Colossians 3:3-4

Colossians chapter 3. I’m going to read the first four verses. Our focus is on verses 3 and 4. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. May God bless to us His sacred and holy word this morning. Martin Luther was once told about a nobleman who, above all things, was occupied with making money. He was so obsessed with this pursuit that he refused to pay any attention to the Word of God. When someone pleaded with him to consider the state of his soul, he had the audacity to reply, sir, the gospel pays no interest. In addressing this, Luther gave this parable, or this fable. He said, a lion, making a great feast, invited all the beasts of the field to come along with some swine. And when all manner of delicious food was set before the guests, the swine asked, where’s the grain? And Luther explained, even so it is with carnal men. We preachers set before them the most dainty and costly dishes, such as everlasting salvation, the remission of sins in God’s grace. They like swine, turn up their snouts and ask for money. Now, friends, this sort of captures the difference between the worldling and the Christian. The Christian is seeking heavenly things, as verse one tells us, whereas the worldling confines himself to the things, the carnal things of this earth. as verse 2 indicates to us, you appreciate the value of heavenly things as a believer, whereas the worldling like swine trample under foot the pearls that are set before them. The worldling values carnal things like riches and possessions and pleasures, and is so mesmerized by these things, so hypnotized, if you would, that he rarely thinks about anything else. Therefore, he cannot understand you as a believer. He does not understand why you’re not in the rat race with him pursuing diligently earthly things like everybody else. It is this distinct difference that Paul continues to explain in our text here in verses 3 and 4. Let me begin. by saying this, that your spiritual life makes you dead to the world. He says you are dead here. No, obviously, he’s not talking about physical death because he’s writing to people with their lives, so we know that is not what he’s speaking about. Nor does he speak here about some type of moral death, such as being dead in trespasses and sins, because he’s already said in chapter 2 and verse 13 that they have been quickened. They’ve been made alive spiritually. So that’s not what he’s talking about. What Paul is referring here is to you being united with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, which means that you are dead with Christ, chapter 2, verse 20, and you are risen with Christ, chapter 3 and verse 1. So this deadness that he speaks about is a pretext. present reality, for ye are dead. Even though you are spiritually alive, there’s a sense in which you are dead. What is that sense? Well, look at Galatians, if you would. A few pages back, Galatians chapter 6 and verse 14. Notice how Paul explains this in this verse. He says here, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I under the world. We’re dead in this sense, is what he’s saying. The bond that formerly existed between the world and you has been destroyed because of your union with Christ in his crucifixion. As far as Paul is concerned, the world is dead to him. As far as the world is dead to him, as far as the world is concerned, and Paul is dead to them. Paul once counted worldly honor and pleasure and wealth of vast importance, top priority. You read his passage in Philippians chapter 3, the prestige of being a Pharisee of the Pharisees and so forth, and being of the Jewish lineage and of the tribe of Benjamin and all these things. Now what? He has contempt for these things, these earthly things. He counts them, he says, as worthless dung. Like a crucified person is the object of contempt. They become the object of contempt. Paul is also dead to the world. The world hates, despises him, counts him as the scum of the earth, as he says, in one of his epistles. A nuisance, a pussons, a pest. Someone to exterminate. Also, like a crucified person. So the world’s crucified to him, and he’s crucified to the world. Scripture calls your death to the world as the old man being crucified with Christ. Romans 6.6. What you were fallen in Adam, in that depraved, corrupt state, you no longer are. The old man delights in earthly things, eagerly pursues them as the chief end in life. But you’re not like that anymore. Your old self died with Christ. You have been born again. As the scripture indicates to us, if any man be in Christ, he’s a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things become new. Before his conversion, Paul, known as Saul, was like a ferocious wild beast. He threatened and slaughtered people. Christians left blood and destruction in his wake. Motivated by pride, motivated by ambition. He persecuted the church to the best of his ability. And then the exalted Christ spoke to him on the Damascus Road. His sword, like a two-edged sword, his word, I should say like a two-edged sword, pierced through the heart. of Saul. Saul died on the Damascus road, and Paul was born. The person known as Saul was struck dead, ceased to exist, if you would. The man Paul, a new creature in Christ, took his place. So Saul was gone. He was crucified. You can’t find him in Paul. He’s no longer in Paul. He’s no longer in Paul. Paul’s a new person. And so there’s a sense in which Paul died when it came to the world. When I was in seminary, my first year I met a young man named Phil, who came from a rather strict Jewish Orthodox background. He had been miraculously brought to Christ during his teenage years, and he attended a Baptist church. was family’s reaction to him becoming a Christian was quite dramatic. They had a funeral for him. As far as they were concerned, he was dead. They cut off all communication with him. As far as he was concerned, to them, he was dead. They literally had a funeral for him. A most literal illustration of being dead to the world, if you would. there are other places where if you, like in Arab countries, if you come to know Christ, you can be treated in such a way very similar to that. There is a mutual deadness. You’re dead to the world. The world’s dead to you as a Christian. Yes, I know there are remnants of the old man that still plague us as we go through this life. But we consider the old man now to be dead. And we live the life of the new man, is what the scripture indicates to us. Can you look back on your life and say, my old self is dead? That I am a new person in Christ? Christ changes people. The question is, has he changed you? So that you are dead to the world, as we see here in this passage of Scripture. In what way are you dead? I think in this sense, as Paul mentions in Galatian 614, do not seek earthly things for your dead to the world. Notice he says here, he begins verse three with the word four. For ye are dead. Why should you seek the things of the earth when you’re dead to the world, you see? That’s what the point is, the connection. Just as a bodily death severs a person from all participation in earthly things, so your death with Christ should turn your mind from the pursuit of earthly things. Your mind has been transformed by Jesus Christ. It thinks differently than it used to think. You have new priorities. You have new desires. You have new thoughts. Friends, you cannot say. that you belong to Christ without your old man being crucified with him. It’s a fatal mistake to think that you are a believer if you are not dead to the world. It’s the fool who hoards up riches and possessions in this life and is not rich toward God. That’s what the Bible tells us. So if my priorities are on earthly things, we’re not dead to the world. If that’s where our focus is in life and our top priority, then we’re not being rich toward God. So your spiritual life makes you dead to the world. Secondly, your spiritual life is hidden, he says. He says your life is hid with Christ in God. Now, your spiritual life is the only true life. The word life here certainly refers to supernatural life that you possess now, in a state of grace that you’re in, it will be perfected in the future, and so there’ll be a state of glory. The life of grace now is sort of a precursor of the life of glory that come. It’s the childhood stage of that, if you would. But in contrast to this spiritual life, to have a merely earthly, carnal life, is to be classified as being dead. That leads to eternal death. thus in scripture those who live after the flesh are considered to be dead and not alive unto God. For example, we read about the widow here in 1 Timothy 5, 6. She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveseth. If she’s not dedicated to the Lord, if the church is going to support her, and she’s not dedicated to serving the Lord. Well, if she’s living in pleasure, She’s dead, even though she is physically alive. Let the dead bury their dead, as the scripture indicates as well. So the spiritual life of grace here and of glory to come is the only thing really worthy of being classified as life. It’s your life, meaning that you are in possession of it now, because he that hath the son hath life, he that hath not the son hath not life. if you have the sun, you have life now. It’s your life. Now, if ye be risen with Christ, if you’ve been made alive from spiritual death, then being alive under God, your mind and your desire should be on heavenly things. If your mind is no interest in spiritual things in salvation and in godliness, then you’re still dead. It’s not that, it’s not rocket. science, it seems simple, doesn’t it? Examine yourself. Because either you’re dead or you’re alive, spiritually. There’s no other option. Hear the words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ in John 524. Verily, verily, I say on you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me. Hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. believe the word of the gospel. So your spiritual life is the only true life. Now, your spiritual life is presently hidden, it says. Your life is hid. The major part of your spiritual life is not seen. It can’t be seen with the unspiritual eye, and the world certainly can’t see it. The world may see some acts of godliness but your spiritual life is something they cannot grasp. It’s not shown to them. The world counts that Christian is someone despicable and foolish. They don’t understand you. They hate what you stand for. We read about the heroes of the faith and how they were stoned and saw on asunder and tempted and killed with the sword and they wondered about in sheepskins. goat skins and they were destitute, afflicted, tormented. And then he finally ends that phrase, that verse with of whom the world wasn’t worthy. They didn’t realize the value of these people. They didn’t see the spiritual life within them. Your heart rejoices because Christ reigns in heaven and you reign with Christ, but the world doesn’t see you as a king. The world doesn’t understand your role. royalty. It cannot grasp that Jesus Christ has made us kings, as Revelation 1-5 says. They don’t see that. You are a priest, serving under Jesus Christ the high priest. You may draw near unto God. You can offer up prayers and spiritual sacrifices and have acceptance with God, and have the power of God move on your behalf. But the world doesn’t see. you as a priest of the most high God. Remember Job’s friends, they came to him and they accused him of all kinds of ungodly behavior. You have to be somebody terrible to be doing all these things. And at the end of the book, when God speaks and puts everybody in their place, he tells these three friends of his that they have to bring sacrifices and go to my servant Job, who shall pray for for you, for him will I except lest I deal with you after your folly. He’s my priest. You have to go to him and he will intercede for you. They didn’t see that. They thought he was some terrible sinner. They didn’t see his priesthood that he had. You are a prophet that serves Jesus Christ, the prophet because you speak the word of God to others. But the world doesn’t see you as a prophet. I’m reminded of the story of Abraham and Abimelech. When he went to Gerar, he said that his wife, Sarah, was really his sister. And Bimlech takes Sarah thinking, I’ll, you know, she’s a pretty good-looking woman. I’ll marry her. And all of a sudden, God begins to plague the king. And God speaks to Abimelech. Tells him, you’re a dead man, because you’ve taken this man’s wife. He says, I didn’t know this. You go to him. He is a prophet. He shall pray for thee that thou shall live. I didn’t know Abraham was a prophet of the Lord. Yeah, yeah, he’s a prophet. He’ll pray for you, and I will spare you. What did the world know about these individuals? They didn’t grasp these things about them. You are a son of God. But what you will fully be, when you are fully manifested, no one knows for sure yet. But the scripture says this. They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever. For many years there was a white marble bust, affectionately known as Fred, that was used as a hat stand at a Yorkshire Barbershop. The present proprietor, however, recently discovered, that Fred’s true value was over $100,000. What nobody realized until an expert examined the bust was that this was the likeness of Frederick Augustine, the son of King Edward III, by the sculptor Joseph Nolikins. So it is with the Christian. You know, no one knows who you really are. They don’t understand who you are. You are the soul. salt of the earth. You have a purifying and preserving influence in this world, and yet the world doesn’t realize it. You’re sort of like Lot in Sodom. As long as you’re there, no destruction comes. Until he be taken, he’s taken out of the way. They don’t realize the value of the people of God among them. You know, there were many times when your life may be hidden from you. It’s hidden from the world. But when you’re under strong temptations or maybe corruptions prevail in your life or grace is low and God seems to be hiding his face, there may be a sense in which the glory of your eternal life is presently hid from you. John says, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear. here we shall be like it. I can’t tell you what we’re actually going to look like fully, but I’m going to be like Christ. We just, we can’t really fathom all that we’re going to be like at this point. But your spiritual life is presently hidden, mostly from the world, but sometimes even in some ways from ourselves. Notice that your spiritual life will be securely preserved. It’s hid with Christ in God. God. Kind of like that. Sort of a double security that we have. This life may be one of suffering and persecution, and it’s full of temptations and trials, and sometimes you wonder if your spiritual life is going to be extinguished if you’re going to survive it. I read about Asaph in Psalm 73. He says there that his feet had well nigh slipped when he became envious of the wicked. Haven’t you ever been there? Where your feet had well night slipped and began to doubt and question. However, your spiritual life is out of danger because it is hid with Christ and God. It’s rooted and grounded in Christ. You’re representative of head, and therefore it is safe. It is secure. As long as the head lives, the body and the members of the body shall live. also. So your union with Christ provides this stream of necessary graces that sustains the spiritual life that you have. It all flows from Christ. Now, in addition, your eternal life is deposited in the hands of the Father. I’m reminded of John 10th. And I give unto 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 is able to pluck them out of my father’s hand. We in Christ’s hand and then we’re in the Father’s hand. God through Christ has purposed you to be saved and has promised you salvation and it’s impossible for the eternal life then to be snatched away from you. Let me make this observation. Whatever happens to you in this life, however power of Satan may be and the world and the flesh may be. Your spiritual life is guaranteed to be sustained and that should comfort your soul. Jesus talked about the great deception that was going to come in the Olivet discourse. He said if it were possible that the elect would be if it were possible. It’s not possible. But it was such a powerful deception that if it was possible, even the elect would have been to see, but it’s not possible. That’s what he indicates. So your spiritual life is hidden. The third thing he tells us is this. Your certain expectation of a future glorious life is found in verse 4. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory. Christ here is the granter of your eternal life. He’s the author. He is the cause of this glorious blessed life you expect to enjoy. He declares, I give unto them his sheep, eternal life. I give unto them eternal life. God has given to us eternal life. And this life, scripture says, is in his his son. Jesus said I go to prepare a place for them in John 14 too. Preparations are being made for you to stay in heaven. Now it is true that Jesus Christ is the source of all sorts of life, natural life, your present, spiritual life, the eternal life that you’re going to enjoy in heaven. But it’s not so much that you live, but Christ lives in you. I like what Paul said in the book of Galatians 220. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveeth in me. That’s what sustains us. He is your eternal life. He perfects what you presently have begun in your life. So Christ is the granted of your eternal life. Now, your faith must comprehend Christ glorified in your eternal likeness to him. At this time, Christ’s brought up. presence is removed from you. He is up in heaven. He is at the right hand of the throne of God the Father. However, he has promised to appear again, what we call the second coming of Christ. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel. We read in 1st Thessalonians 416. He’s going to visibly appear. with holy angels and flaming fire, the Bible tells us. The dead bodies of the saints are going to be raised from the gray. The living saints are going to be instantaneously changed and caught up to be with the Lord in the air. Now, the key thing is, you shall be made like your glorified Savior, Jesus Christ. We’ll be like him. You shall appear with him in glory. You’ll be glorified as well. You’ll be at that place. completely conform to the image of God’s son. You’ll have God’s glory upon you both in body and in soul at that point. Such a glory revealed in you as to make the sufferings and the hardships of this life as well as the pleasures and riches of this life to be completely fading insignificance. By faith, you say to yourself, one day, I’m going to be like the glorified Savior. That’s your expectation. That’s your future. Now, since Christ could come in any time, your focus, therefore, must be on heavenly things. We come back again to the main point. Christ will come again. However, he tells us he’s going to come suddenly, unexpectedly, as a thief in the night. And therefore it behooes you to be prepared for his glorious appearance. To be the virgins with the oil and the lamp, so to speak, be prepared. We should be focused upon serving our king at all times. When Christ returns, blessed is the servant that’s been carrying out his will while he’s been gone. C.H. Spurgeon, a London preacher, once did some sightseeing while he’s on vacation in Europe. He and some other travelers were traversing the great Eljelais glacier, and they became extremely hungry. They found a mountain shelter about halfway down the mountainside. There was a hotel at the bottom of the mountain where they could get food and so forth, but they were about halfway there, but they were hungry. They hired a servant, a peasant, to descend the mountain, and bring some bread and milk back to them. Well, the peasant brought back milk that was too sire to drink, bread that was too black, black as coal, he says, and too hard to bite and as sire as the milk. At this point, Spurgeon and his fellow travelers long, more eagerly to reach the hotel at the bottom of the mountain. And they said they mounted their horses and didn’t stop until they got there and went into the restaurant there and had a eager meal and abundantly were satisfied by it. All the time their minds were on the good food that awaited them at the hotel. They’re making this trip and all they can think about, let’s get down there so we can get that meal. Friends, all the disappointments and all the sufferings that you go through in this life should wet your appetite for a better country. My friends, what we get in this world is the black bread and the sire milk. It should cause you to focus on things above, especially the glory that is to be revealed. Your future is so glorious it should captivate your mind and affections and draw your affections away and your mind away from the earthly things. So that our main focus becomes on spiritual matters. Well, the nobleman in Luther’s Day completely occupied himself with amassing money. and when someone tried to speak to him about gospel things, he says, well, the gospel doesn’t pay any interest. It doesn’t pay me anything. Luther responded with his parable about the line who gave the feast for all the animals and some swine complained, have you no grains. Well, that’s the way the people of this world are. They’re like the swine. All the most tasty and costly things of the gospel and of Christ’s salvation to be set before them. They have no interest in them. Their minds are on the earth. Their only passion is on the carnal husks of this earthly life. And so this parable gives us a way to learn the difference here between the worldling and the believer. If we’re only going to think about the husks in this life and the things of this life, that our minds is not set on things above. Where do you stand? Are you dead to this world? Do you have a spiritual life hidden Christ? Do you have an expectation of a glorious future life? These are the questions that Paul would have us know the answer to as we look at this passage of Scripture. Because true believers have what he’s talking about right here in this passage of Scripture. Let us close with it. I don’t know.