About this sermon
1. Believer, because you have been spiritually raised with Christ, seek heavenly things (v. 1).
2. Christian, because you are united to Christ, set your minds on eternal and heavenly realities (v. 2).
3. Believer, consider your incentives for seeking and setting your mind on things above (vv. 3-4).
Sermon transcript
Well dear friends, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. We continue today our sermon series on the foundations of faith. Today we consider that statement in the Apostles’ Creed that Christ is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. The Apostles’ Creed is guiding our study of these things. And my sermon text today is a portion of Scripture that mentions the fact that Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Colossians 3, verses 1-4, and I hope in my sermon today to show you that these affirmations of our faith, these foundational affirmations of our faith actually have many practical implications for our daily Christian lives and our discipleship to the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m going to begin reading at chapter 2, verse 20, and read through chapter 3, verse 4.
Colossians 3 beginning at verse 20. You’ll find this on page 1169 in your Pew Bible. Once again, hear God’s holy word beginning in chapter 2 verse 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 regulations, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as they are used, according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. 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. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the preaching of His Word. Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, by the power of Your Spirit, we would ask that You would open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from Your Word. And we pray that You would feed our souls through the Word, that You would implant Your Word within our souls, that You might draw forth from us praise and worship and obedience. Be with us now and bless the preaching of your word. Jesus, be present by your spirit in the proclamation of your word this day and set a guard over my lips that I might speak only that which is faithful in your sight.
We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. Again, the title of my sermon today, brothers and sisters, is Foundations of Faith Seated at God’s Right Hand. And there are a number of key words that the children can be listening for to follow along in my sermon today that are listed in your sermon outline. I do wanna give credit where credit is due. The outline for the main points of my sermon today is drawn from Dr. Curtis Vaughn’s commentary on Colossians. Well, dear ones, what is involved in living a faithful Christian life? And how can we, we who continue to wrestle with sin, the sin that remains in our hearts during this present life, how can we ever hope to live out the life of discipleship to which Jesus our Lord has called us?
Well, friends, in our passage for this Lord’s Day morning, Saint Paul the Apostle begins a section in this letter to the Church of Colossae in which he gives more focused attention to matters having to do with daily Christian living. But as Paul does so, the Spirit of God through the Apostle Paul reminds us that the ability and the incentives to live out our Christian lives in this world are rooted in our identity as those who have been spiritually united to the Lord Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection. Indeed, friends, not only has our Savior Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, not only has He risen from the dead for our justification and ascended into heaven, for his session at the right hand of the Father. As Paul points out in verse one of our passage, our risen Lord Jesus Christ is now, at this very moment, seated at the right hand of God.
We’ll consider the significance of that and what that means in a little bit. But as the historic Church confesses in the 2nd Credo, the 2nd, I believe, section of the Apostles’ Creed, Jesus Christ, our Lord God’s only begotten Son, sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. The implications of Christ’s session, as the theologians put it, His sitting at the right hand of God the Father, the implications are multiple. There are many implications of Christ’s sitting at the Father’s right hand, but one implication, beloved, is that we believers are seated with Him. We are seated with Him in the heavenly realms, spiritually speaking. We are seated with our Savior, at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. You see, because of our union with Christ in His death, His resurrection, and His session at the Father’s right hand, our life is now, as Paul says in verse 3, our life is hidden with Christ in God.
And friends, because our lives are hidden with Christ in God, when Christ returns to this earth in glory from the Father’s right hand, the life that we now share in Christ, a life which is now hidden in the invisible heavenly realm, that life, beloved, will be openly revealed for all mankind to see, as we’re told in verse four. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Isn’t that a marvelous thought? Isn’t that a marvelous hope, beloved, that we have? Now this section of Paul’s letter to the Colossians contains many imperatives. As if you keep reading on in chapter three, you’ll see those imperatives, those commands. But one of the things we learn from our passage for today, beloved, is that the imperatives, the commands for Christian living that Paul lays before his readers in this section of Colossians, are rooted in and they flow out of the indicatives of our position, our standing in Christ.
Christ being the risen Lord who is now seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. And as we will consider the right hand of God the Father Almighty, what does that represent? What does that stand for? Well, the right hand of God the Father Almighty stands for the place of highest honor, highest authority, highest power. Christ is seated. in highest honor and glory, power and authority at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Now, what is the relationship of this passage, our passage for this morning, with the preceding section of Paul’s letter to the Colossians? It’s always important to read Bible passages in their broader context. To quote from Dr. Vaughan, he says, the opening verses of chapter three sustain the closest connection with the closing verses of chapter two. There the apostle reminds the Colossians that ascetic regulations are of no real value in restraining indulgence of the flesh.
The only remedy for sinful passions is found in the believer’s experience of union with Christ, a union by virtue of which the Christian dies to sin and to the world’s way of thinking and doing. So that leads me to my first point as we dive into our passage for today, beginning at chapter 3, verse 1. First of all, believer, because you have been spiritually raised with Christ, seek heavenly things. Because, brothers and sisters, we have been not only died with Christ in His death, but have been raised up to newness of life in Him. Because we have been spiritually raised with Christ, we are to seek the things above, seek heavenly things. As it says in verse 1, if then you have been raised with Christ, or as some translations translate it, since then you have been raised with Christ.
I don’t believe that Paul is trying to cast any doubt upon the fact that these believers that he’s writing to have been raised up with Christ. So since then you have been raised with Christ. Seek, here’s the imperative, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. The indicative is that you, because of your union with Christ, have been spiritually raised up with Christ. Therefore, the imperative is, seek the things which are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. Now, being raised with Christ, this is the counterpart of dying with Christ, spiritually speaking. And Paul has already addressed the matter of the fact that we believers, because of our union with Christ, have died with him in his death. Go back, for example, to chapter 2, and let’s look briefly at verses 11 and 12.
Paul says in those verses, he says, in him, in Christ, you also, you were circumcised. Now let me pause there. In Colossians, Paul is addressing a congregation of mostly Gentile Christians. And he said they’re uncircumcised. They are viewed by the Jewish community as, oh, those are the Gentiles. They’re the uncircumcised. They don’t have the covenant sign. But Paul says in verse 11, in him, in Christ also, you, you Gentile believers, you were circumcised But then he clarifies what he’s talking about. You were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh, the fallen nature, by the circumcision of Christ, by which he probably means there the death of Christ on the cross, having been what? Having been buried with him in baptism. Baptism being a sign and seal of our union with Christ in his death and resurrection.
Having been buried with him in baptism in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised Him from the dead. We’ve been united to Christ, circumcised in Him, we have died with Him in His death, and been raised up to newness of life in Him. And then also verse 20 of chapter 2, if with Christ you died, spiritually speaking or in terms of spiritual union with Christ, you’ve died to what? You’ve died to the things of the world, to the elemental spirits of the world. to those demonic spirits that control the fallen world system and its thought patterns and its culture and its religious philosophies and so forth. 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 regulations?
He’s speaking there of regulations of mere human tradition and man-made religion and so forth. Because we have died with Christ, the counterpart to that is that we have been raised up with Christ, as we’re told in verse 1 of our passage for today. And since that is the case, brothers and sisters, since we have been united to Christ in His death and His resurrection, what are we to do? Seek the things that are above. But what does that mean? What does it mean to seek the things that are above? Does that mean that we should walk around all the time with our head in the clouds, always thinking about heaven and spiritual things? Does that mean that we neglect the things of this earth? Well, no, friends. Again, to quote from Dr. Vaughan, he says, that one’s attitudes, ambitions, and whole outlook on life are molded by Christ’s relation to the believer, and that one’s allegiance to him takes precedence over all earthly allegiances.
The verb is in the present imperative, suggesting a continuing action. In other words, don’t just seek the things above once, but keep on seeking the things that are above. So it means a A reorientation in our thought life, that we live our lives with Christ and heavenly things at the center. And when he talks about seeking the things that are above, he says where Christ is. where Christ as the God-man, as the Word made flesh, the Son of God incarnate, where He presently is, seated at the right hand of God. Now again, literally speaking, God is a spirit. He doesn’t literally have a right or left hand. So what does Paul mean when he talks about being seated, Christ being seated at the right hand of God? Well, this is obviously a very familiar teaching in the New Testament.
If you’re familiar with the New Testament scriptures, you know that the apostles and the writers of the other writers, the apostolic writers of the New Testament, often mention Christ being seated in his present state at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Well, what does that mean? As Dr. Donald Guthrie points out, the picture of Christ being, quote, seated at the right hand of God the Father is, quote, an idea which is borrowed from the imagery of enthronement, which comes from Psalm 110, verse one. It speaks of the glory and triumph of Christ. See, friends, when the New Testament says that Christ is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, the meaning is that Christ, as the risen Son of God incarnate, as the Theanthropos, the God-man, has been raised to the place of highest honor and privilege, authority and power.
Jesus, our incarnate Lord, has been enthroned on high as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. In these words, beloved, Paul is saying essentially the same thing that our Lord Jesus taught when Jesus told us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Of course, again, as I already mentioned, this does not mean that we should cloister ourselves up in a monastery separate from everyday life or the everyday world, nor does it mean that we shouldn’t be involved in the affairs of daily life in this world. There is an important and significant role that we play as believers in this present age and in terms of this present life. But what Paul is saying here, what he does mean is that our highest interests, our highest aspirations, our highest goals in life should be centered on Jesus Christ and on eternal things, the things that are permanent, the things that matter the most.
I think our catechism, which I often refer to, puts it well. And you know the answer to this question. What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to be happy, Man’s chief end is to pursue his career as the ultimate end. No, man’s chief end, you know it. Man’s chief end is to glorify God. It doesn’t stop there. And what? To enjoy Him forever. God’s not a cosmic killjoy. He creates us to delight in Him. And that’s what worship should be all about. I mean, yes, at one level, gathering for worship on the Lord’s Day, it is a duty. We are commanded not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. But we should want to be here because we delight in our heavenly Father and his amazing love for us in Jesus Christ.
We delight in hearing the gospel. I think of that, one of my favorite hymns is that hymn that says, I love to tell the story, the old, old story of Jesus and his love. If Christ is your Lord and Savior, if you have been born again by the Holy Spirit, You can’t get enough of Jesus. You can’t get enough of the gospel. You wanna hear it over and over again. You delight in it. This is the thing, because we are united to Christ in his death and resurrection, and because we are seated with Christ our Savior in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, we are to seek the heavenly and eternal things. We are to delight in them. We are to aspire to them as our highest end and goal. They are to be our chief, not our only, but our chief preoccupation, not earthly things.
And so, dear listener, let me ask you, is this true of you? Are you seeking those things which are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty? But how do we go about seeking and setting our hearts on heavenly things? And let’s be honest, none of us of values and aspires to and delights in heavenly things as we ought to because we’re still sinners, we still struggle with sin. And our sin often drags us down and gets our focus and our preoccupation on earthly things, temporal things, things that may be important and may matter but don’t ultimately matter or are not of ultimate importance. How is it that we then go about seeking and setting our hearts on heavenly things? Well, that brings us to the closely related imperative of verse two and to my next main point.
Consider next, Christian, because you are united to Christ, set your mind on eternal and heavenly realities. Verse two, set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Because we are united to Christ, Let us set our minds on eternal and heavenly things. Now this verse, as I mentioned, verse two is very similar to verse one. And oftentimes the Bible uses repetition to drive a point home. And that’s what Paul seems to be doing here. He’s driving this point home. He’s saying, this is really important. You need to get my drift here. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. As Donald Guthrie puts it, This verse emphasizes even more vividly the mental reorientation which new life in Christ necessitates. And as Lightfoot comments, you must not only seek heaven, you must also think heaven.
Are you thinking heaven? Is that a chief delight and preoccupation in your life, a chief priority in your life? But again, what exactly does it mean to set your mind on things above as it is translated in the NIV? Dr. Vaughn says, to set the mind on, literally to think on things above, has among other connotations that of giving such things a large place in one’s thought life, seeing to it that the bent of the inner nature, the governing tendency of thought and will is toward God. Paul expected Christians to maintain normal relationships in this world, yes. The things of this earth are of significance. They’re important. It’s important. You’ve got to put food on your table. You’ve got to fulfill your daily vocation, your calling. You’ve got to pay your taxes. OK, I know that’s not a popular one, but we have duties and responsibilities.
You’ve got to love your wife or your husband. You’ve got to raise your children and give them a good education and provide for them and protect them and so forth. And so yes, as Vaughn says, Paul expected Christians to maintain normal relationships in this world. But as Barclay explains, there will be this difference. From now on, the Christian will see everything in the light and against the background of eternity. He will no longer live as if the world was all that mattered. He will see this world against the background of the large world of eternity. What are you gonna be doing in 500 years from now? You say, I’m not gonna be around. Well, if you’re a believer, you know what you’ll be doing? Worshiping your Savior. The things, you know what? You can prepare for the day that you pass away, you can prepare a huge monument for yourself, that in 50, 60, 100 years, no one’s gonna remember you.
But if you are in Christ, you belong to eternity. You have an eternal hope, firm and certain and secure. We need to live with a heavenly perspective. Now some would say, you know, you Christians, you’re just too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good. But let me suggest to you, you read church history, you read the annals of human history, who are the ones in the church who have done the most earthly good? I would suggest to you that in most cases, it is those who are the most heavenly minded because they have their priorities straight. They know it’s, think about, for example, Martin Luther, the great Protestant reformer. Think about how much change came into this world through Dr. Luther’s ministry of the gospel. It’s my understanding, if I’m remembering correctly, Luther would spend hours a day on his knees in prayer.
I think something like four or five hours a day in prayer. And I’m not suggesting that you have to spend four or five hours a day in prayer. But the point is, he was extremely heavenly minded. But think about how much earthly good, how much fruit that bore earthly good that came out of his life. So away with this silly saying, oh, you’re too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good. The only way to be of earthly good is to be heavenly minded in the biblical sense of that term. Dear listener, are you living your life with this eternal perspective? Are you setting your mind, reorienting your life on things above? Are you preoccupied with the ultimate things, the things that matter most in the long run, the things of eternity? Or is your mind and focus stuck and fixated on the things of this earth?
Even if those things are good things, significant things in themselves, but are you preoccupied, obsessed with them? How is it, you say, that I can be heavenly minded? How can I set my mind on things above? Well, let me suggest that one thing you can do, brother, sister in Christ, is continue doing what you’re doing. I would exhort you to the diligent use of the means of grace. Be in the word. Read your Bibles. Sit under the faithful preaching and teaching of the Word. Make that a regular, routine part of your life. Be often in prayer. Talk about the things of the Lord with your family. If you have family devotions, sing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs together as a family and as an individual to the Lord. Sing praises to God. Be in the Word.
Read good theological books. Use the means of grace, the Word, the sacraments and prayer. Use them diligently and ask the Holy Spirit to bless your use of those means to fix your eyes, the eyes of your faith on heavenly things. And that brings me to my final point. Believer, consider your incentives for seeking and setting your mind on the things above. Consider our incentives for seeking and setting our minds on the things above. Well, Paul lays these before us in verses three and four. He’s called his readers and the Holy Spirit through Paul calls us to set our minds on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, the place of power, authority, dominion, and so forth. And then he reminds us, he says, for you have died. Now, he’s not speaking there of physical death, obviously, but he’s speaking of you have died with respect to the kingdom of Satan and the fallen world system.
You’re no longer part of that system. You’ve been transferred, you’ve been delivered from the kingdom of darkness and have been transferred by sovereign grace into the kingdom of God’s beloved son. You belong to him now. You have died and your life Your true life is what? And I love this phraseology. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. You and I live the hidden life. That means that because your life and mine, brothers and sisters, are hidden with Christ in God, Satan can’t touch you. Oh yeah, Satan can oppress you and you can be persecuted, you can be martyred for your faith, and you and I are not exempt from the ordinary challenges and struggles of life in a fallen world. We were talking in the morning instruction class this morning about God’s common grace, that grace by which he sustains the world and causes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust.
Well, as believers, we are subject to the common curse. You know, believers get sick too. Believers perished on 9-11 in the Twin Towers, not just unbelievers. Believers are subject to the pains and the sorrows of this present world. But our lives are hid with Christ in God. We are safe, ultimately. We are secure in the ultimate sense. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. That is our true and ultimate identity. What this teaches us, beloved, is that by the amazing grace of God, you and I have been united with Christ in his death and resurrection, as we’re told in verse three. Because of your spiritual and saving union with Christ, your life is hidden and secure with Christ in God. You have received, brothers and sisters, all of the benefits of his saving grace, and you have received all fullness, all fullness of grace and salvation in him.
And this is why worship is a delight and a joy. When you come to worship with the attitude that, oh, I guess I gotta go to church, you know, all that stuff. Guess I gotta read my Bible. Guess I gotta pray. It’s a duty. But when you come, with the idea that my life is hidden with Christ in God. I belong to Him. I’m united to Him. I’m His blood-bought child. You come with joy and delight in the things of the Lord. You have received all of the benefits, believers. You have received all of the benefits of His saving grace, and you have received all fullness of life and salvation in Him. What greater incentive to live out in your day-to-day life your identity in Christ by seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness, and by living in such a godly and Christ-centered manner that others will see that you march to the beat of a different drummer.
You don’t march to the beat of the drum set by the world or its standards or priorities. You have a different set of priorities from above. Remember too, as an incentive to live a Christ-centered life, seeking and setting your minds on things above, the greatest incentive I think is given to us in verse four. Brothers and sisters, you and I will appear with Christ when he returns in glory. Verse four, when Christ who is your life, our life is, Christ is our life. We have eternal life in Him, He is our life. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Think about it. Think about it. You’re headed for glory. When Jesus returns in glory, as the Word of God says He will at the end of this present age, we who are in Him will appear with Him in glory.
His return from the Father’s right hand to this earth will be our public vindication. Since we are destined for such a glorious and such a noble future, beloved, should we not strive to live our lives in this present age in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called? Should not our lives in this present world have a heavenly quality about them? After all, as Christ Himself is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, we believers are seated with Him in the heavenly realms because of our union with Christ. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God and therefore our lives in this present age ought to have a heavenly quality about them. and heavenward focus to them as we seek the things that are above. May God give us the grace out of gratitude for God’s amazing gift of salvation.
May God give us the grace to set our minds on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God the Father. And may we seek those things that are above. Amen, let us pray. Heavenly Father, We would pray, Lord, that by your Spirit you would take these truths and drive them home to our hearts. I pray especially if there are any who are here today or any who are watching over the internet who have not had their lives hidden with you, oh God, with you, oh Christ in God. If there are any who have not put their faith and trust in you as their Lord and Savior, we pray that by your spirit you would draw them with the cords of love that they might turn to Christ in faith and repentance even this day.
And Heavenly Father, we would pray that you would give us the grace to be a people who are focused on the things that matter most. And may we live our lives in the light of eternity. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. So we close our time in worship today. Let’s rise and we’ll sing number 281, Rejoice, the Lord is King. Rejoice, the Lord is King.
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