I want to call your attention to the teaching of God's Word that we have in Colossians chapter 3. Going to read Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 through 4.
Colossians 3 and verse 1. Would you stand placed for the reading of God's Word?
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. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God, please be seated.
For a number of weeks now, we have Christ crossed back and forth over and through Colossians chapter 3. It would make sense if I picked up where we left off, and that is at verse 18, and we went on this morning, but largely because we take the Lord's Supper in a few moments, I wanted to come back to these central verses, which I think most of you know by now, I have taken to be the key verses of the book of Colossians, and particularly the little phrase in verse 3 that our lives are hidden with Christ, hidden with Christ. My mother went to heaven five years ago, but before she died, she did what most mothers would do. She looked at the things that were her possessions and decided who would receive those that are the most personal to her. She gave most of those personal possessions as would be natural to her two daughters, my sisters, but there was one ring that my wife, Barbara, had always admired. I really don't know how valuable the ring is, but it's something that Barbara always liked very much. And so my mom left it to her. That ring is hidden somewhere in our house, because it's very special. Actually, it's hidden not in where you might think, somewhere in my wife's closet or my wife's drawers, but in my drawers. So now when you break into our house and look for it, you know exactly where to look. We call it the Jane ring, because that was my mom's name. And it only appears on special occasions, usually weddings, or a special party, or a gathering with some festivity. But whenever it does appear, I always say something like, oh, it's a Jane ring event. And Barbara and I both know what we mean by that. I take that to be a metaphor for what it is that the Lord is teaching us here about our lives. For our lives are hidden. They're very valuable, but they're not always seen for what they are,
but they are hidden with Christ. Now, I want to propose to you that there is actually a triple entendre that Paul is using here. You know the expression double entendre where things have a double meaning. Actually, I would suggest there's a triple entendre here. Three different meanings, all of which Paul interweaves in these four verses that are centered on these three words, hidden with Christ. The first is the one that we have spoken of for many weeks as we've looked at Colossians, chapters two and three. And it is the great, powerful, central teaching of the New Testament, that we call the doctrine, that is the teaching of our union with Christ. We are hidden with Christ in the sense that our lives are united to His. And we have said many times over that what this means is this. Not only did Jesus die for me, but I died with Him. And not only did Jesus rise for me, but I rose with Him. That somehow in a way that I admit is mysterious is not easily understood. That when Jesus died, I was there. Like the old spiritual, were you there when they crucified my Lord? The answer, of course, is yes. Somehow in a way that is deeper than just physical, I was there and you were there if you are a believer in Jesus Christ. Now, I can hear you saying because you should be saying, wait a minute, I'm alive. I'm not dead. How could I have died much less? How could I have died 2,000 years ago when I wasn't even born yet? Of course, it's a metaphor, but it's a metaphor that is real and true. In fact, the fact that it is a metaphor does not make it less true at all. It is deeply, spiritually true, that when Jesus died, I was there and died with Him. When Jesus rose, I was there and rose with Him. So it is not only true to say that Jesus is mine, but it's also accurate to say, I am His in the sense of belonging to Him. I have always belonged to Him. Before I was conceived, God identified me with Jesus there at that moment. Is this a mystery? Yes. Do we completely understand it? No, but it's true. It is objectively true. That is to say, it is true whether or not I always feel it. I don't wake up every morning and say, whoopie, I'm in union with Christ. I literally don't have that happen to me. Somebody suggested to me recently that it would be a good idea if we hid our car keys under the bed so that every morning we would have to get down on our knees before we left the house and could at least in that way be reminded of who we truly are before we leave the house. That's the point. Who are you? And Paul's answer to that question is that you are one who was with Christ at the most critical moments of human history, if you believe in Him. It is objectively true. My good friend and elder and our church Jack Denman said this to me earlier this week. He said, Colossians 3 is rehearsing who we are in Christ and it cannot be done enough. I think that is very wise because our hearts are prone to wonder. Lord, I feel it as the Him goes because it is natural somehow that we are susceptible to having our hearts and minds go in many directions. It is important that we rehearse again and again these central themes as Paul does in Colossians 3 in all of his writings and as I would suggest to you really is central to the whole of the Bible. Some people have said that the teaching, the doctrine of our union with Christ is the central doctrine of the whole of the Bible. A great teacher by the name of David Martin Lloyd Jones was a preacher in England for about 50 years. He never preached on the book of Romans which in some ways is arguably the most important central book in the New Testament to understand. And he was asked toward the end of his ministry, Dr. Lloyd Jones, why have you not preached on the book of Romans which he finally did? And he said, I will preach on Romans when I understand Romans 6. Now my reason for telling you this is that Romans 6 is all about Colossians 3. It's an expanded version of Colossians 3. It's all about this thing called our positional union with Jesus. It's objective. It's fact. It changes our orientation or it should. So that our minds are now set in a certain direction, a new direction, a different direction. We sometimes by dint of will, sheer willpower it seems to us. Set our minds on where Christ is because that is also where we are even though I don't always feel that way. With his father's permission, I'm going to use an illustration about Nelson, some of you know Nelson's 22 year old young man in our church and in our community. It is arguable I think at least my son would probably argue that Nelson is his best friend. They have played football since they were second graders together. Nelson has been in our house countless hours over the years of his growing up. There's a wonderful thing about Nelson. It's a kind of funny thing if you know him. He's a little bit of a space cadet. Oh he's very smart. I mean very smart. That's my point. He's thinking about things that I don't think most people think about all the time. He wanted to major in math and philosophy and biology all at once. He graduated a year early from college because he had so many advanced placement credits. A very smart young guy but kind of out there somewhere. Our big joke in our family was Earth to Nelson. Well Nelson has become engaged in the last two months to a lovely young woman from Abilene, Texas. And a couple of months ago Nelson brought Sarah Ashley over to our house to formally introduce his fiancee. Now we of course had met Sarah Ashley. She'd even stayed at our home on a couple of occasions but he formally introduced his fiancee to us. And here's my point in telling you this story. There was something different about Nelson. Something noticeably more focused. He had his mind set on a specific thing, a specific person. And it actually changed the way he thought about things. We were talking about their wedding next summer. He had honored Sarah Ashley honored me by asking me to be the minister who marries them. And we were talking a little bit about their premarital counseling and so forth. And Nelson had lots of ideas about it himself. He had thought it through. He was extremely and intently set in his mind. That's one of the reasons I couldn't call Nelson at least. I didn't have time to call him to ask to use permission to use his name this morning. I had to call his dad because his mind is so set on Sarah Ashley that Sarah Ashley who was a junior at Harvard is taking a semester in London right now and Nelson is in London right now.
You see the set of mind that happens to us when we become Christians is a reorientation of the center of the universe. We become fixed on where Christ is just like Nelson is fixed on where Sarah Ashley is. Our union with Christ is the most central truth about us. But like other things that we would say are very important about us, we often don't recognize them as the most important.
We sometimes forget them or they become obscured by the many things that fill our lives in the busyness of every day. But the truth is our minds are set or are to be set on where Christ is.
This is the doctrine of our union with Christ in his death and in his resurrection. And that's Paul's first meaning quickly, his second meaning if I may. Paul is also saying something I believe about his circumstances personally and about the circumstances of the people to whom he's writing in Kawasai. Paul is writing from a prison in Rome. He is hidden in Rome. He is not seen. He is not obvious. And furthermore, he is writing to a city in Asia Minor that was not a very prominent place any longer. Kawasai had lost prominence in recent years compared to its sister city 10 miles up the river called Leodicea. So here is a hidden paw writing to a hidden group of people. And he is writing in a way that seems as if no one is ever going to really notice or it isn't important at all. His circumstances were minimized. His circumstances you might even say were confused. He was a person who was out of the limelight. We think of leadership in our world today as heroic. We think of leadership as something which is involving the powerful upfront person who is noticed. An influential organization. An influential church. But for Paul he is trying to tell us that leadership if we understand it correctly really isn't about prominence. It's often more about hiddenness. The other night I was having dinner with some old friends in Virginia and we were talking about this and it's a husband and wife that I was having dinner with. And she said to me about her husband who has been a believer for about 30 years. A man that is one of my closest friends and a man I actually had the privilege of helping to come to understand what it means to be united with Christ. And a man who has done amazing things in his city. He built a school that is now literally physically designed it and built it. He was the architect planner designer builder of a school that is the most prominent school in the whole central part of Virginia. Everybody wants to get their kids in there and it's a Christian school. He's a man who is known for his professional excellence at what he does. And his wife said to me, you know, I think as we were talking about these things she said, I think that the most important thing Frank ever did in his life was teach sixth grade Sunday school.
Well, I didn't even remember that Frank had taught sixth grade Sunday school but there are a bunch of people that are now in their 20s who know that Frank taught sixth grade Sunday school. You see, the most prominent things are not necessarily the most central things. And Paul is trying to tell us that by his own life, that to be hidden with Christ may mean we don't seek the place of prominence but the place of hiddenness. And that leads on quickly then to the third meaning which grows quite clearly out of the second. Not only is our life hidden with Christ in the sense that we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection, not only are we hidden with Christ in our circumstances where sometimes we don't feel very important. But actually what is being pointed to here is a way of life,
a way of life which Paul calls the heavenly-minded life in these verses. But he is not saying that we become so heavenly-minded that we are no earthly good. Here is the very interesting thing about the context in which Paul writes. He is writing in an ancient Greek and Roman context where the world was actually split into two parts. The upper part which was spiritual and good and the lower part which was material and earthly and ordinary. And it almost sounds like Paul is feeding into that way of thinking when he talks about set your mind on the things above, not the things on earth. But he's actually not doing that. In fact he is doing precisely the opposite. What he is saying is that this life really counts. And the reason I can prove to you that that's true is what he says in the rest of Colossians chapter 3. He talks about relationships, real human relationships. By the end of Colossians 3 he's talking about husbands and wives and children and servants and employees and masters. He's talking about the need to be as he puts it in verse 12 and following humble, gentle, gracious, patient in the midst of very messy, very hard situations. And what he's saying is that we are to bring the mindset of heaven to our thinking about all that we do now. Set your mind on the things above where Christ is. This phrase set your mind is the same phrase that is used in Hebrews chapter 12 where it says consider him who was so of based at the hands of sinful men, meaning Christ. Consider him. Think about him who was hurt and wounded because he entered into the messiness of this life. Where is Jesus right now? He is in heaven. Heaven isn't way up there somewhere. In fact, Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is at hand by which he meant literally at your fingertips, which means among us. The kingdom of heaven is somehow mysteriously right among us, not way out there, but it is a different realm. It's a realm where all the wounds have been healed, where all the battles have been fought, when all the disconnects of broken relationships have been healed, where all the cancer has forever been taken out of a person's body, where all the ugliness of war and the mean spirit that this with which people treat one another has been taken away. That place exists right now, and there is a man there. He's the king of that place, but he is a king with wounds. And when we see him one day, we will see him as one who was a based wounded by sinful people like us. We will see wounds in his hand and on his side and at his feet. We will see a man who was broken and battered and killed by the worst that this world could give, but his wounds will be according to verse 4 glorified. And the point of verse 4 is that so too will our wounds be glorified. For when he appears, we will appear with him as he is. Here is what it means to be hidden with Christ. Is that you are on the way to having all of the wrong and all of the woundedness and all of the hurt and yes, even all of the deaths that eventually comes out of life. Taken away and not just removed, but somehow glorify. Somehow made beautiful. That's why the hymn writers say things like one day when we see him, we will see his wounds as beautiful.
You are on that path if you are hidden with Christ. I was asked a wonderful question before this service by one of you that said, when I think of being hidden, I think of being hidden from something, but you're saying we're hidden with something. And I said, yes, when you are a child, do you remember that sometimes things were scary and it was great to have a friend who was taller, bigger, stronger than you. And maybe sometimes you would hide out with that friend and you'd feel safe. You are hidden with the strongest, mightiest, most victorious, most prominent friend you could ever have, who became for us the weakest, the most hurt, the most based, and the least prominent person we could imagine. Your life is hidden with Jesus.
I spoke about the doctrine of our positional union with Christ. Well, it's true, but the implications of it are the teachings that we call our mystical union with Christ, which means that what is objectively true is also experientially real now. And the amazing thing is, is that you know him the best, your big friend, your strong friend, your glorified friend, you know him best in your wounds.
Everything about our lives tells us to run from what hurts us. Everything in our lives tells us to go the other way. And I'm not telling you to seek out hurt like some kind of masochists. But I am telling you that where you are the most wounded, you will most find the wounded one who has become glorified for you. And you will most begin to understand that you will one day be like him. And you are on that path now. So go hide out with your friend, make every day a Jane ring day because that's who you really are. That's who you really are.