Amen. Amen. If you have your Bibles, please turn to the book of Colossians. Thank you. Colossians, the third chapter. In Colossians chapter three, beginning at the first verse, Paul, writing to the church in Colossae, wrote and said these things under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We ask you now to open it to our hearts and minds, and open our hearts and minds so that we can hear, believe, receive, and act according to what we have seen and heard from you. So bless us, Lord, and I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations and thoughts of all our hearts would be acceptable in your sight through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, amen. Amen. All right. Chapter three, Colossians, we're moving along through the book. We concluded chapter two. And then chapter three following in chapters one and two, Paul has set forth the great truths of the gospel, that we belong to Christ, that the mystery has been revealed. And there's wonderful things at work. That Christ is everything. He is God incarnate. In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, Paul said. And that's in verse nine of chapter two. And we are complete in him. So Paul's trying to wean them away from, I'm reluctant to use the word religion, because it gets a bad rap in our culture today. You say, well, I'm not into religion. Well, guess what? Christianity is a religion, okay? But when people get religious, you start having a problem, because usually it means a whole lot of Pharisaism or rituals and man-made doctrines and man-made things to do and all that stuff. And Paul is writing to the Colossians telling them, you don't need any of that. You need Jesus. He's not saying you shouldn't gather together with your brothers and sisters and worship God. He's not saying you shouldn't have order and worship services. or that you shouldn't have the ceremony of the Lord's Supper or the ceremony of baptism, which Christ himself instituted. But he's saying all these Old Testament or Mosaic administration rituals, all the various feasts of Israel, all the certain things you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to do it. And not only that, but men make up things that seem really good. As I mentioned last week, there wasn't one superstition introduced in the Middle Ages. It wasn't brought in under the heading of It'll really help people in their walk. And so you end up having a fake church with a fake head. I'm thinking of what happened in the Middle Ages. As one fellow said, The Church of Rome got tired of waiting for Jesus to come back, so they just appointed the Bishop of Rome to be their on-site Messiah, basically, the head of the church. He's not, Jesus is the head of the church, and we wait for him. But one fellow said, actually it was in the Jamison, Fawcett, and Brown commentary, I'm not sure which one of them wrote that, because it was the three men that worked together, made a really wonderful commentary. But he said, yeah, it seems like they got tired waiting for Jesus to come back, and so they just came up with their own stuff. Instead of worshipping God spiritually, they wanted to have visible things that they could see. Instead of going to Jesus for forgiveness, well, they Go into a little closet and confess your sins to a priest. Bible never teaches to do that. When it says, confess your faults one to another, that means if I step on your toes, I'm supposed to come and ask for forgiveness. And if you come to me and ask for forgiveness, I'm supposed to give it to you. It doesn't mean that a priest has some kind of special powers where he can tell people, go do an act of penance, say 100 Hail Marys, which is an idolatrous prayer. or Lord's Prayer, say 500 of them, et cetera, and you'll have forgiveness of sins, and you'll show, by doing what the priest tells you, that you have remission. Where's that in the Bible? The idea that, well, go to Mass because you'll get days off in purgatory. That's actually taught. Actually, if you get a good Roman Catholic Bible, they used to print them. I'm not sure if they still do, but in the front it tells you from some decree that some pope issued. that if you read this every day for 15 minutes, you'll get 300 years off of purgatory. And it's like, how about this, just read it as best you can, believe it, and you'll get eternity off of hell, because purgatory doesn't exist, okay? So the point is, Paul's saying all this fake man-made religion, you don't need it, you need Jesus. And he's writing to the Colossians telling them, you have Jesus, so you don't need to look to man-made ceremonies and rituals and in that sense, religion. Now, Paul writes to them, and it's a wonderful thing. He writes to them and tells them to do certain things. If you remember, he says, seek those things which are above where Christ is sitting. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things on earth. Tells them two things to do, and they're closely related, obviously. Seek the things that are above. In case you're not sure what that means, this is where Christ is. Now he's contrasting this, I believe, with all the earthly ceremonies. It's like, well, we're going to pretend like here this is the sacrifice of the mass, or here's the ceremony that we're going to do that is kind of like an imitation of heaven or something. And it's like, you already belong. to Christ, heaven is yours. Paul's not writing to them, telling them that they need to start doing these things. Remember, we've talked in the past, and I hope you remember, there are two types of imperatives in the Greek language, in Koine Greek. There's what's called an aorist tense imperative. Now, an imperative is a command, okay, when you're telling someone to do something. And here, Paul isn't so much commanding as he is giving motivation. That's pretty clear. And that's wonderful if you think about it. Paul's saying, here's the truth, you're risen with Christ. When he says, if then you were raised with Christ, he's not like saying like, you know, well, it's kind of iffy. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, if then, in other words, this being true that we've already established, that when Christ rose again as your representative, legally, forensically, we say, you were raised, you've already been resurrected, you've already died, you've already been raised. So he says, if you were raised with Christ, now your identification with that comes when you belong to Jesus when you're born again. Okay. God elects his elect ones, and then in time, the Holy Spirit applies to them the salvation that Jesus purchased when he died for the sheep, as he said. You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. All that the Father gives me, Jesus said, shall come to me, and he who comes to me I will in no way cast out. So Jesus died for the sins of his elect people, But in time, that had to be applied. When that was applied, the benefits of his death and resurrection, and all that he is and does, was then applied to us by giving us salvation. But before God, when Jesus suffered on the cross, you were there suffering legally, even before you existed. And philosophers and theologians say, well, you existed what we call potentially, not actually. God knew all things. And so he made provision for you before you were born in the death of Christ and in his resurrection. So when Christ died, you did die legally. When Christ was raised from the dead. You were raised from the dead. That was necessary because Adam was the other head of his people. Adam's the head of all men born by natural generation. You might say those born physically as direct descendant from Adam. That's all of us. Adam represented us in the garden, and we see how poorly he did. He plunged himself and all his posterity into sin, very vividly portrayed when he was thrown out of the garden, him and Eve both. You know, some say, well, how can that be? Well, if you had a grandpa who'd worked in the big giant mansion and had access to everything, and it basically was his, as long as he didn't try to steal anything. But he decided one day to go ahead and steal some forbidden fruit. And he got himself thrown off the property of the owner. Guess what? Got you thrown off, too. Okay, because that's your ancestor, and once he lost it for himself, he lost it for everybody else. Now, it's more than that with Adam, because the guilt of his sin is imputed to us, because he actually did represent. Legally, before God, forensically, you had been in the garden. You were in the garden in Adam. He's your representative. So when he sinned, you became a sinner. And when he plunged himself and all of his posterity into death and all the corruptions and the judicial punishment that goes with sitting against an infinite, eternal, good God, that fell upon us. That's why Jesus had to come as the new head of a new race, the new human race. He came and he represented us. He is our head now. He's the federal head of his people. And so his death and resurrection is ours. All we need to do is trust him and embrace it. And there's something more to that. You know, if you think about it, we scratched the surface of these truths. I really do believe that. And it's not like that somehow we physically were there for real, but there really was in the decree and plan of God salvation that was accomplished personally for each one of us in the death of Christ. And we were there legally. You weren't there physically. You didn't exist. Only in God's plan and purpose for you to be born again eventually and to be born and then to be born again later. But something happened at that time that secured our salvation infallibly. When Jesus died, you were infallibly saved. That doesn't mean if you died, well, what if I died before I became a believer? You would have gone to hell, all right? We were children of wrath, Paul says, even as the others. But God wasn't going to allow that to happen because something had been done for you that was yet to be applied. And when it was applied, first you had to be saved. in existence, which happened at your conception and birth, and then that had to be applied to you for you to truly and fully be saved. And that's what happened. But there was something wonderful that took place at the cross, and there was something equally or even more wonderful, I think that these kind of truths you probably have to say equally because they're both eternal truths, at the resurrection of Jesus, there was something about that that secured infallibly your resurrection into new life. Now right now we've been born again, we've been raised spiritually in our spirits, in our souls, And as John says, it doesn't yet appear. And as Paul says in this, it doesn't yet appear what we shall be. As John says, though, we know when he appears, we'll be like him, for we shall see him as he is. So we have these historical truths. One of those is that you died with Christ and you rose again with him. So when Paul tells them, this is the wonderful thing, this is a present imperative. It's not an heiress, which means start doing something you hadn't been doing. That's a type of imperative that if you frame the verb, the command in such a way, it means start doing it. In English, we add the word start, okay? Start doing whatever, start seeking, all right? That's not what this is. This is a keep seeking. Paul knew they were already doing it. He's writing to people that love Jesus. And so Paul doesn't write to them grievously saying, oh, you guys just aren't seeking the Lord. That's not what he's doing. he's not berating them or chiding them he's encouraging them he's telling them keep doing it he knew that as they loved Jesus as they had come to know his love they were seeking the Lord and so he's so why does he tell them this if they're already doing it because they need to do it better and they need to be self-aware that that's what's going on if I come here and tell you hey, y'all need to breathe. That would be in Greek a present imperative. And you could say, well, pastor, we already breathe. And I'd say, well, maybe take a deep breath. It's kind of pleasant to do sometimes. Ah, there you go. So you can take a deep breath. So I can exhort you and encourage you to do something that you're already doing. And that's what Paul's doing here. He's confident in God's work in the Colossians. That's really, I think, pretty beautiful. And the same thing is the second one, when he says, set your mind on things above, not on things that are upon the earth. When he tells them, set your mind, literally it's think. Your mental processes need to be in tune with the reality that is your redemption. And that's a present imperative. Keep thinking. Paul knew they were already doing this, so he's encouraging them. Start doing this more. We're in Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 through 4, OK, if anybody, if I wasn't clear on that. So as John 80 wrote a beautiful commentary on Paul's epistles and on Colossians. As he begins to look at this section, he wrote this, and I just wanna read it, because I thought he said it better than I can, clearly. He says, the apostle leaves off scornful flagellation of the false teachers, because he went after them in chapter two, and comes to a more congenial occupation. For though it is needful to refute error, it is more pleasant to inculcate truth If Colossian believers should act in accordance with their privileges, if they understood how the charge preferred against them by the law had been met with a discharge on the cross of Calvary, if the process of sanctification beginning in their hearts should work outward and hallow and adorn their lives, if they felt that whatever blessedness they enjoyed in part or anticipated in fullness sprang from union with Christ, then should they be fortified against every effort to induce them to sever themselves from the head and against every attempt to substitute reveries for truth. or human inventions for divine enactments. Then, too, should they learn that worship does not consist of superstitious invocations, and that sanctification is not identical with fanatical austerities. Let them move in a spiritual region lifted far above these earthly vanities, and let them look down on them as the offspring of a morbid and self-deceived imagination, or the craving and the nutrient of a self-satisfied pride." That's how he says when they look at all this man-made religion. So as I said, Paul gives the saints motives, not rules. He tells them who they are in Christ. Then he asked them to live their lives according to the truth. You need to know who you are, so do I. Christians, you need to know, as John said in Revelation chapter one, verses five and six, I'd like to read it. Actually, we'll read verse four. John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come. Before we can know who we are, we need to know who God is, okay? And from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, that is, he holds the place of preeminency, and the ruler over the kings of the earth, to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. And they know who we are here. And has made us kings and priests to his God and father. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever, amen. What John is saying here, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is we need to know who God is. He was and is and is to come. We need to know the one who reveals the Father to us, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the faithful witness, the first begotten from the dead, referring to his humanity as a man. He died and rose again. And what he has done for us, who we are, he's made us to be kings and priests under him, under Christ. So we need to know who we are and then live according to that. So if we look at verse 1, it says, if then you were raised, if therefore you were raised. In John 5.25, Jesus said, Verily, verily, truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. Now note what he says, later he says the hour is coming when all that are in the graves shall hear his voice. Same chapter, chapter five, couple verses later. It's referring to the physical resurrection on the last day. But in verse 25, he's talking about something else, because he says, the hour is coming, and now is, present time, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. Well, are you talking about those in the graves? Well, with Lazarus and Jairus' daughter and the widow of Nain's son, yes. But this is a resurrection that is different than a physical resurrection because it takes place now. He says, and they that hear shall live. That word of Christ, the voice of Christ brings life. That's why Paul wrote to the Ephesians and said, and you being dead in trespasses and sins, he raised up together with Christ. You were dead in trespasses and sins. Why aren't you dead in trespasses and sins right now? because you heard the gospel, you heard the voice of Christ. Preachers, preach to your ears, that's all we can do. Granted, your intellect and your heart, if it's a moving type of sermon, with the assistance and grace and power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord speaks to your hearts. And that's why it's so important when we hear the word being preached or read that we really listen and pay attention. It's not like, oh, well, my words are the words of Jesus. No, the Bible, the gospel, is the word of Christ. As the Holy Spirit has that presented to you through the ordained way of his appointment, preaching, how shall they hear without a preacher, it says. God works in your heart. That's why it's important to attend services where the word's being preached. That's why it's important to listen. But what you're listening for is not some preacher's opinions on politics and world events. What you should be listening for is the promises of God. And then receive those to your heart when the word is being preached. Here's one right here, John 5, 25. Truly, truly, I say to you, Jesus said that. Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live. The same voice that called Lazarus out of his sepulcher to life now calls sinners dead in trespasses and sins to eternal life by the gospel. The inward effectual call of that must accompany the preaching of the word. If the Holy Spirit isn't at work when the word's being preached, then it's just words falling on dead, deaf ears. Romans chapter 10 verse 13 says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? If they don't believe in Jesus, they're not going to be calling on him. And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? If they don't know anything about him. And how shall they hear without a preacher? That means those that are sent to go tell them the word. And he says, and how shall they preach except they be sent? Okay. So God has his means. That's Romans chapter 10, by the way, verses 13 and 14. In Ephesians, I already made reference to it, but I want to read it again. It says, and you has he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. That's verse four of Ephesians two. And then as we jumped down, excuse me, that was verse one. And then at verse four, we read, but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins has quickened us together with Christ. By grace, you are saved and has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You're already seated in heaven legally. Why? Because that's where Jesus is. And legally, he is you before God. So God reckons you was already seated in heaven. Now for some of you, you still have to go to work tomorrow, okay? You can't just call your boss and say, you know, I'm seated in heaven and I'm not going to do anything. No, no, no. We belong to Christ. We're here to occupy, okay? You're legally in heaven, the same way you legally you died and legally you rose, and then the Holy Spirit applied that. Christ is coming again to receive us to himself. So you've been raised with Christ, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. We're gonna be a testimony throughout eternity of the goodness, kindness, and mercies of God. Paul's not expressing doubt, as I say, when he uses the if in this verse, but rather he's showing the logical connection between being raised when Christ was raised and the spiritual and ethical benefits and life that proceed from that fact. The truth is that all of those for whom Christ died and rose again are from that event reckoned judicially before God to have died and rose again or risen again from the dead by the legal imputation of the saving work of Christ on their behalf. There's a phrase that when it says Christ died for us, The Greek word for there is huper, and it actually means in place of, in our stead. The idea of a substitutionary atonement, as it's called. By the way, that gets mocked in liberal seminaries, the idea that, oh, God killed his son so you could go to heaven. Well, that's not exactly the way the Bible says it, but if you wanna say it that way, sure, yeah, that's exactly what happened, because Christ legally became me. You see, Christ is your head, so everything he is, you are, at the cross, Everything you were is how God reckoned him. All your sin, all your vileness, all your wickedness, all your deadness, everything about you that was hateful to God, everything that made you a fit citizen of hell, that was placed on Jesus. R.C. Sproul refers to that and others have referred to it as the great exchange. I wrote a little pamphlet using that title not too long ago. The Great Exchange, Christ became your sin, he became you, and therefore he was sent to hell on the cross. He's an eternal person, so he could suffer in his humanity for a short period of time and undergo the same equivalent of us burning in hell for eternity. So what our Lord underwent for us is beyond anything we can comprehend. But the Father, who also is infinite and eternal, he understands it. The Holy Spirit understands it. We're told that Christ, through the eternal spirit, it says in Hebrews, offered himself without blemish to God. That's why he's able to cleanse you, cleanse your consciences from dead works. By that he means your very innermost being can be purged of sin, because Christ is an infinite, eternal, as to his person, as to his humanity. His deity upheld him so he could undergo the wrath of God for us. So Christ became us and died, and rose again, though, because he did take away our sins. Paid fully for him, death couldn't hold him. And you are esteemed as in Christ now, and so all of his righteousness and benefits and victory is yours. We have the indicative of the historical fact, and then we have the forensic application of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have that imperative, as I said, It's the demand given, keep seeking, keep seeking the things which are above, where Christ is at the right hand of God. Not earthly types and shadows in ended ceremonies and rituals and man-made religious foolishness, as it might look pretty impressive, you know, all the robes and all the smells and the bells, as they say. All that stuff might look really good. But in light of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and the authority and power of God's word, it looks stupid. Why are you doing that? There's no warrant in scripture for you to dress up like that and parade around, and there's actually prohibitions about making images and crucifixes and all this other stuff. Why not just do what the Bible says? Remember we talked about that last week. What I'm saying right now, that's what the Reformation was. It was people reading the Bible and they saw they'd been lied to, and so there was that fierceness of you lied to me, I'm not gonna let you do that twice. But it wasn't just that, it wasn't just they were angry, it's that they read the Bible and saw it was beautiful. So let's worship God according to what his word says. And that's where the Reformation got underway, and that's why you had people, you know, worshiping God. You know, in the architecture of churches sometimes shows the theology of the people inside. It was an interesting thing at the Reformation when they began to build churches, people started noticing that they weren't putting in stained glass in most of them. Now, there was some artwork and some things, and if you're a Reformer, it doesn't mean you're against every form of art. But it's like, why is it that the Protestant churches didn't have stained glass windows in them? It's so people could read their Bibles. That was the reason why they put plain glass in the windows, so light would come in. I've seen stained glass that's absolutely beautiful. Some of it's idolatrous and violations of the second commandment. We call it 2CV, second commandment violation. But I've seen some that aren't idolatrous. They're just beautifully done. So we're not against artwork. And it has its place even in church buildings. But the idea at the Reformation was, as they continued to build church and then replace some of the windows that the iconoclast knocked out, They would put plain glass in so people could open their Bibles. This is before electricity. If we turned off all the electricity in here today, we'd want these windows, the shades to be turned so that sunlight could come in. That's what happened. Because they wanted to read God's Word. They wanted to worship God according to Scripture. And they wanted to make sure that guy up in the pulpit was preaching what was in his book. And to do that, Because of printing, just how God's wonderful provision. Because the Bibles were being printed, people could have them. It used to be only a church could save for years and then finally get a handwritten copy of the Bible at the Reformation. Because God had invented printing, people could own Bibles. And they brought them to church, and they listened. So here Paul gives them that imperative. No man-made rituals of touch not, taste not, handle not. Learn about Jesus. Jesus said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, he said, for I am meek and lowly in heart and you'll find rest for your souls. That's what we're supposed to be looking at. Verse two, set your mind on things that are above and not upon things that are on the earth. Here Paul further applies the truth of the believers' new resurrection life in a positive and in a negative exhortation. Think about Christ in heaven. Now, you might say, well, okay, I know he's there. There's so much riches in truth revealed in the Bible about the ministry of Jesus. Things above, that's where our inheritance is, that's where our hope is, that's where our savior is. Think about Jesus, how wonderful he is, his love, his intercession, his glorification. his fellowship with the Father, his sovereign rule and province over all things in history and in our own day, his compassion and love. When a sinner somewhere cries out because the Holy Spirit has worked that conviction in his or her heart, and they say, oh, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me. Please forgive me my sins. And then what happens? The Lord Jesus Christ, in grace, changes their heart and their life, transforms them wonderfully. We think about his compassion and love. Jesus hasn't changed, you know. When you're reading in the Gospels, when the leper came to Jesus and said, Lord, if you're willing, you can make me clean. And Jesus moved with compassion, stretched out his hand, and touched him. He said, I am willing. Be cleansed. And his leprosy immediately left the man. My Bible says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His glorification, his exaltation, I want to be reverent when I say this, okay? If we're talking about a mere human being, we'd say, yeah, he got a pretty high position in the company, and it went right to his head. In other words, he's arrogant. There's none of that in Jesus. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. The same compassionate, gracious, kind, truth-speaking Savior and Lord that was written about in the Gospels. He's the same today. So if you're like that leper and you're just full of sin, cry out to Jesus and don't stop crying out until you know he's heard. You remember blind Bartimaeus? He was sitting by the roadside and he heard Jesus was coming by. He was coming out of the old Jericho, heading toward the new one. And as blind Bartimaeus is there, and actually had somebody else with him too, but the Gospels of Luke and others focus on Bartimaeus, he hears this Jesus, so he begins crying out, Jesus, now son of David, have mercy upon me. And he's being loud, okay? And the crowd were told him to basically to shut up. They said, shh, be quiet. You know, Jesus has come back, we've got to be religious. And he was like, no. He knew. This guy opens the eyes of blind people. I'm blind. He said, you're not going to get me to shut up. Now he didn't say all that to him. He just ignored him and kept crying out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped. Jesus, the son of God, the true king of Israel, the Messiah, he stopped. And he said, bring him here. So Bartimaeus threw his coat off, I think because he knew he'd either get it back later because he'd be able to find it, or he just didn't care anyway. He didn't want anything to get in the way of him getting to Jesus quickly. He came to Jesus. And I love our Lord's expression. Here's this guy, he's a blind guy, he's a beggar, and he comes to Jesus, but Jesus makes him articulate his need. Jesus says, what would you like me to do for you? Okay, it's like, somebody could say, isn't it obvious? Bartimaeus, he's not set back by that. He says that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said, according to your faith, be it unto you. Well, his faith had brought him to Jesus, that's why it was real faith. Everybody's gonna say, well, how do the Lord know they had real faith? Because they came to Jesus. When he was over in Nazareth, it said Jesus didn't heal a lot of people. And some say, well, did they come and he couldn't heal them? No, it doesn't say he couldn't. It said he didn't, because they weren't bringing them to Jesus. The people weren't coming to him. You come to Jesus with your needs, in true faith and sincerity, without playing any games, and you've really got a repentant attitude, you're done with sin, you're done with self, you're done with the world, you just wanna, you wanna be right with God. He'll receive you. He'll receive you. Think about Jesus. It's the same Jesus in heaven right now that we read about in the Gospels. When we read about in the Gospels, it's very moving because that's God's love being expressed. It also tells him what not to do. He says, don't become preoccupied with things on the earth. Now, he's not saying don't be diligent in business, but he's saying don't become enslaved to the things of the fallen earth. Now, I have noticed this, and it's really important. Some Christians treat their faith and obedience to God as though it were their hobby. I've got hobbies. I think everybody probably here has some form of hobby, one or another, okay? I don't know what it is. For the ladies, you have your hobbies. They're fun things. They kind of help us, you know, focus and get our mind off things, and it's just things we do, projects, et cetera. Some Christians treat their faith and obedience as though it were their hobby. In other words, it's like, I don't have to do this today. The sun's shining, I don't need to do this. Whatever, I don't need to be in church. I should go do something else. I don't need to be with God. I don't need to set time aside to pray, because I want to do other stuff. It's I, me, my will. Some Christians treat their faith and obedience to God as though it were their hobby, and they treat their hobby, some of them do, as if it was their faith. I must do this, okay? Now if God's given you a hobby and you have time to do it, do it. Praise God for it. You don't have to stop worshiping God when you're doing things you enjoy. That's the time to thank him. The main thing is don't treat your faith like it's a hobby, okay? Your faith in Christ is not an addendum to your life. So Paul writes, but the good news is that Paul writes a present imperative when he says seek and set your thoughts, he knew that they already were doing that. They were diligent in business. But they didn't let it consume them. They didn't like, oh, I don't have time to pray or read the Bible because I'm just so busy. If you're too busy to pray, if you're too busy to read, You are too busy, and you need to ask God to help you, okay? He's exhorting them to be aware of their duty and to continue in doing it based on who they are. In verse three, he says, for you died. Again, aorist tense, that's not an imperative there. It just means a historical reality. You died when Christ died. His death was our death. We've gone over this quite a bit. He says, and your life, though, is hidden. It's hidden. with Christ in God. It's like, why did Paul say that? Your life is hidden with Christ in God. Well, we can't see Jesus right now. If you remember in the book of Acts, when Jesus ascended up into heaven, the apostles were there on the Mount of Olives. They saw him ascend. And they watched, and it says, and a cloud received him out of their sight. Their eyes eventually could not see the Lord Jesus Christ. Right now, that's true for us also. Christ is exalted to the heaven of heavens at the Father's right hand. They saw him ascend into heaven. And if you remember, the angels that stood by are the two men, it says, in white garments. They said, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? The same Jesus that's gone into heaven is going to so come in like manner as you've seen him go. In other words, you're gonna see him again. But if we were to ask, you know, if we could go back and talk to the apostles, or in the future when we meet them in glory, say, well, did you stop seeing Jesus? It's like, physically, yes. But you know, if you've ever been somewhere that was beautiful, okay, like if you think like some mountain lake somewhere, or some stream, okay, Or if you just had a pleasant location, someplace you went. It could have been a ski slope. It could have been just walking in the woods. It just could be someplace close to home. It could be a room in your house that's just pleasant for you. You can see it without being there. How do you see it? Well, God's given us imagination. He's given us minds. We can actually see things. So did the apostles never see Jesus again? I have news for you. They saw him a lot. When John wrote his gospel, there's one thing really interesting in the Greek text that's not often represented in translations because it would be bad English. John writes in the first person and in the present tense. Okay, and often when he's talking about Jesus, that would be third person there. When he's talking about him, he's not saying Jesus did this, he's saying Jesus is doing this. It doesn't say in the Greek, and Jesus said to him, it said, and Jesus is saying to him. Why is that? Why did John write that way? Because he was there when it happened and in his mind, he saw it. He saw it, so we don't see Jesus now with our physical eyes, but in our hearts and in our minds, and we're not supposed to be image makers and try to visualize what Jesus looked like, okay? That would just be setting up an idol in our heart. You wanna know what Jesus looks like physically? Wait, okay? When he returns, you'll see him. That won't be idolatry, because it's really him, okay? You're going to see him. Your life, though, now is hidden with him. He's in heaven. His body ascended into heaven. And it says it's hidden. And the Greek, that's a perfect tense. You get a Greek lesson today. That means it's a past completed action with present results. Your life has already been and is hidden with him. Now, this word hidden is interesting. It's not used a lot in the Bible. In Matthew 13, 33, Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, or meal. It's like, what does that mean? Well, everybody knows how yeast works, or leaven. She put it in a meal. And what happens when you do that? It begins slowly but surely to permeate, and eventually, if you're a bread maker, you know eventually you have a loaf of bread that's risen, then you bake it. It turns into something really beautiful. The leaven works quietly. Well, when they wanted to know why the kingdom of God hadn't appeared immediately, Jesus told them, the kingdom of heaven is within you. Now, I believe he's, because he's standing there in their midst when he said it, and he's letting them know that the kingdom is bound up with him because he's the king. Your salvation, your relationship to Jesus, your life, It's like leaven in that sense. It's hidden in you. And you know what happens? It eventually begins breaking forth. It begins showing itself. And that's what the fruit of the Spirit is. You have the grace of God in your life. You have new life in Jesus Christ. And eventually what happens? It starts breaking forth. It starts showing itself. In 1 John chapter three, John wrote and said that Beloved, now are we the sons of God. It's chapter three, verse two of 1 John. Now are we the sons of God, present possession. And it has not yet been manifested what we shall be. But we know that when he shall appear, we'll be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And then he goes on and says, and every man that has this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure. That's a purifying hope. That leaven is at work in us, the leaven of God's grace. Verse 4, he says, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also be brought to appear, a cause to appear with him in glory. Succinctly stated by the inspired apostle, this is indeed the Christian's hope and joy, the blessed promised hope of Christ's coming. And it's wonderful, the original again there, when he's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul says, and Christ, who is our life, But literally, the way the original is written, he says, when Christ shall be manifested, our life. He just inserts that in the sentence. When Christ shall be manifested, our life. Hezoehemon, our life. We have to translate that into English to say, who is our life. But Paul, when he thought of Jesus, he thought, that's our life. We're going to see him. He's the one that gave us life. He is our life. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. In Titus 2.13, Paul said, we're looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Christ is coming again. Again, in 1 John, that promise that every man that has this hope purifies himself even as he is pure. That's that sanctifying hope. Christ is our life. The historical events testify that Christ secured our salvation. The tomb is empty. Christ has risen. He has ascended. He's now interceding for us, and he is coming again in glory. Those are the historical events. The application of that and the effects of that should motivate us, say, look, you know what? Eternity is what matters. Yes, this life is important. We're to be diligent in our vocations, and we're to serve God in them. and we're to give God thanks for everything. The Bible says God gives us all things richly to enjoy, so we can praise God in our hobbies and enjoyments and our fellowship and friends. But what's really important? Eternity. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things of the earth. Keep seeking the things that are above. How do you seek those things? God's word. The truth of heaven, the truths of heaven, and the glories of heaven are revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Well, where's Jesus revealed? in the Word of God. So what are we to do? We're to seek Christ, Christ our life. 2 Peter 3.11, Peter says, Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness. So we've got a lot of things to be thankful for. Knowing who we are in Christ is the safest way to avoid every false path. Who are you in Jesus Christ? know that and live according to it. Let's pray. Gracious God and Heavenly Father, we ask you to bless us now. We pray you'd seal your word to our hearts by your Holy Spirit and keep us in your love and grace. We thank you so much, Lord Jesus, for who you are and what you have done and what you are doing. We do ask you, Lord, to give us grace as we learn to seek you, that we would turn away from everything that's false and sinful and man-made religious things and trust in you, Lord, we pray. Help us to know you. Open your word to us, not just here in worship, but in the coming days. Give us hearts to seek you at your word, to hide your word in our hearts, that we might not sin against you, even as you've hidden us, Lord, in yourself. And you have us in your heart. We thank you. Work in us, we pray, and be glorified. Help us to remember what your word is declared. For we ask all these things in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. Could we stand? Jesus, with your church alive, He has saved the Lord of nigh. Thou on earth and with his tribe, We beseech you, Yeah. There's no other peaceful point we can see to be found. Armed with soldiers, men, and guns, ready to serve the good land. Well this time we have the privilege of celebrating the Lord's Supper. And as Paul said, as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. So praise God, we have in front of us the symbols of the broken body and the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in God's word, that informs our thinking, we have the promise of His coming again, because Christ is risen and He is coming again. So praise God for that. We're going to see Jesus, and that'll be wonderful. In this supper, we're supposed to examine ourselves, and then we're to eat and to drink, having done that. So let's do that, and then we'll continue on. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for your word. We thank you for your law, Lord. You've told us in scripture that by the law is the knowledge of sin. Your law shows us what we should be. It also shows us what we're not. But it shows us what you, Lord Jesus, are. And we thank you that you kept God's law perfectly for us at all times. But Lord, we haven't kept your law. We haven't followed the commandments you've given to us. At any time, as we ought to have, So we ask you to forgive us our sins. Lord, we are aware that we've made idols of things, even our own selves. Lord, we've made ourselves and other things our gods that we've gone after. Lord, made them and put them before you. Forgive us for doing that, Lord. We've taken your name in vain, Lord. Spoken hypocritically sometimes other times Lord. We've not Called upon you when we should have and we've left undone that duty Lord we ask you to forgive us Lord. We've not honored the rest you've given to us in Jesus Christ Nor we sanctify the day appointed in your word Lord for us to Gather as we ought to have we pray that you'd forgive us Lord all those sins of violating your law. I And we've not honored our parents as we should nor have we honored others as we ought to lord And you tell us in your word that we should be doing that lord. So help us we pray to to honor you By honoring those that you tell us that we should Teach us what that means lord. We ask you also to keep us from other sins lord Your law speaks of the sin of murder We know, Lord, that it can be more or other than just physically killing someone, Lord. Some people get murdered by slander. Sometimes, Lord, we carry around bad opinions or grudges or bitterness toward others, Lord. We pray that you would deliver us from all such wickedness, Lord, and give us grace to cast our cares upon you, our burdens and worries. And where we've been hurt, Lord, we ask you to heal us. and that you would take away the bitterness, Lord, we ask. Give us wisdom, we pray. Help us not to hurt others, Lord, with our words and actions. Keep us from slander and gossip, Lord, and forgive us where we have been guilty of such sins.