6, type of theology. We have to yield ourselves to him and recognize, understand that we are dead with Christ and we are living a new life, we don't have to give into the sin nature anymore, because we have the power to live a different way, we can live a new life. That's what our union with Christ is all about. Now Paul throws that out to us in chapter 3 as a motivation for living a heavenly kind of life. What's the reason why we want to live a new life? Not because somebody else expects us to, or we want to compare favorably to someone else, or because we're afraid God will get us if we don't. No, no, those are not worthy motivations. The worthy motivation is, I am dead with Christ, the old life is behind me. I have been resurrected to live a better life, a new life, I'm a new creature in Christ. It's all because of our union with Christ. Because of that, we ought to set our hearts on heavenly things and set our minds on heavenly things. So our union with Christ is a great motivation to live a heavenly kind of life. But there's a second motivation, also in this passage, and that is in verse 3, our security in Christ. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Now that's speaking of our security in Christ. He talked first of our union with Christ by faith, we've been crucified with Him, buried with Him, raised to live a new life with Him, and that ought to motivate us to live that new life. But now we also are secure in Him. We are hidden, hidden with Christ in God. Now think about that, and you can think about it from several different perspectives. To be hidden with Christ in God means several things. First of all, it means that your life is not going to be understandable to this world. It's going to be hidden to them. There is a hiddenness about the Christian life that the world simply doesn't get. Because our life is a hidden life. The motivation for it, the desires for it, the strength for it comes from a spiritual source. And this world simply does not get, does not understand what life in Christ is all about. You know, the Bible says it this way, Paul, again, says it in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, when he says that spiritual things are not understood by the natural man. The natural man receive it, not the things of the Spirit of God, because he can't understand them. He can't understand the things of why we want to live the way we want to live, why we take the views on things that we take on social or ethical issues. Unsafe man simply doesn't get it. He doesn't understand that because we live a hidden kind of life. Our life is strange to an unsafe world. It's different. The motivations, the lifestyle just is unbelievable to this unsafe world. So our life is hidden from the world. The second way to think of this hiddenness, our life being hid in Christ, is to think in terms of security. And that as our life is hidden, not from the world, but hidden for us. We are in God with Christ, he says, which means we are secure. We can never lose our salvation. Hold your place here and flip over to 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter deals with this same concept. In verse 3 of 1 Peter 1, he begins this long section of praise to the Lord for many of the blessings that God has given us, almost sounds like Psalm 103. But he says in verse 3, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you. Now notice, this inheritance that we have in Christ can never perish. Okay, when God saved you and He gave you this inheritance in heaven, He says, it can never perish. It can never be taken away. It will never spoil. It is being kept in heaven for you. That's security. But then notice the second part of security in verse 5, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. So what he's saying is this inheritance is being guarded and kept for you and you are being kept for it until that day, he says, when that inheritance will come. So there's a double kind of security here. Our position in Christ means that we have an inheritance which is being kept for us and we are being kept safe for it. You see Satan cannot snatch us out of God's hands. We are being kept for that inheritance. That's security. Jesus said it this way. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father which gave them me is greater than all and no man can pluck them out of my father's hand. I and my father are one, he said. John 10. So Jesus is saying you are in the father's hand because of your salvation. Nobody can take you out of his hand and you are in my hand. Nobody can take you out of my hand. That's double security just like we saw in first Peter. And it's the same kind of thing that Paul's talking about in Colossians. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. That's double security. Your life is guarded, kept safe and secure. Hidden within the fortress of Jesus Christ Satan cannot get to you to take away your salvation. But you are hidden with Christ doubly secure in God. So that double security, that hiddenness of our life is a double security of our salvation. You can never lose what God has given us in Christ. So this hiddenness is hidden from the world. It's hidden for us but it is also quite clearly in this verse hidden in Christ or with Christ in God which means that our life is now enveloped in his life. We are hidden with him in God which means all the strength we need, all the power we need to live life, all the direction we need for life. Our very life itself comes from him because our life is hidden with him in God. So now everything we need we draw from him. We're not left to our own strength to try to make it in life. Everything we need we can draw directly from him because we are hidden with Christ in God. We draw straight from his strength, his power, his direction, his very life to live as we should. So what does it mean? Why should we want to live a heavenly life, a heavenly walk because of our union with Christ and because of our security in Christ but thirdly also because of our future with Christ? Verse 4. When Christ who is your life as we've just seen back in verse 2, when Christ who is your life appears then you also will appear with him in glory. I think there are a couple of things that are meant by that. Number one is that is going to be a great time of vindication when we appear with Christ in glory. Those who did not understand our lives, why we thought the way we did, why we believed the way we did, why we lived the way we did, why we went to church, why we wanted to serve God, those to whom that was a great mystery will understand in that day. Everything will be open and manifest when we appear with him in glory and there is a sense in which every believer, everything we have done for Christ will be vindicated on that day. No matter who may have misjudged us here, it will always be clear there. So that's a great motivation to live for Christ. Sometimes you know when you're living for the Lord and you're kind of getting hit from different sides and you're thinking, is it really worth it? Is it really worth it to live for the Lord? Well think about that day when you will appear with him in glory and you will be able to say, yes, it is worth it. Because truth and biblical lifestyle will be vindicated at that time. But I think something else that is meant here by our future with Christ appearing with him in glory that we must keep before us and does serve as a great motivation to live a heavenly walk. Is the fact that we will be judged. We will stand before him in judgment someday at the judgment seat of Christ. When we all stand before the Lord Jesus, we will give an account for our lives and what we did with them and whether or not our daily life was the kind of life where we were pursuing heavenly things and thinking heavenly things, focused on heavenly things, we'll give an account for whether or not we lived life that way. And when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, we will wish that we had lived more faithfully for Jesus while we were here. Thinking about that, ought to serve as a great motivation for us to live a heavenly life now. The walk, a heavenly walk now. Our lives are to be heavenly. Not so heavenly mind that we're no earthly good as the expression is often used. But our lives are to be hearts set and pursuing heavenly things, minds set on heavenly things so that our whole life comes through this filter of what does the Bible say about this? How would the Lord have me to respond? What would be most pleasing to him in this situation? Our whole life is lived with that perspective. And we do that because of our union with Christ, because the old life is gone, it's dead, we're dead with Christ and we've been raised to walk a new life. That's our motivation. We want to live that way because we are secure in Christ. We're not going to lose our salvation. The wonderful gift God's given us ought to motivate us to live every day for him. And we ought to be motivated to live a heavenly walk because someday we will stand before him. We're giving account for our lives and all that we've done for him will be rewarded, vindicated on that day. That's a great motivation to live our lives for Jesus Christ. We have to live here as long as God gives us breath and days on this earth. We have to live on this earth. We're not in heaven yet, but even while we're walking on this earth, we can live a heavenly life. We can walk, heavenly walk. Let's join our hearts together in prayer. Father, we are grateful to you that you've made provision for us in Christ because of our death, burial and resurrection with him and how you view us in Christ. We have the ability, the opportunity, the strength, the power to live the Christian life as you want us to. Not through man-made observances and rules and false humility and all those things we saw last week, but because we are united with Christ and secure in him and we're going to see him someday, we have the opportunity to live life as you would have us to. We are in a reservation to do that. Help us, Lord, to do that faithfully. Tonight, tomorrow, each day that we live, may we pursue heavenly things and think heavenly things. Our life will be different because of it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.