Keep Your Head in the Clouds

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Jesus calls us to have our lives shaped by heavenly reality

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Introduction

Colossians 1:1–17 ESV
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 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. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Colossians 3:1–17 ESV
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
COL3.1-
Earlier this month I was visiting with a couple of pastors to talk with them about the vision and desires of our Institute for Cross-Cultural Mission. Both of these pastors are White. One is older than me, and the other is about seven years younger than me. I tell you this because the younger pastor shared a story with us from his senior year in high school. I’m 49, so this younger pastor is still in his early 40’s. What this means is that his senior year in high school was in the early 1990’s; not that long ago.
We were talking about issues of race and ethnicity, crossing cultural lines and the challenges that it presents. Then he shared this story of a memorable experience of overt racism in his life. This pastor grew up in Atlanta, GA, so he had lots of Black friends and was used to interacting with Black people on a daily basis. He was an offensive lineman on his high school football team. In fact, there were only four White players on their football team and each of them played offensive line. They took a good bit of pride in the grunt work they did, blocking for their QB and opening holes for their phenomenal running back.
Their team was among the tops in the state of GA that year. That phenomenal running back on their team eventually made it to the NFL and played for the Arizona Cardinals. Because their team was so good, they had an opportunity to play for the state championship. For this game they had to travel to another part of the state that wasn’t as diverse as Atlanta. He said that when they arrived and stepped off of the bus, the path to the stadium was lined with fans of the opposing team on both sides. And as they walked in together, the people were shouting the most heinous and racist derogatory insults at the team.
This experience had them a little disoriented. The pastor’s team got the ball first. They were unable to make a first down. It was three-and-out. They had to punt. Now the position the pastor played on the offensive line was the center. It his responsibility to snap the ball to the punter. In his nervousness, he managed to snap the ball over the head of their 6’-6” punter. The ball rolls into the endzone, the opposing team covers the ball for a touchdown. And it’s 7-0. The team settled down a bit and at halftime, the score remained 7-0.
But then, as they made their way from the field to the locker room, the opposing team’s fans were again lining both sides of the path shouting the same racist insults at them. The locker room is quiet at halftime. The team is unnerved. The star running back decides to stand up in the middle of his teammates and shout, “Ain’t nobody gonna call me a ‘N’!” A few teammates began to respond with head nods. “Yeah.” “That’s right.” But here’s story. This White pastor says to me, for whatever reason, he got up in the middle of his teammates and shouted, “Ain’t nobody gonna call me a ‘N’!” He said the room exploded. He said they went out in the 2nd half and beat the other team down. The final score was 37-7.
You know what this story is about? This story is about identity. It’s a story about how the groups we’re a part of help to form our sense of who we are. Who are you? Who are your people? The pastor said that as he told me he was getting chills all over again. That was a defining moment where those African American players were saying to him, “You’re one of us.” The pastor, by his action was saying, “I with you in this. I’m welcoming and embracing what it means to belong here.”
What does it mean to have your identity shaped, formed, even rocked by the experience of intimate community across lines of deep difference? God has something to say about that. God has something to say about the issue of our image and our identity. Here’s the deal, the central person in the Bible is Jesus Christ. And he’s at the center, in part, in order to deal with our image problem. Let me tell you what I’m talking about. Let me tell you what the apostle Paul reminds the Colossians of about Jesus in chapter 1 of this letter. It was a song the early church sang, and the lyrics went like this,
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For all things were created by him; in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been made through him and for him. And he is before everything and all things hold together in him. And he is the head of his body, the church. Of which he is the first cause, the firstborn from the dead, so that in everything he might be first.”
The church’s song is that Jesus is first - firstborn, first cause, first over everything. And he is preeminently the image of the invisible God. Jesus is the only one to walk the earth and not have an image problem. In fact, he came on the scene to take care of the image problem we’ve all got. So, then Paul wants to tell the Colossians how they’re supposed to be living here in chapter three, and he says to them down in v. 9, “Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you’ve put off the old self, with its practices, and have put on the new self – which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” Jesus, the image of the invisible God comes to renew us in knowledge after his image. Why? Because, as he says in v. 3, our lives are hidden with Christ in God. Jesus does the re-imaging work that’s needed by swallowing us up into himself. And because of that God tells us here in his word to keep our heads in the clouds. And I’m not talking about daydreaming. God makes us heavenly minded people. But heavenly mindedness isn’t pie in the sky thinking. It means out with the old and in with the new. This morning we’re talking about two things A New We, and A New World.

A New We

These first four verses of ch. 3 pack a heavy punch… The dominant idea is that life is different now if you’re a Christian. And the first way that it’s different is that there’s a new “we.” There’s a different “us.” The apostle Paul is saying to the Colossians, “There’s a new program to follow, and it’s called, ‘This is Us.’ Let me tell you what it looks like.
I need us to take note of the fact that every time the personal pronoun “you” appears in our text, it’s plural. I often point this out in my sermons because in English we can say “you” and mean “you” individual, or “you” plural. And unless we’re from the South and say y’all a lot, we’re just going to use the word “you” for either case. And the norm for reading the Bible through the cultural lens of life here in America is to approach it from an individual perspective. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing. I’m just saying that’s just how it is. So when I read, “If therefore, you were raised with Christ, seek the things that are above…,” I’ve been raised with Christ. I’m supposed to seek the things that are above. That’s true, but it’s not the whole deal. The norm in the Bible is that God isn’t simply making a new person. He’s not simply making a different “me.” God is making a new people. He’s making a different “we.”
The city of Colossae was a place where many different religious and philosophical views thrived. The word for that is pluralism. It’s not very different from life today right here. There was ethnic and cultural diversity in Colossae, but there was also a lot of religious diversity. And so, when Christianity came to that city, it was added into the mix. What’s the temptation in that kind of setting? Can we find a way to make Christianity fit within the other beliefs? Can we get some synchronization going on? Aren’t they all basically the same?
So, from the beginning of this letter, Paul has been driving home the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Everything else is false and he is true. He calls for exclusive obedience. But he’s inclusive in his exclusivity. He’s creating a new people, a new we, and everyone’s invited. We heard him say in 1:18 that Jesus is the head of his body, the church. And down in v. 11 of this chapter he says, “Here,” that is in Jesus’ body, the church, “there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” There’s a different “we” in Jesus’ body and no one is excluded on the basis of ethnicity, race, gender, age, social status, education, or anything else that we think makes us who we are.
Let me say this because it’s important. What’s being described here is not a colorblindness. It’s not a, “I don’t see color attitude,” where we try to just minimize or ignore difference. When Paul says there’s not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, he says it because there were Greek and Jew, barbarian, Scythian, slave, and free among them. And everybody knew who they were! So, you see my blackness, (Duke) I see your Koreanness, (Miranda) I see your Whiteness, (Hlase) I see your Africanness, (Akite) your Trinidadianness, your “whatever it is-ness.” The difference and distinction is that when you have been raised with Christ, the differences are not barriers to being in community together. They are no longer barriers to our being intimately identified with one another.
What do you think Christianity is? Do you think it’s just a way to punch a ticket to heaven? Do you think it’s just this wacky system of beliefs that turn people into warriors against the culture; such that Christianity becomes defined as being against whatever the culture is in favor of? Christianity is not defined primarily by what it’s against. It starts here in this vision of a new “we,” the renewal and restoration of the image of God in those who have been raised with Christ and whose lives, therefore are hidden together with Christ in God.
Here’s a challenge in all of this “new we” stuff. What am I giving up for this new “we”? My ethnic identity helps to ground me. Sociologist Aaron Kuecker put it this way,
“The group dynamic of ethnic identity and ethnocentrism provides a way for people to know themselves in a world of dizzying and complex diversity.”
In other words, there’s a sense of grounded-ness and rootedness in my ethnic identity. It can be disorienting to be shaped into a new “we.” But here’s the deal. I’m not called to check my ethnicity at the door of the church. I’m not called to check my gender at the door. We’re not called by God to strike a balance between identity in Jesus Christ (Christian identity) and ethnic identity as if one washes out the other. What we are called to do is understand our ethnic identity as subservient to our identity in Jesus Christ. And a church that is healthy in diversity helps to form people in this way by revealing that my ethnic identity is not absolute. Indeed, every identity that we have a tendency to make absolute, to make the sum total of our existence, whether it’s our ethnic identity, our sexual identity, our gender identity, our generational identity, our intellectual identity, our athletic identity, and on and on, is subservient to identity to Christ because of what the apostle Paul says. Christians lives are hidden with Christ in God.

A New World

This is important because the commands Paul gives in these verses is given to this new “we”. What are the commands? Seek the things that are above. Set your minds on the things that are above. Colossians, you all are to be seeking the things that are above and setting your minds on the things that are above together. Please listen. You cannot help but be formed and shaped by the groups you are associated with.
We know this instinctively. We know that we’re influenced by others. “Pastor, I’m an independent thinker.” Well, that might be, but you wasn’t so independent when your parents said, “No, you can’t go. No, you can’t watch that. No, you can’t listen to that. No, you’re not hanging with him.” We might push back, but the values – for good or bad – that become foundational for how we live are given to us by others.
Let me put it to you this way, identity formation is a group project. You don’t form yourself. This is so true that it’s all over the world of entertainment. This is what the movie The Jungle Book is all about. Mowgli, an abandoned child is raised by wolves. He loves his life of running with the wolves and is quite happy being a wolf on the inside and a human on the outside. That is, until his peaceful existence is threatened when the man-eating tiger, Shere Khan, returns to the jungle. Shere Khan has had some bad experiences with humans, and has a scar that reminds him of it. So, he’s definitely not going to tolerate some human living among them in the jungle. Now, Mowgli is in distress. He doesn’t want to go back to the “man village.” He wants to stay with his wolf family, but he can’t. You watch the movie, or you read the book, and think, “of course, he’s supposed to be in the man village, he’s a human being.” But his sense of identity wasn’t shaped by human beings, it was shaped by wolves. So that’s who he thinks he is.
Paul is saying that in Jesus Christ, you all become a different “we,” and your sense of who you are is to be shaped and formed by this reality. The reality is that there is a new we that cuts across the lines of race, ethnicity, gender, education and so on, and the influence on your life together is that you live in a new world. What’s new about the new world is that Jesus gives his people different eyes and a different mind. What starts to influence our formation, what starts to influence our identity, our sense of who we are, is the things that are above; not the things that are on earth. Paul says to them in v. 3, “You all died, and your life has been hidden with Christ in God.”
This is so significant. Colossians is a short letter, only four chapters. But again and again and again Paul feels the need to remind them about death to the old self and life to the new self. That’s why he reminds them in 1:18 that Jesus is the first cause of the church. He’s the firstborn from the dead. He died, but he didn’t stay dead. He rose to new life. Then he says in 2:11-13,
“In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,”
Ok. We get it now Paul. Paul says, “I’m not so sure you do.” So, he says in 2:20
“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 its regulations – “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch…”
Right on the heels of that, he repeats it again in vv. 1 and 3 of our text. “You all have been raised with Christ…You all have died with Christ.” But, you’re not dead. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. Having our lives hidden with Christ in God, is real life, in this real world, with a new perspective –with our lives influenced and shaped by a new reality. Let me quote from Paul again in this same letter. This is the third time he’s spoken about something being hidden. In ch. 1:25-26 he says that he became a minister according to the stewardship from God to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” What had been hidden, but is now revealed, is the mystery that God was going to demonstrate the riches of his glory by giving Jesus Christ to Jew and Gentile alike. Then, at the beginning of ch. 2 he tells them that he has a great struggle for them and those at Laodicea. The struggle is that he wants their hearts to be encouraged. He wants them to be knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ. In whom, he says, are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
So, what does it mean to be hidden in Christ, the one who has all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? It means now having the ability and desire to keep our heads in the clouds, to seek and set our minds on the things that are above. This is about practical, everyday life living. Heavenly-mindedness, keeping our heads in the clouds, is not about daydreaming of heaven. It’s not about spending the day wondering what heaven is going to be like. He’s about to get very practical with them in the rest of the chapter. Heavenly mindedness is about putting to death sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness. It’s about putting off anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk. It’s about not lying to one another. It’s about putting on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiving one another.
You might say, “I don’t need Jesus to be compassionate. I don’t need to be Christian to forgive other people.” Psychologists will tell you about the benefits to your own mental health if you don’t hold grudges and are willing to forgive. If that’s what it means to be heavenly minded, why do I need Jesus for that? Here’s the deal. Let’s not forget the first point that God, in Christ, creates a new “we.” This isn’t just about me being a compassionate person, or a forgiving person. It’s about the kind of community that God is creating. It’s about the defining characteristics of that community. Grace Meridian Hill, what does God want our defining characteristics to be? How will this church demonstrate that the new world has broken into the current world?
When the U.S. establishes a relationship with other governments one of the things that we do is set up an embassy in that country. The embassy in that country is an extension of the U.S. The people who run the embassy are American citizens, and they represent American interests in a foreign country. Well, the community of people whom God has hidden in Christ is an embassy of God’s kingdom. The church is an outpost of the kingdom of God. That means it not only represents, but it extends kingdom interests in this world. The things that are above, that Paul is talking about, are the interests of the kingdom of God. They haven’t fully manifested themselves in this world, but they are present as the defining characteristics of those whose lives are hidden with Christ in God.
Jesus Christ is necessary for this because the lives that make up this community are people from different walks of life. They are people who might not choose to be together if it wasn’t for the fact that Jesus Christ had grabbed their hearts and placed them in community with other people whose heart he had also grabbed. Jesus is necessary because this community is one who understands that they have died and been raised to new life. And in this new life, they’re not living just for themselves. Their eyes are focused on their King because they have a new identity.
In Jesus Christ we don’t die to die, we die to live! Seeking the things that are above doesn’t mean searching for them. Setting our minds on things above doesn’t mean sitting down in quiet contemplation. Seeking and setting means having our lives shaped and formed by the things that are above. Understanding our sense of identity as coming from the heavenly reality. The reality that says Jesus Christ is sitting down at the right side of God. That is the position of power and authority. Being wrapped up with him means having the power to shape our lives according to his likes and dislikes…. (My kingdom is not of this world…) The power to have our lives shaped together by the extension of mercy and grace, and above all, Paul says in v. 14, love, which is the binding glue of perfection.
It is only those who are the most heavenly minded that are actually able to labor for the most earthly good. Why? Because our longing for peace/shalom/healing/restoration is not rooted in the ability of this world to manufacture it. We become people who live with a different expectation and perspective on what it real and true.
the most heavenly minded that are actually able to labor for the most earthly good. Why? Because our longing for peace/shalom/healing/restoration is not rooted in the ability of this world to manufacture it. We become people who live with a different expectation and perspective on what it real and true.
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