Well good morning and welcome. It’s a great honor and privilege; I’m grateful to the session and Dr. Strain for inviting me. I’m here officially for this evening’s service, Reformation Service, with the backing of the presbytery, but Dr. Strain was kind enough to ask me to preach the Word to you this morning. And it’s good to see familiar faces. Some of you look a little older than I remember, but I, of course, haven’t changed a bit! It brings back wonderful memories of fourteen or fifteen years preaching here on Sunday evenings and making lifelong friends here at First Jackson. And see, if the choir gets any bigger you’re going to have to build a new choir loft! Wonderful to hear First Pres choir once again.
Now our text for this morning is found in Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3 and verses 1 through 4. Let’s pray together.
Our Father in heaven, we thank You for Your Word that holy men of old wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. We thank You that all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for doctrine and reproof and instruction in the way of righteousness that all of us here today may profit from it and grow in Christlikeness. Use this time together, Holy Spirit, by Your infinite power and grace to draw us to our blessed Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Now my clock tells me it’s five to seven – that’s not right! Every pulpit is different and I see there’s another one here, but that’s not right either! And let me take you to Colossians. Paul is in prison. He’s under house arrest as we sometimes say, in Rome. He’s in chains; he mentions in Colossians 4 that he’s in chains. This is the arrest, not the final arrest, which will come a couple of years after this, but this is the arrest that we read of in the closing chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. Paul had pled the fifth as a Roman citizen. His right – Jews in Jerusalem made serious charges against him in an attempt to have him put to death, and Paul, as a Roman citizen, pled his right to be heard before Caesar. And he had made that treacherous journey from Caesarea all the way to the shipwreck and so on, and then finally making his way to Rome. And that’s where Luke leaves him. Luke was obviously with him at that point, and Luke leaves him there under house arrest at the end of the Acts of the Apostles.
Maybe months have passed, maybe six months have passed, and Epiphras comes to visit him from Colossae. Epiphras is making his way down the Aegaean and to southern Italy and docking on the west coast somewhere south of Rome and making his way inland to the city of Rome. And then of course you would have to find the apostle Paul. Scholars, whoever they may be, suggest that Rome in the first century may have had upwards of a million people. That’s greater than greater Jackson. So finding him would have been difficult. And he brings news to the apostle Paul about the church in Colossae. Paul has never been there. This church is now seven, eight years old perhaps, it’s a church plant, that has never experienced the apostolic ministry of the apostle Paul.
Paul would have been overjoyed, I think, to hear just how much this little church had grown, how it had come about when Paul was in Ephesus, which was not a million miles away. And Colossae, in the Lycus Valley, along with churches like the church in Philadelphia, the church Laodicea, the church in Erapolis – there were these little churches in the Lycus Valley. And probably what had happened was that businessmen and others who had heard of Paul preaching in Ephesus – he was there for over two years – and preaching, as you will remember, in the hall of Tyrannus in the afternoon when other people were having a siesta, Christians were meeting to hear the apostle Paul in Ephesus, and maybe businessmen from Colossae came. Folks like Lydia were selling, who we pick up in Philippi, for example, were selling purple cloth. And others who were intrigued at who this converted Jew, Saul of Tarsus was, and what he was saying. And without a doubt, some of these folk were converted and went back to Colossae and they established a church, a young church; a church of six, seven, eight years old.
It has good things and bad things. Without the ministry of the apostle Paul, some have advocated that it wasn’t enough to have Jesus. You needed some access to spiritual knowledge that only a few had access to, so you needed Jesus but you needed this extra plus. And that’s one of the issues that Paul deals with; he deals with other issues in Colossae. In the letter that he’s now sending back – and it’s not Ephiphras who will take the letter back; it’s a man by the name of Tychycus who will take the letter back, along with Onesimus, the runaway slave owned by Philemon, one of the shorter letters in the New Testament. Imagine in 2025 there’s a letter in the New Testament of a runaway slave who’s sent back to his owner with strict instructions that his owner greet him as a fellow man in Christ, as a fellow Christian. And so this is Colossae.
In Colossians chapter 3, Paul is saying something not specifically to the Colossians. He could have written this in Galatians, he could have written it in his epistle to the Ephesians, he could have written it in his epistle to the Philippians. He’s giving a generic summation of what it means to be in Christ. And he’s giving a generic summation of what it means to be mature, to grow in Christ. And he begins in verse 1, “If then you have been raised with Christ.” In other words, “If” – at Ligonier conferences people would ask questions that began with “If” and R.C. would go into a tizzy about it. “It’s not ‘if’ it’s ‘since’ – there’s no doubt about it!”
Well here, this word can mean, “Since you are raised with Christ,” but the translation here in the ESV that I’m reading is, “If then you are in Christ.” And it raises, then, a question, doesn’t it, that we must address to ourselves this morning. Are we raised with Christ? This church has changed and I don’t know half of you. I’ve been gone, goodness, I’ve been gone thirteen, fourteen, maybe fifteen years now, and I have to ask you, “Are you raised with Christ?” That’s the question that confronts us. It confronts us on every page of the Bible. It confronts us on every line of the Bible. There is this person, and He is called Jesus, and He is a historical figure, and He came into this world, and He was born of the virgin Mary. He was God incarnate. And you have to reckon with Him.
As a young man in college, I had never reckoned with Jesus. Never. I hadn’t given Him a second thought until a book crossed my path written by John Stott and I was confronted with the reality of this historical person, Jesus Christ, who claimed to be God who said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life, and no man comes to the Father but by Me.” And I had to reckon with that. And I am asking you – you know a lot of preachers do this at the end of the sermon, but I’m doing this at the beginning of the sermon – I’m asking you, “Are you raised with Christ?” It’s an interesting expression, isn’t it? To be “raised with Christ.” The doctrine of the resurrection. Paul had seen, Saul of Tarsus had seen Jesus in His resurrected body on the road to Damascus. It was such a pivotal moment that Luke, who was with Paul, writes the account three times in Acts. Three times we are told about the event on the Damascus Road that transformed, that changed his life. He did a 180 from being a persecutor of the church – and Saul was within inches of completely destroying the New Testament church. It was within his grasp to destroy the church. Until on the Damascus Road, he saw the risen Jesus, this man who had been crucified.
I don’t know whether Saul ever saw Jesus – it’s possible that he did in his visits to Jerusalem. He was there for a season. But he certainly knew what had happened to Jesus and that He had been crucified; He had been buried. And there were stories that some of the disciples had seen Him risen from the dead, but I’m sure Saul of Tarsus dismissed those until this moment on the road to Damascus when he saw the resurrected body of the Lord Jesus and it transformed him. And this is the image that Paul uses – that you have been “raised with Christ.” In another epistle, he says, “You sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” That’s the glory. That’s the blessing. You’re sitting here, you have a zip code here – I’ve forgotten what the zip code here is now, but whatever that zip code is, but you have another zip code. It’s in heaven. It’s in glory. Before the right hand, the throne of God where Jesus sits in all His splendor and glory. And if you believe in Jesus, you have been raised with Christ and you sit with Him in the heavenly places. That’s the glory. That’s the blessing.
I don’t know what your week was like. I’m recovering from a broken leg, so that’s what my week has been like. And there are trials and tribulations and stuff happens and providences occur, and I’m sure in a congregation this size you’ve had issues. And it’s the Sabbath and you’ve come to church and you sit here and you listen to the Word of God and Paul’s words, “If then you are raised with Christ” – whatever else is true, whatever difficulties may be going on, this is what I know this morning – I am sitting with Christ in the heavenly places. I belong to the spiritual resurrection. Paul expands on this idea in Romans chapter 6 and he talks about a baptism and a raising with Christ in glorious resurrection from whom no one and nothing can separate us.
Well there are consequences. If that’s true for you this morning, if you are raised with Christ in glorious resurrection, three things come to the surface. Now he gets into specifics later in the passage. He gets into specifics of negative things that we need to mortify and positive things that we need to put on, and he mixes his metaphors. He begins with a metaphor of killing sin, and then he changes the metaphor to putting on clothes, Sunday clothes. I’ve always been in churches where folk wore Sunday clothes, and you put on clothes. And clothes send a signal; they do, invariably they send a signal. And Paul here, in the first four verses, is giving us the generic. And he gives us first of all the foundation of spiritual maturity. The foundation of spiritual maturity. And that foundation is union and communion and resurrection with Jesus Christ. That’s the foundation. Ah, what a glorious foundation that is. That’s what gives you stability when all the trials come and the difficulties come and the problems come and the waves begin to buffet, there’s that stability because you are raised with Christ in glorious resurrection.
Now it’s important for us to understand something of Gospel grammar here. He’s going to go on to say that there are things you need to put to death and there are things you need to bring to life if you are going to be spiritually mature. But he’s basing those commandments on the foundation that you are already raised with Christ. If you reverse that, you’ve got a works-based righteousness. So tonight we are celebrating the Reformation Day, and of course that was an immense issue for Martin Luther in 1517 – that we are justified not by our works of righteousness, not by our good works, but we are justified on the basis of faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone. “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling. Naked look to Thee for dress; helpless look to Thee for grace. Foul, I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die!” So Paul is going to give us here some instructions about what it means to live a godly, sanctified, mature Christian life, but the basis, the foundation is that we have been raised with Christ and that we are in union with Christ, spiritual union and communion with Jesus Christ.
I’ve counted the number of times Paul uses the idea of union and communion with Christ, and specifically it’s something like sixty-seven times. But then, then, using different euphemisms, it gets into three figures. And it’s one of the hallmarks of the apostle Paul – to think of the Christian life as union and communion with Jesus Christ. That Damascus Road experience – you remember what Jesus asked Saul of Tarsus? “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” Well he wasn’t persecuting Jesus. Jesus was dead. You can’t persecute a dead person. He was persecuting the Christian church, but Saul of Tarsus was taught a lesson that, “When you touch one of Mine,” Jesus says, “you touch Me. When you touch one of My brothers and sisters, you touch Me as the Elder Brother in the fellowship that has been brought about as a result of the death and the resurrection of Jesus.” That’s the foundation. Ah, what a glorious foundation it is because it’s rock solid. There’s nothing that can undo it – no earthquake, no catastrophic issue can undo the fact that I am now in union and communion with Christ and I’ve been raised with Him and I sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
But then secondly, he gives us the focus of spiritual maturity and he uses two verbs. And the first one in verse 1 is “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” If you’ve been raised with Christ, open your eyes – what do you see? I see glory. I see angels and archangels. I see the Church triumphant. I see Jesus, my Lord and Savior, Prophet, Priest and King. I see Him in all of His beauty, in all His magnificence. I see Him in His resurrected body, the God-Man, and I bow and I worship and I adore and I hear the choirs sing, the heavenly choirs. I miss this choir. Ah, but there’s a better choir. I’m sorry, but there’s a better choir. I saw a glimpse of it at the birth of Jesus when angels and archangels came and there was glory and they sang to the praise of Almighty God. Look up!
Now I’ve told you before that when you cross the river and enter the pearly gates and you’ll say, “I’m justified by faith alone in Christ alone apart from the works of the Law, and I’ve read Pilgrim’s Progress.” Well, don’t risk it! You may well be asked, “Have you read Pilgrim’s Progress!” But I’m not referring now to Pilgrim’s Progress part one, the story of Christian. I’m talking about Pilgrim’s Progress part two of Christiana and the four boys – the wife and the four boys. And when Christiana comes to the House of the Interpreter, she sees a man who’s got a muck rake. I grew up on a farm, I won’t describe it to you, but those of you who can picture it, picture it for just a second. And he’s mucking out the stalls and groaning and his shoulders are slumped and Bunyan says, “But above his head was a crown of gold which he did not see because he was looking down all the time.” “Seek those things which are above.” Look up, Christian, as you fight the good fight. Look up and behold that crown that is above your head that speaks of glory to come.
And then secondly, “set your minds on things that are above.” Your mind. Interesting, isn’t it, how much stress there is in the Bible – Old Testament and New Testament – on the importance of the mind, on what you think. God gave us a Bible. He didn’t give us a book of emotions. He didn’t give us one of those books where you scratch off and you can smell and scratch. What are they called? Sniff and smell books? Whatever they’re called! He gave us a book with words and nouns and verbs and grammar and different genres – history and poetry and proverbs and gospels and epistles and apocalyptic books like the book of Revelation. Set your minds – think, Christian! Your mind matters. John Stott has a little booklet called, “Your Mind Matters” – it was published fifty-six years ago. It was only thirty or forty pages; it was probably a lecture that he had given. And he based it on Psalm 32 – “Be not like the horse or the mule that needs to be goaded with bit and bridle, but use your minds to think.” The secret of holy living lies in the mind on how you think. That’s why it’s important for you to sit under expository preaching from my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Strain, with his Scottish accent. And we tune in on a fairly regular basis and are blessed by the teaching that you are receiving because your mind matters.
John Owen, way back – fifty-five years ago, I lived with Jeff Thomas who’s coming into town this coming week, I hear. And I was a college student and he thought it would be great to get up at five in the morning, make some coffee, and read John Owen’s volume seven on “The Duty of Spiritual-Mindedness.” I don’t really have cogent thoughts until about ten in the morning, but five in the morning and my volume – I still have written in the margin various things. But there was a sentence in volume seven that I have never forgotten. And John Owen asked the question, “What do you think about when you’re not thinking about anything in particular, when your mind sort of goes into neutral, what is it that you think about? What sort of pops up in your mind?” And that’s a test of spiritual maturity because often it’s not the Word of God. It’s not Jesus that comes to mind. It’s something else – your love, what you have affections for, and that can easily become idols. And it’s a test of where your idols might lie – What you think about when you don’t think about anything in particular.
“Think on things that are above,” and he parallels it in verse 2 with “not on things that are below.” Now he’s not saying that you can’t be interested in football. I’m not going there! But it can often take the place of something that’s far more important. The Bible is a theology of fun. If I had time, and I don’t, I would love to explore that a little. Yes, the Bible has a theology of fun. It’s okay to have fun. But the main course of my thinking and my affections and my life is to be setting our thoughts, our minds, on things that are above, not on things which are below. Because if you don’t do that, you will never be spiritually mature.
But then, he gives us in the third place the future of spiritual maturity. Now in verse 3, he underlines what he has said in verse 1, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Isn’t that a very interesting way of putting it? What does it mean to be spiritually resurrected with Christ? It means that your life is hidden. Hidden. Hidden from the evil one where, in the long run, he cannot find you and he cannot touch you. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. But then in verse 4 he says, “But when Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” “When Christ who is your life” – now pause there. He is your life. He is everything to you. He is what makes life worth living. As you grow older and bits of your body just don’t work the way they used to, and aches and pains and you don’t move as fast as you used to and you can’t do the things that you once did, but that’s not the important thing. The important thing is – Christ is my life. He’s everything to me.
I have a life. I’m a doctor. I’m a lawyer. I’m a financial planner. I’m a businessman. I drive trucks for a living. Whatever it is, I have a life. I have a family and I have a wife, a husband, children, parents. I have a life. I have a life here in Jackson, Mississippi, but that’s not what defines me. What defines me is Jesus. He is your life. He is the one that you think about when you wake up in the morning and He’s the one that you talk to as you get into bed at night and quietly say some prayers to Him. And He’s with you every day, every moment of every day He is with you. He promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” He said, “I will go away, but I will come to you.” And He was talking about the Holy Spirit who endwells you and reminds you and points you to Jesus. And that’s what the Spirit does – He points you to Jesus.
“And Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” He goes from the “now” – we are in Christ, we are resurrected with Christ – he goes from the “now” to the “not yet” in the future. When He appears, you will appear with Him in glory. So Paul speeds over 2,000 years of church history and maybe more to His second coming. The next great redemptive event is the second coming of the Lord Jesus. The next great redemptive event is the second coming of the Lord Jesus. And wouldn’t that be wonderful if He came when we are still alive, that we wouldn’t have to be buried, we wouldn’t have to chase death? We would just shoot up into the air with Him and be transformed. When Christ who is your life appears, you also will appear with Him in glory. Paul is talking to people he’s never seen. He’s never seen these Christians in Colossae. He’s met Epiphras. He met Onesimus, the runaway slave. He’s met Tychycus who is apparently there with him, and others, but he’s never been to the church in Colossae. But Paul says, “I know something about you. I know something about you – that if you trust in Jesus, if you are raised with Christ, you are going to appear with Him in glory.” Because nothing and no one can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that glorious? Isn’t that the most beautiful thing in all the world? When trials and tribulations come, as they do, out of the dark, sudden, devastating providences, but nothing can separate me. I will appear with Him in glory.
“Glory” is an Old Testament word and it’s a New Testament word. And in one sense, both in Hebrew and in Greek, the word has the idea of something that is heavy and weighty and significant. But the way that Paul uses the word “glory” very often in the New Testament is the splendor and magnificence of God Almighty will be put on public display. Now sometimes we catch a glimpse of that, you catch a glimpse of that on Sunday mornings when you’re listening to Dr. Strain and all of a sudden you are transformed and you are somewhere in glory, beholding the Lamb of God, and you see something of the magnificence of the invisible God that’s put on public display in a way that you and I can begin to sort of understand it but we don’t really understand it because it’s too great for us. “Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him.” So, dear Christian, if you are passing through trials and tribulations, Paul still wants you to be spiritually mature, he still wants you to grow, and maybe these trials are part of the way that He is going to help you grow, to wean you from the love of this world and to make you fall in love all over again with Christ who is your life.