of the Catechism page 532 here we read as follows what do you confess when you say he ascended into heaven that Christ before the eyes of his disciples was taken up from the earth into heaven and that he is there for our benefit until he comes again to judge the living and the dead is Christ then not with us until the end of the world as he has promised us Christ is true man and true God. With respect to His human nature, He is no longer on earth. But with respect to His divinity, majesty, grace, and spirit, He is never absent from us. But are the two natures in Christ not separated from each other if His human nature is not present wherever His divinity is? Not at all, for His divinity has no limits and is present everywhere. So it must follow that His divinity is indeed beyond the human nature which He has taken on and nevertheless is within this human nature and remains personally united with it. How does Christ's ascension into heaven benefit us? First, He is our advocate in heaven before His Father. Second, we have our flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that he, our head, will also take us, his members, up to himself. Third, he sends us his spirit as a counterpledge by whose power we seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God and not the things that are on earth. And if you look at the footnote there, number four, that is indeed Colossians three, the verses one through four. So I'll be spending most of my time on that. After the ministry of the word, we will sing together from Psalm 28, stanzas one and five. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters, boys and girls, If I were to put two people on stage here in front and one of them was a Christian and the other was not, would you be able to tell the difference? You boys and girls know, of course, you cannot tell the difference necessarily from the outside. And you might even say, well, you'd have to see how they carried themselves, how they behave. But even there, it may not necessarily be clear right away. Because you get some unbelievers that are really fine people, fine human beings, and you get some believers who do some really foolish things. So some people believe that there is no difference, really. And maybe sometimes we're tempted to feel the same thing, not consciously in the back of our mind, but the thought is sometimes there. You look around you, everyone else seems to be doing fine. Does it really make a difference having faith, going to church? And maybe these are not regular thoughts for you, but we all have moments of weakness, do we not? So it's good to spend time with our reading and with Lord's Day 18, because it tells us about the ascension, And that gives us a much bigger picture. That tells us that being a Christian is more than just behavioral change. As a matter of fact, if you think that being a Christian just means having changed behavior, then you have a belief which is fatal. Because you cannot put unregenerate behavior, you cannot put changed behavior on an unregenerate life. If someone is unconverted, that person is dead in his or her sin. But a Christian, a true Christian, is someone who is spiritually alive, and a spiritually alive person is in a completely new relationship to the world around them and to God. Our passage calls us to seek the things that are above. Seek the things that are above, it says. Set your minds on things that are above, and that is not something you can do That is not something you can tack on to an unregenerate life. As a matter of fact, if you look at verse 1 here, Paul says, if then you have been raised with Christ. You could maybe even translate that as since you have then been raised with Christ. He assumes that this is true for the people that he's writing to. And he says that before he goes on to talk about the different things that they should and should not do. In other words, there is no category in Paul's mind anyway, for someone who claims to be a believer, but does not show this in their life, or on the flip side, someone who is not a believer and is still able to seek the things that are above. These are not compatible realities. So seeking the things that are above, that comes out of a transformed life, a life that is hidden with Christ, a life that will be revealed with Christ as well. And that's also how I want to approach these matters this afternoon, summarizing it by saying, seek the things that are above, first, because their life is hidden with Christ, and second, because you will be revealed with Christ. So Paul here talks about being raised with Christ. If then you have been raised with Christ as a kind of a preliminary statement before he starts talking about the ascension, then we have to ask ourselves, what does that mean? What does it mean to be raised with Christ? Normally when we think about the resurrection we think about something that happened to Jesus in the past and it did. But Christ died for sinners and he was raised to pay for their sins and those sins are gone. That's not something for the past alone. That's something that has effects and consequences in the present today. You see without Christ human beings are spiritually dead. but through faith I share in his life. So we are united to Christ by faith. Our life is tied to his life. And so everything that happened to Christ in principle happened to us as well. That's reflected in Romans 6 verse 4 when Paul writes, we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death. See he says we were buried with him into death by baptism in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father we too might walk in newness of life. And to be raised with Christ means that you share in His victory. And as we've seen several times before now in the last months, His victory doesn't end at the resurrection, it continues into the ascension. God has always gone up in a victory, right? You remember what we've discovered when we studied Psalm 68 together? That God has always been ascending, He's always been Gaining victory, he has never once suffered defeat and the resurrection is the ultimate example of that. As Colossians 2 verse 15 says, God disarmed the rulers and authorities and he put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him, in Christ. So Christ has always been gaining the victory. And if you were raised with Christ, and this is a point, if you were raised with Christ, so to speak, you share in his benefits, you therefore also share in his victory, you share in his power, you share in his ascension. That's why Lord's Day 18 says that he sends us his spirit as a counter-pledge, by whose power we seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God and not the things that are on earth. His Holy Spirit gives us the power to fight sin, to have victory. And we're able to do so. So, so far on the first part of verse one, you have been raised with Christ. And because of that, says Paul, you need to seek the things that are above. And what does that mean? Well, to flesh that out a little bit more, this contrast between things above and things below, things on earth, is not a contrast between spiritual and material things. You know, some people still believe that. that it's a very old heresy that found its way into Gnosticism later on. The thought is that spiritual things are good, material things, physical things are bad. And that's not what Paul is saying at all. What he's saying instead is that there's two kingdoms. He doesn't spell that out in this particular text, but he does if you flip a little bit backwards to Colossians 1 verse 13. He says, he that is God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. So there's two kingdoms he's saying, two domains. One of them is the domain of darkness. One of them is the domain of light. And that's the thought behind this. The kingdom of darkness is earthly. It is unregenerate. The kingdom of sin and the kingdom of light is the kingdom of God. So when he's talking about seeking the things that are above, this is on the back of his mind. He's not talking about the difference, obviously, between the physical and the spiritual. He's talking about the difference between darkness and light. And the behavior of the citizens of this kingdom of light, he details it in verse 12 onwards, what we read. Paul is saying if you've been raised with Christ, the kingdom of darkness cannot be a part of your identity anymore. It isn't. You have a new life. That's what the resurrection is about. And you have new power. That's what the ascension is about. You share with Christ in these things. You see, in Christ, the kingdom of God, this kingdom of light broke into this world and power. And we don't need to wait to some distant date in the future for that to happen, because it's happened already. It happened when he was sent into this world. Matthew 4 verse 12 says that He preached, Jesus preached, repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. Kingdom of heaven is a matter of the heart. You can find the kingdom of heaven at work whenever people come to faith. And once people have come to faith, they've been transferred into this kingdom of light, and they need to look to God for guidance. They are part of the kingdom, they need to follow the rules of the kingdom, and that kingdom has already encroached on this earthly one, and one day it will fill it completely. Now you may remember from this morning sermon, we talked a little bit about the Colossian heresy. Remember that? Maybe not all of you were here, but. Just to recap, these people, there was a problem in this church that Paul was writing to, and these people, these Colossians, were teaching. I should backtrack for a minute. You had the Colossian church, and you had some people in this church that were influenced by what's been called the Colossian philosophy, the Colossian heresy. And the idea was this philosophy, this thought process, basically amounted to a very Jewish form of mysticism. These people, they would fast, they would pray, they would do all sorts of stuff to get themselves into a kind of a trance, and then they hoped to approach God that way. They would have these mystical visions, journeys, and they would see amazing things, and they were hoping for a glimpse of God himself. Whether or not that was real, Who knows what happens when you go without food and sleep for a long time and pray yourself into a frenzy. You can see all kinds of things, right? They were hoping for a glimpse of God, of heaven. But even if this would be possible, it would only be temporary. And the bigger problem anyway is that these people had no idea who Christ was in the first place. They were fundamentally not connected to Christ. And that's the biggest problem of all in Paul's mind Paul's telling them if you're united, listen carefully, if you are united by faith with Christ as Paul, you already have access to God. You already belong with God and if you've been raised with Christ, then you follow through with that. You seek the things that are above. The one logically flows into the other. God has called us and now we obediently need to take what he promises and live it out. We need to seek the things that are above because everything in our lives should be directed by this new kingdom. And of course, we can ask ourselves the question, is everything in our lives directed by this new kingdom? Why is that necessary? Well, because everything that Christ is, everything that he does, everything that he says should be the focus of our attention. Colossians 1 verse 15 says that he is the image of the invisible God the firstborn of all creation. Firstborn of all creation. Paul goes on to say here that Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Right hand is a position of honor. So Christ is first. Christ is supreme. Christ is the most excellent. And this letter to the Colossians is very much about conveying that to these people. To saying to them essentially, do you understand what kind of an ascended Lord you have? Do you understand who He is? And the question again is, is He then actually the Lord of your life? Is that why you are seeking the things above? You see these mystics, these Colossian philosophers, they were seeking the things above, so to speak, in their own very twisted way because they wanted to have an amazing experience. They wanted to see amazing things and then be able to go back and brag about that and really try to have some sort of spiritual influence. But Paul says a real reason to seek things above is because Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Your life belongs to Christ now. Your energy should be focused on knowing him, on exalting him, on glorifying him. And that's why you need to seek the things that are above. So what does that mean, seeking the things that are above? Does it mean thinking heavenly thoughts while you go about your earthly business? No. What does it mean then? Well, again, there's a clue here in the way that Paul words this. First, he speaks about being raised with Christ. That's something passive, something that happens to you. And only then does he speak about seeking the things that are above. That's active. So, essentially, Paul is telling us that seeking the things that are above means that you live out of what you have been given in Christ. You have to understand this. The Colossian philosophers, the mystics were saying, you need to find your way from the bottom to the top. You need to find your way to the things that are above yourself. You've got to find your own way into the presence of God through asceticism, through suffering even. And the way Paul looks at it is very different. He's not putting it in these ways, But his underlying premise is very different. He's basically saying you cannot find your way from the bottom to the top. It has to be the other way around. The source of your spiritual life is the ascended, the resurrected, ascended Christ. Your life is joined to His. You were raised with Him. You ascended with Him. So He's given you life. So essentially, you have to live out of the heavenly identity that you now have here on earth. It's not bottom to top, but it's top to bottom, if that makes sense. So to seek the things that are above then is to draw every part of your daily earthly life into the heavenly reality of who you are. To live out of your heavenly identity. The identity that's connected to that of your ascended Lord and Savior. And this takes a serious and sustained effort. Verse one has that word seek in it. And that word seek means that you don't give it a shot every now and then. It's actually a very intense word. And you know what seeking is. Have you ever lost your car keys? It does happen to me every now and then. You never lose them at a convenient time, of course. You always lose them or find out you've lost them right before you need to go somewhere. I mean, otherwise, why would you look for your car keys? So those minutes when you're looking, or sometimes longer, when you're looking for your car keys, you're frantic, you're pulling cushions off the couch, you're looking in the pockets of every set of jeans that you own, you're seeking. There's an intense focus about that. That's what this word is trying to convey, that sense of intensity. Or think about someone trying to achieve a goal in their career or some other part of life. Everything else feeds into meeting that goal. And you get people sometimes that are so focused on this one thing they have to have, whether that be in their professional life or in their athletic life. Everything feeds into this one goal to the point where they start to make sacrifices for it that are above and beyond what's reasonable. And there's a real intensity there to making it work. So the question then becomes if we can do it for careers and car keys, shouldn't we also be able to do that for the much more important reality of seeking the things that are above? There's a real intentionality to this. Verse two restates the same idea, but it uses a different word, a little bit more specific. It says, set your minds on things that are above. Same idea, be intentional, be focused. Don't just wait for it to happen. You set your mind on something, you obsess over it constantly, and you do it all the time, because both of those verbs here are in the present tense. It doesn't say, that you should have sought the things that are above. It says seek. It's an ongoing reality. Seek, set your minds on things that are above. Now, why is this necessary? Again, because your life is hidden with Christ. You belong to Christ. You have fellowship with Christ. You're kept safe with Christ. These are all tremendous spiritual realities. If you're a believer, your old life is dead. So is everything that came with it. Paul says that in Romans 6 verse 2 as well. He says, you died to sin. How can you still live with it? But you haven't died only to sin. You've also died to the bondage of the law. Romans 7 verse 5, while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive. In other words, when an unregenerate person encounters God's moral law, it is fatal to him or to her. Because the law says, don't do this. The prohibition leads them into temptation, then the law judges them. It can tell you what's right and wrong, but it cannot prevent you from doing the wrong. But if you belong to Christ, He bore that punishment. for the things that you did wrong and so you died to sin, you died to the law, you died with Christ, you were buried with Christ, you were raised with Christ, through faith you're united with Christ and all of these things, you receive all of the benefits and you're living out of a new life, a life that is fed from the life of Christ. John 15, right? I'm the vine, you are the branches, apart from me you can do nothing. That's salvation. To be saved from sin, saved from death, receive eternal life. But how do you enjoy salvation? You enjoy it by living it out. That's called obedience. That's what the rest of this passage is telling us. Verse 12 onwards, that's applied salvation. Our life is hidden with Christ in God, says Paul. We were united to him in his death, his burial, his resurrection, like I said earlier, and this provides a sense of security, of protection, not in the future, but in the present. Think about it. You are united with him. Question and answer 49 of the Catechism says that We have our flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that He, our Head, will also take us, His members, up to Himself. See, His ascension, His physical ascension into heaven shows that He is serious in the fullest sense of the word about preserving our life. Our spiritual life and even our physical life. Life has become a reality through Jesus Christ. The only reality really The spiritual life that Christ gives us is real. Everything outside of that is death. So the question is, which reality are you living in? Do you see yourself as someone who belongs to Christ, who lives out of the life that Christ has obtained? Or are you skeptical about these things? Or maybe you don't even know. Sometimes we alternate in our minds between secular and Christian ways of looking at the world and we don't even realize it. And then along come these verses of Colossians and it points us to the ascension of Christ and it says there is only one reality. There's only one God who rules over this earth. Only one way to come into his presence. Only one Christ who has died for sinners. So seek the things that are above. Now it is true that one day the true nature of things will be revealed. In Romans 8 verse 18, Paul writes, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Or Philippians 3, our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body. So there's two things here. Post ascension, there is the hope that Christ will return in glory. But there's also connected to that the hope that we will be revealed in glory. What does that mean? Well, glory very simply is the visible manifestation of God, right? In the Old Testament, it was often accompanied by incredible light, kind of like looking into the sun if you've ever tried that. That was people's reaction when they encountered the glory of God. Light, often noise, earthquakes, that kind of thing. In the Old Testament, the appearance of the glory of the Lord always drove people away. During the exodus, he had to cover his glory with a cloud. And then when the tabernacle was dedicated and later the temple, the glory of God came down on it and the priests couldn't even do their work. It was too intense. So God's glory is always something that keeps people at a distance. But now says Paul, your life is hidden with Christ in him. You already have access to him. You're in principle already with him. And on the last day when Christ comes and all things are renewed, then you're going to share in his glory. You will be shown to belong to him. And right now you can't see that difference. Right now you put those two people up front and they look the same. One day that's going to be very different. Wasn't that something C.S. Lewis once said, that there are no ordinary people? Something along the lines of everybody that you see one day will either be a creature so glorious you would almost be tempted to worship it, or something so horrible you couldn't imagine it in your worst nightmares, one or the other. But there are no ordinary people. And our text says, one day you will be revealed in glory. But before then, these things are hidden. That's why we need to be encouraged to seek the things that are above. And as far as seeking goes, what we need to remember is that the ultimate decision was made already. And this is why these people in the church that Paul was writing to, ultimately they had nothing to stand on. Right? It was up to them to find their way to God, these Colossian philosophers, and they couldn't do it. Paul is saying here this ultimate decision has been made already. If you have been raised or since you have been raised with Christ, you've died with Christ, you've risen with him, you've ascended with him, now you need to live out of him. And that's all there is to it. You need to live by his spirit until the day that we will be revealed. So believe in him. There's no salvation outside of Him, but with Him there is life in abundance. You may not see it now. Sometimes you wonder what is going on in your own life or those of others. But the Lord is at work, and you're a part of something that's been going on for a long time. And whatever is hard to see now and obscure will be very clear on the last day. And then finally, you will see, and so will the world. The world will see. Amen.