SEEKING THE RIGHT THINGS COLOSSIANS 3:1-2

Paul moved from doctrine to practice, from the truth to its application in daily living.

In order to encourage his readers to turn away from their false teachers Paul reminded them of their union with Christ. He also urged them to continue living in keeping with their position in Christ.

Chapter three begins the practical division of the book of Colossians.

Paul now moves to the positive. Not only does the death of Christ relate to the believer but so does the resurrection of Christ. The one relates to our salvation in the past; the other relates to our future. Not only is the Christian to relinquish his pre-death life but he is to seek the post-resurrection life of Christ.

Jesus liberated us from legalism. We have new privileges in Christ. Chapter three launches our responsibility to live up to our privilege.

 

          Chapter 3 follows chapter 2. In chapter 2 he talked about those things which are below. He’s thinking about those things that are on the earth, and he defined those things which are on the earth. And then he goes into chapter 3 and says, “But if you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.”

 

Our passage is really a hinge passage.  In the first half of Colossians, we have four chapters and we're moving our way into the second half now, in the first half as Paul tends to do in many of his letters, he is making many revealing statements of theological truth.  This includes statements where he is saying things like here is who Christ is.  That's one category of these revealing statements, here is who Christ is.  He is the image of the invisible God, He is the firstborn of all creation, by Him all things were created, He is before all things and in Him all things hold together, and He is the head of the body, the church.  So, it's here who Christ is.  Then there are these statements of here is who you are, Christian.  You were formerly alienated and engaged in evil deeds, but “now you have been redeemed and forgiven and reconciled, now you have been rescued from that domain of darkness (Colossians 1:13) and transferred into the kingdom of His beloved Son.”  So, it's here who Christ is; here is who you are, believer.  Then category three; has been and here is who they are, meaning the false teachers.  Those would be the ones who would seek to take you captive through philosophy and empty deception.  Those would be the ones who would seek to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or festivals or new moons or Sabbath days.  Those would be the ones who would seek to defraud you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels.  Those would be the ones who would take their stand on visions that they say they have seen and who are inflated without cause in their fleshly mind.  And those would be the ones who promote self-made religion (Colossians 2:23), self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, which he says, “are of no value against fleshly indulgence.” 

 

But in Colossians 3, Paul is moving away from this is who Christ is and this is who you are, and this is who they are type of statements, he's moving away from these revealing statements to giving us more commands.  Now he is going to do so in Colossians 3 and 4 and be no less theological and no less doctrinal, but the words here in Colossians 3 and 4, that we’re going to cover in the future have more of a finger in your chest, step on your toes, this is what you have to do now tone to them. 

          In verses 1 and 2, he is going to highlight events that happened at a fixed point in the past.  “You have been raised up with Christ,” he says.  Then in verse 3 he is going to use a different verb tense, one that has more present-day ramifications.  “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  In verse 4 he is going to get into yet another verb tense, one that is more futuristic in its orientation when he says, “When Christ who is our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”  So, as we survey this section of inspired Scripture what we're going to witness is Paul not only slowly transitioning from giving more commands than mere statements.  Layered on top of that we're going to see him make these statements that pull in from the past, that point to the present and also highlight the future.  It's a magnificent section of Scripture.  No wonder H. C. G. Moule, the old Anglican bishop, said this.  He said, “It is one of the golden paragraphs of the whole Bible”

"If then you were raised with Christ" OR therefore since

We could translate "If" as "Since" (first class condition in Greek). It introduces another "in Christ" position that Paul assumed to be true for the sake of his argument and which is

indeed true (cf. 2:20). Paul returned to his thought about the believer's union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection (2:9-15).

          That God has already raised us with Christ, is an assumed fact. It is a fact that God has raised us with Christ (Eph 2:5,6). God sees better than we do but he expects us to see what he has done in Christ with the eye of faith. This has nothing to do with our feelings. We cannot taste, feel or smell positional truth. Our position in Christ is infallible, unalterable, eternal and exalted. God said it and our faith lays hold of it. All God wants is for us to lay hold of our privilege by faith.

Our present resurrection with Christ is one of many expressions of our position in Christ. Positional truth cannot change. It is something we have forever with Christ. God provides our position with Christ. He establishes this position forever entirely apart from merit at the moment of our salvation. We can draw power daily from this resource.

PRINCIPLE: God expects us to live the Christian life on the declared fact of our resurrection with Christ.

                   Two present commands identify the Christian's responsibilities: "keep seeking" (v. 1) and "set your minds on"

(v. 2). Since God raised us with Christ, and we are already as good as seated with Him in heaven, we should keep seeking heavenly things. Keep looking up (cf. Heb. 12:12:1-2)

"seek those things which are above" is translated as Keep Seeking

"Seek" is the first of many commands in the remaining practical section of Colossians.

"Seek" means to pursue, search for, endeavor to obtain, desire to possess. If a legalist were writing this he would write "Don't ...." but Paul writes "Seek..." God wants us to apply our eternal privileges to time. Make those privileges our scope of daily living. Center our lives on the ascended and glorified Christ.

"'Seek' (zeteite) implies here not an investigation but an effort to obtain.

      We are to travel in this world as we walk through our lives, but instead is a reference to the direction that our gaze should be going, as those whose citizenship (Philippians 3:20) is in heaven, as those whose inheritance (I Peter 1:4) is reserved in heaven and as those who (as Hebrews 11:16 says) are awaiting a heavenly country. 

         What you seek is what your ambition is. Your ambition is to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. (Matthew 6:33) The devil doesn’t care what on earth you may seek, as long as you do not seek those things which are above.

       The next verses explain how to go about seeking things above. Non-Christians are earth-bound, secular, materialists. They operate in a world of taste, see and feel. They spend all their time trying to keep body and soul together. That is life to them. They do not know that there is more to life than that. For the Christian, his life is Christ (v.4). This is far more than existence. When we center our lives on Christ, life takes on a purpose, a life worth living.

          The Bible is the mind of God reduced to writing. We have what we need for the Christian life in writing. We have the Holy Spirit to help us dig it out.

           God wants us to rest on what Christ has done, not on what we do. Everything we have before God is because we have been incorporated in Christ at our salvation. The Christian experience must relate to our position in Christ.

"where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God"

Jesus is seated at "the right hand of God." This is the completeness of our position. Our status quo before God in Christ is already finished in God's eyes. Our position is complete in the mind of God.

"The description of Christ as 'seated at the right hand of God' is another implied response to those who were seeking to diminish Christ's role as mediator, inasmuch as the right hand of God is a metaphor for the place of supreme privilege and divine authority."5

Colossians 3:2 "Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth."

"Set your mind on things above"

          The Christian's second responsibility it to continually set his or her mind on the things above (the things of heaven; i.e., our spiritual blessings and hope, our Savior's desires, etc.) rather than on the things that are only physical and temporal. They should occupy a large place in our thought lives.

       Paul turns to a stronger term than "seek" of verse one -- "Set your mind." "Set your mind" places stress on the whole bent of life while "seek" emphasizes the pursuit of more concrete goals.

    "You must not only seek heaven; you must also think heaven." 1 lightfoot

           From now on the Christian will see everything in the light and against the background of eternity. He will no longer live as if this world was all that mattered; he will see this world against the background of the larger world of eternity. … He will, for instance, set giving above getting, serving above ruling, forgiving above avenging. The Christian will see things, not as they appear to men, but as they appear to God."2

            "The Christian has to keep his feet upon the earth, but his head in the heavens. He must be heavenly- minded here on earth and so help to make earth like heaven."3

           The two commands differ in that the first emphasizes the more practical pursuits of life whereas the second stresses the whole bent of the life. The first is outward and the second is inward.

        Intellectual brilliance, advanced education, or unusual physical strength are not required for a Christian to become great in God's estimation. What He requires is faithful perseverance in the basics of the Christian life. Any Christian can do this since we all have the help of the Lord Himself.

          If the Christian is to survive in spiritual war, his mind must focus on eternal things (2 Cor. 4:18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

 

"Seek" in verse one implies striving; Set your mind implies concentration.

"Mind" includes understanding, attitude and the will. It means to employ one’s faculty for thoughtful planning, with emphasis upon the underlying attitude -- to have an attitude, to think in a particular manner as in the attitude that Christ Jesus had (Phil. 2.5).

           "Christ's sitting at God's right hand is the exercise of all the majesty and the power of deity according to his human nature."2

"That is a place, heaven itself, where a glorified Man, Himself God the Son, is seated, His work of salvation finished."3

    This word also means to keep on giving serious consideration to something -- to ponder, to let one’s mind dwell on, to keep thinking about, to fix one’s attention on as here -- "Let your mind dwell on the things which are above."

God wants us to love "things above." The Greek emphasizes "things above." "Things above" are the things which are ultimately essential, belonging to God. He wants our desire to orient around them.

   Our greatest need is to think about God's divine operating assets which he has provided for us. God wants us to think about Christ and what he has done for us. We need to think about our union or position with him eternally.

"not on things on the earth"

"Things on the earth" is set in contrast to "things above." These are moral things, not physical things. This is not Gnostic contempt for material things. Paul is not pushing spiritual escapism such as becoming a monk or hiding from everyday life. Rather, our Christianity operates within the framework of everyday life whether in work or marriage. God created physical things for our enjoyment (Ps. 24).

          Philippians 3:19-20 contrasts those who "mind earthly things" with those whose citizenship is in heaven.

PRINCIPLE: God does not want us to focus on the trivial but on the eternal.

APPLICATION: Most of the things we think about are materialistic. It is not wrong to think about material things as long as material things do not become ultimate importance in our hearts. We must make a living; we must shop for groceries. God expects us to become productive members of the human race.

 

Our problem is we think about material things exclusively. If we are earthbound, we will be miserable. We will have a worm's eye view of life instead of a bird's eye view. Materialism is so insidious that we succumb to it without realizing it. If we are honest, there is none of us who are not susceptible to it. We are forced to admit that "I do have materialistic tendencies."

We do not need faith when we deal in material things. We taste, feel, see and touch material things but faith takes us into another arena. Faith takes us into a spiritual stratosphere. There we can see things we could not see with a material viewpoint. Faith is the spiritual telescope that brings the things of God afar off near to our soul. We can, therefore, see things we could not otherwise see. Faith puts reality on intangible things. Eternal things are real but they are only real to those who have faith to see them.

It was written of Moses, "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible" (Heb. 11:27).

God calls upon us to think about eternal things. He wants us to be heavenly-minded. However, we are not to be so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. Most of us are so earthly minded that we are no heavenly good.

  

Mark 8:36 "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?

             John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. Have you trusted Him as your Savior? He can Save you if You ask Him based on His death, burial, and resurrection for your sins. Believe in Him for forgiveness of your sins today.

              “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  -John 8:32

 

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