Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church.

It is a joy and a privilege to be here with you today.

What a journey we’ve been on with Paul through the book of Colossians.

He has taken us to the heights of Mount Everest in Colossians 1:15-20 and we’ve just come through what may have seemed like the Mariana’s Trench with the depths of the human nature that he has just explored as he begins to caution us about the false teachers and the lure to being distracted by man-made and sometimes self-made programs that take our focus off of the true nature or object of our faith.

And Paul will do this in his letters - he will start off with the theology and then get very practical with his teaching.

The book of Ephesians is a great example of this as he spends three chapters highlighting the truths of the Christian life and then he gets very practical with how that Christian life should be lived out.

In Colossians, the book we’ve been carefully looking at, he spent the first section reinforcing the truth of Christ’s identity as both God and man, as our savior and Lord and most recently he was applying that knowledge to dismantling the false teacher’s attacks.

He is about to turn the letter to the practical living section - with the knowledge that he has imparted to the Colossians how should this impact their lives.

How should they live in society and in the home in light of this knowledge.

And so he has just brought all of us low with the teachings about legalism, mysticism and asceticism - and he’s going to tell the Colossians to put to death what belongs to the earthly nature - as long as we’re plumbing the depths of human nature we might as well expose all of it.

But this mornings passage is a break - almost like a newscaster who will drop in during This Is Us with “We now interrupt our previously scheduled programming for this important announcement” and no matter what you’re watching you response is one of frustration.

But here Paul interrupts his train of thought regarding these false teachers and the nature of man to say “just in case you forgot there’s a higher purpose here and so I’m going to remind you of the whole point of this”.

He’s going to remind us of some core truths that really boil down to one statement - and I know the title of this message is Hidden with Christ but that’s because this statement was too long to make the title.

Christianity at its core is a whole body program that delivers a glorious result.

Christianity at its core is a whole body program that delivers a glorious result.

So with that in mind, lets turn to our passage this morning.

If you have your Bibles or on your phone navigate with me to Colossians 3 and we’ll look at verses 1-4 today.

A Whole Body Program

It is spring and it’s the annual season for second new years resolutions.

Everyone is getting ready for summer and whether you live on the ocean or in the Pacific Northwest some people want to get fit so they look nice in their shorts, shirts, swimsuits what have you.

It is the time for summer body workouts to start.

Muscle and Fitness dot.com advertises “Are you looking to perfect your beach body for the upcoming summerOpens a New Window.

?

If so, we have the right prescription just for you.”

Now why are we talking about workout programs?

Because no one really goes into a gym and only ever works on one aspect of their fitness.

No one goes into the gym and only ever works their arms, or legs or abs.

But sometimes we as Christians do that with our faith.

We say that Jesus has our heart so we’re good we don’t need to work on our minds.

Or maybe He has our hearts and our minds but he doesn’t need our actions.

It’s all about faith after all that work stuff is for legalists and you (meaning me) just told us that was bad.

Well it is but in this passage Paul is going to show us just how wrong we are to think like that.

He does that with two short phrases both involving that pesky present, active imperative tense that require something of us - the first is seek the things above and the second is set your minds on things above.

Seek - zeteo - this is not some sort of passive seeking.

When I was a kid I would often misplace my baseball glove and I would as my mother where it was.

She would always ask where have you looked and I would say “everywhere” which in kid speak really means “nowhere”.

But this is not the type of seeking that Paul is speaking of here.

Nor is this a random seeking - the kind of seeking that some of us in this congregation might be familiar with.

It’s that seeking that happens every year when its suddenly Christmas Eve and we realize that we haven’t gotten someone a gift.

You’re in whatever store is still open on Christmas Eve picking out whatever you can find that might still be there.

And so what you’re seeking is whatever catches your eye, whatever it is that appeals to you.

And we see that in the world of the church today.

There are lots of people who are only seeking a god that appeals to them.

But this is not the type of seeking that Paul is speaking of here either.

The type of seeking that Paul is speaking of here is the type of seeking that compelled Christ to come here to earth.

This word for seeking - zeteo - is only ever used in a religious context with respect to seeking of something that is lost.

It is the type of seeking that Christ speaks of in Luke 19

It is the type of seeking that was found in the parable of the lost sheep where the shepherd leaves his 99 sheep and goes out into the wilderness to find one.

It was this type of seeking that caused the woman who had lost a coin to clean her whole house, sweeping it from top to bottom until she had found the lost coin.

It is this seeking that drives the many metaphors in the Bible for the Christian life.

The ideal of running a race and pushing your body to complete that task which you have set out to accomplish.

The picture of being a soldier and not getting involved in other pursuits that would distract one from their business.

But this isn’t simply the mindless efforts of an automaton.

Paul makes the statement that we are to set our minds on things above.

This Christian life is also one of pursuit from a mental standpoint.

The earliest uses of this Greek word - phroneo - referred to the diaphragm or the midsection as being the seat of our intellectual capacity and emotions.

In the New Testament however, and really it was before this in the writings of Homer, the word was used to refer to the mind and this is the meaning in Paul’s letters.

For Paul devotion to Christ employed the whole person.

He understood rightly the instruction given in the “Shemah” the ancient Jewish creed found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5

and broadened in the writings of the New Testament

Paul gives us two contrasting reasons for these two commands - we’ll look at them in reverse order.

First Paul says that we should set our minds on things above, not on earthly things.

The easiest road is always to focus on the here and now because we can see it and touch it.

It’s often easier to get angry at God for the diagnosis rather than to look for how it can be used for God’s glory.

It’s easier to be cold and distant from a situation rather than to seek what God’s desire is for everyone involved - even when it may not benefit us.

It’s easier to dive into work or play or any other distraction than it is to face up to what God has for us in both this life and the life to come.

This is also an attack of the false teachers who were continuing to plague the Colossians.

The false teachers were also attempting to offer the Colossians the “things above” through the worship of angels and access into the visionary realm.

But in so doing Paul says that they have not held on to the Head meaning that they’ve cut themselves off from Christ and in all of their visions they were still focused on earthly things.

We have the same situation happening today.

Many people claim to be seeing angels or to be taking trips to Heaven.

It is interesting that every single one of them see something different when they get there.

Kim Walker-Smith sees Jesus as this stretch Armstrong type figure who is silly and laughing.

Colton Burpo says that Jesus looks like a brown haired, blue eyed man of average height but Gabriel and Michael the archangels are much taller.

Others like Kenneth Copeland and Mike Bickle claim to have made trips to heaven and in 2016 a man said he was captured up into heaven and he took pictures with his smartphone to document this.

You can see those for the paltry sum of $330 a picture.

The reality is that both the false teachers in Colossae and those who claim to have been to Heaven today are so wrapped up in gaining personal notoriety that they have been cut off from Christ - as Paul says in Colossians 2:19 they are not holding on to the Head of our faith - and they’re minds are squarely focused on the things of earth.

The next reason for actively seeking and setting our minds on things above is because of where Christ actually is.

Paul, who did take a trip to Heaven, tells us exactly where Christ is.

He is seated at the right hand of God.

This has several implications for our faith.

The first is that His task is completed.

That He as our high priest can now sit is significant.

In the days of Temple worship in Jerusalem the priests could never sit down.

There was always another task, another sacrifice, another element of temple worship to oversee and so the priests never sat.

There were no chairs in the Holy of Holies.

Yet Paul tells us that Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

This is demonstrated in several places in Scripture: Psalms 110:1, Jesus himself says that He will sit down at God’s right hand in Luke 22:69, on the day of Pentecost Peter tells the crowd that Christ is seated at the right hand of God Acts 2:33.

It is most clearly spoken of in Hebrews 1:3

After making purification for sins by His sacrifice on the cross - an action capped by the words “It is finished” - Christ having been raised from the dead and ascended into Heaven could sit down at the right hand of His Father and await the call and the time for His victorious return because the sacrifice that He made on the cross was sufficient, once and for all and cleansed sin for all time in those who would believe.

That is the second implication for our faith.

It is finished.

No longer do we have to toil under the impossible weight of trying to accomplish salvation for ourselves.

No longer do we toil under the systems of legalism or asceticism or mysticism trying to achieve a spiritual credit report that is good enough to earn us a spot in Heaven.

I can’t say this loudly enough or strongly enough.

It is finished.

Our High Priest has accomplished everything, He has ascended into Heaven and He even now sits at the right hand of God interceding for us as only the purchaser of our salvation can.

It is this reality that frees us from having to worry about this world and the trappings associated with it - success and glory and financial prosperity - but instead enables us to focus our actions and our minds on the things that are pleasing to Christ.

It is because of this reality, that the promises Paul makes in the next two verses are possible.

Hidden in Christ