The Delightful Duty of Being Heavenly-Minded
Colossians 3:1–4
© Mike Riccardi
Introduction
What a privilege it is to gather again this evening, to exalt the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in praise, in prayer, and now in proclamation of His precious Word. Please turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 to 4. “Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”
What is it, dear Christian, that you give your mind to? What do you think about? Imagine if Elon Musk invented a program or an application that could transcribe your thoughts over the past week and display them on that projector screen behind me. What would it say on that screen? And, more than what would it say: what would that screen say about the kind of man or woman you are? What would it indicate that you love most? What would it say about what has captured your heart? What would it say about your identity, about who you really are in the deepest sense?
Would it reveal someone who was consumed with the affairs of this world? Work schedules and school deadlines; the to-do list around the house; budgets and vacations; the kids’ school schedule and extracurricular activities? Don’t get me wrong: I understand that we live in this world. We go to school, we get a job, we go to work, we get married, we raise a family, we manage a household. We have to think about such things. But is your mind consumed with these things? Is your thinking dominated by the cares of life in this world?
Or would that screen reveal the thoughts of someone who recognizes that, while he must live in this fallen world, he knows, in the depths of his soul, that he is not of this world, as Jesus says of us in John 15:19 and 17:16? Would it reveal someone who knows that she belongs to a kingdom that is not of this world, John 18:36? whose “citizenship,” Philippians 3:20, “is in heaven”? who confesses that he is “a stranger and exile on the earth,” Hebrews 11:13? who desires the better, heavenly country of his true citizenship, and who can declare with integrity what the author of Hebrews says in chapter 13 verse 14: “For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come”—“the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God”—where moth and rust do not destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal, where there is an inheritance reserved for us that is imperishable and undefiled and that will not fade away.
What does your mind say about who you are? The answer to that question is: everything. It says everything about who you are. Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as [a man] thinks within himself, so he is.” Whatever has your mind has you. What consumes your thoughts, what you’re preoccupied with, what your mind defaults to when it doesn’t have anything else pressing in upon it, and even what you determine to set your mind on when it defaults to those things it shouldn’t—is in large measure who you are.
And so one of the principal strategies of Satan, dear believer, is to come after our minds. He is a deceiver, 2 Corinthians 11:3, who, by his craftiness, aims to lead your minds astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. And he will do that through the seduction of false doctrine, and he will do it through the temptation to immorality and corrupt living; but it doesn’t even have to be that. Satan does not need to turn you into a heretic, or a lecher, in order to win the battle for your mind. He just has to make sure you don’t set your minds on heavenly things. He only has to distract you from the glories of your heavenly citizenship and cause you to be consumed with the things of the earth, as if they were ultimate.
In 1 Peter 1:17, the Apostle Peter refers to our present life as “the time of your stay on earth.” Do you hear how temporary that sounds? Where do we usually hear that language? “How was your stay, sir?” In a hotel, right? Someplace you stay for the weekend, on your way back to your home. But in this world of distractions, we sometimes forget that we are sojourners, pilgrims, strangers journeying through the foreign land that is planet earth to the country of our true citizenship. And when we set our minds on these things here below, we start carving out little portions of this world to call our own. And inevitably, we start to establish residence in the hotel room. We wed our affections to the world as if it’s our home. And so when the circumstances of life barge in and start rearranging the furniture, we become full of anxiety and worry, or of discontentment and anger.
As if we didn’t have treasure laid up for us in heaven—treasure that is worthy of our highest thoughts and most profound meditations! And chief among that treasure in heaven, dear Christian, is our glorious Savior, “who gave Himself for our sins,” Galatians 1:4, “so that He might rescue us from this present evil age,” not so that we might become infatuated and enamored with it! That Savior is worthy of our highest affections and fullest preoccupations. And He has gone to His Father to prepare a place for us, that we might be with Him in that world of love, and of perfect blessedness, where there are no more tears or sorrows, but only eternal pleasures in the presence of the God who is the fountain of all goodness and joy. Dear Christian: that God, and that Savior, and that Paradise, is where life is. And it is worthy of all your mind.
When your thoughts are consumed by earthly things, it is not difficult to live a thoroughly worldly life—weighed down with cares and worries, exhausted and sapped of joy, and searching for satisfaction and fulfillment in sinful pleasures rather than in the true pleasures of righteousness. But when your thoughts are taken up with God, and Christ, and the Spirit, and heaven, and the Gospel of our salvation by which we are delivered unto those eternal blessings, you become full of joy, full of contentment, full of the faith that perseveres through trial. And you become so satisfied in Christ and all the blessings that are wrapped up in Him, that there is no room in your heart for the false-pleasures that sin promises. It is when you give yourself to the delightful duty of being heavenly-minded, that you can walk in the newness of life in Christ that Paul calls us to in Colossians chapter 3.
And really that call has begun in chapter 2 verse 6, where Paul issues the first command of the entire letter. He says, “Therefore,” in view of the absolute supremacy and sufficiency of Christ in and above all things, “as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” You’ve received Him entirely by grace through faith; so now: live in Him entirely by grace through faith.
And beginning in verse 8 all the way down to verse 23, Paul elaborates on that overarching command in a negative sense. That is, “Walk in Christ in the manner in which you received Him, which was not by the empty and deceptive philosophies of the world, verse 8. Do not think, dear Colossians, that you must press on in the fight for holiness by rites, and ceremonies, and visions, and angels. These false teachers, who come to you advocating their strange mix of legalism, mysticism, and asceticism, cannot bring you to spiritual fullness. All spiritual fullness is in Christ alone. You are filled to all fullness in Him. He is sufficient for living the Christian life.”
Well, now, starting in chapter 3 verse 1, Paul begins to elaborate on the overarching command of chapter 2 verse 6 in a positive sense. “Walk in Christ in the manner in which you received Him.” “What does that look like, Paul?” And you see in verses 5 to 11 we are to put off the deeds of the flesh: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy speech, and lying. And then in verses 12 to 17 we find that we are to put on the deeds of the new man: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, love, peace, and gratitude. We are to be controlled by the Word of God; we are to teach and admonish one another; we are to worship God in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs; and we are to live our entire lives in the name of—that is, unto the glory of—the Lord Jesus.
In chapter 3 verse 18 through chapter 4 verse 1, Paul instructs Christians on how to conduct ourselves in the various spheres of life: husbands and wives, children and parents, slaves and masters. What does it mean to follow Christ in each of these areas? And finally, in chapter 4 verses 2 through 6, he gives general exhortations regarding devoting ourselves to prayer, evangelism, and soundness of speech.
But all of that extremely practical, extremely specific instruction for how we ought to live our lives as Christians is rooted in his exhortation in chapter 3 verses 1 to 4 to heavenly-mindedness. The key to living a holy life by the grace of God is to win the battle in the mind—to let our minds be preoccupied with heavenly things, with spiritual truths; to ascend in our thinking from the things of this earth up to the glories of heaven.
In these first four verses, we find two parallel duties, and five motives for those duties. Two ways, with slightly different nuances, of urging us to heavenly-mindedness, with two motives for the first duty and three motives for the second duty.
I. Be Governed by a Heavenly Preoccupation (v. 1)
In the first place, Paul calls Christians to be governed by a heavenly preoccupation. Verse 1 again: “Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above.” “The things above” are heavenly things—the things that are in and are associated with and which characterize heaven.
You say, “Like what?” Well, like the things we began speaking about just a moment ago. Philippians 3:20 says our citizenship is in heaven. And what is citizenship but that profound sense of belonging—of having share and a portion in a true community, where you can truly be at home. Here, we are aliens and strangers. We don’t fit! Because we are not ofthis world, Jesus says in John 15:19, the world hates us. And so we know the ache of having no true rest in this world, of being far from home. But the place of our true belonging, our true citizenship, is there in heaven. And so the author of Hebrews also calls it our “heavenly country,” Hebrews 11:16.
In 2 Timothy 4:18, Paul speaks of the Lord’s “heavenly kingdom,” into which he says God will rescue him from every evil deed, away from this domain of darkness and into the heavenly kingdom of His beloved Son, who reigns in perfect justice, in what is called “the heavenly Jerusalem,” Hebrews 12:22—the subjects of which kingdom are “the spirits of the righteous made perfect,” who live in perfect peace and unity of heart with one another; where there is no discord, no suspicion, no envy, or bitterness, or even misunderstanding; but only love, and goodwill, and delight in one another’s blessing.
And in fact, Ephesians 1:3 says every spiritual blessing is in those heavenly places.” All those blessings that Paul celebrated in Colossians chapter 2—union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection; the spiritual circumcision of regeneration, of being born from above; the forgiveness of sins through the cross work of Christ; the conquest of all spiritual enemies through that same cross; freedom from the dominion of sin; the glorious liberty of a cleansed conscience; communion with Christ Himself through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit—all of those things have their origin in heaven and find their consummation in heaven.
And of course, the Triune God Himself is there. Our “heavenly Father,” as Jesus calls Him so often—the Father of lights, from whom every good and perfect gift comes; whose love to us is immeasurable, in that He would deliver His only begotten Son over to the inflexible severity of His own wrath, which He never deserved, all to rescue us from the eternal torment that we so richly deserved. Our dear Savior is there, who is “the living bread that came down out of heaven,” John 6, and, as Paul will say in a moment, who was raised from the dead and seated at the Father’s right hand in the heavenly places, Ephesians 1:20. And the Spirit of God is there, who in Hebrews 6:4 is called “the heavenly gift.”
Dear Christian: the all-glorious God is in heaven! And we are promised, in the consummation of all things, Revelation 22:4: that we “will see His face,” and it will be the perfection of all blessedness to see Him! O, no wonder Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him”! We can talk about it in the poor, broken language of human finitude, but we can’t truly comprehend the infinite fullness of joy and blessedness and perfection that waits for us in the country of our citizenship.
But we can seek these things. In fact, we must seek these things. We must be preoccupied with the things above. We must set our minds on and meditate upon these glorious realities that we can scarcely imagine. We must set our hearts upon “the glory that is to be revealed to us” in that place, Romans 8:18. We must be able to say with David, “One thing I have asked from Yahweh, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of Yahweh all the days of my life.” To do what, David? “To behold the beauty of Yahweh, and to meditate in His temple.” There’s only one thing that I will seek from the Lord! I will seek to set the eyes of my heart upon the glory of His face—now by the eye of faith, as through a glass darkly, but then by true sight in His very presence! I am seeking those precious things that are above!
And not only am I to seek those things. Not only am I to have this heavenly preoccupation. But I am to be governed by this heavenly preoccupation as I live my life here on earth. Oh, I would ascend to that place of glory right now if I could: “Far better to depart and be with Christ,” Philippians 1:23. But the Lord has determined that for the time being I remain on in the flesh, which means that I need to bring that heavenly-mindedness to bear on the way I live my life down here. I am to let those glorious truths about my true citizenship and my true home govern the way that I conduct myself as I sojourn through this foreign land of my pilgrimage. Not by becoming a monk, like we talked about last time. Not by living in the desert away from all human contact, and just contemplating these realities. But by living every aspect of my life in this world in light of my preoccupation with heaven.
One commentator says, “Believers ‘seek the things above’ by deliberately and daily committing ourselves to the values of the heavenly kingdom and living out of those values” (Moo, 246). Another says, “The ‘seeking’ is a desire to have one’s thinking and lifestyle continually oriented around Christ’s kingship over all things” (Beale, 266). Still another says, believers’ “aims, ambitions, indeed their whole orientation is to be directed to” heaven (O’Brien, 161). And John MacArthur wrote, “To be preoccupied with heaven is to be preoccupied with the One who reigns there and His purposes, plans, provisions, and power. It is also to view the things, people, and events of this world through His eyes and with an eternal perspective” (128). You look at everything on earth with the eye of heaven; everything in the present with the eye of eternity. Everything that you do, say, think, and feel in this place, is governed by the fact that that place is your home—that that is your future!
And so, very practically, you cannot be a citizen of heaven, preoccupied with the things above, and live like hell. This preoccupation sanctifies us, 1 John 3:3: “Everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” This preoccupation stabilizes us. I mentioned Romans 8:18 before; the rest of that verse says, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” If that is my future, I can persevere through whatever suffering my God ordains for me, because I know that those sufferings are nothing but the pathway He has paved to bring me to the heavenly kingdom that so preoccupies my mind. And when I’m there, there’ll be no comparison. And this preoccupation strengthens us to lay down our lives in sacrificial service to all of God’s people. Second Corinthians 4:11: “For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake.” “How can you bear it, Paul?” Verse 14: “because we know that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus” up to that glorious place! Here is your delightful duty, Christian: to have your entire life be governed by a heavenly preoccupation—to keep seeking the things above.
And if that isn’t enough on its own, Paul gives us two motives for being governed by that heavenly preoccupation. First, because of our resurrection. Look at the first part of verse 1: “Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above.” This picks up on Paul’s comment in chapter 2 verse 20 of our having died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, and then back even further to chapter 2 verse 12, where says we have been “buriedwith [Christ] in baptism, in which [we] were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”
Our union with Christ is such that what has happened to the head can be said to have happened to the body, in such a way, Romans 6:4, “that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too” are raised up with Him and “might [therefore] walk in newness of life.” So do you see Paul’s point? It’s not only that our citizenship is in heaven, that our better country is in heaven, that the heavenly kingdom and every spiritual blessing are in heaven. It’s that we ourselves are in heaven! Ephesians 2:6 says He “raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places.” His death is our death! His resurrection is our resurrection! And His ascension and session are our ascension and session! If Christ rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and you’re united to Him, then you ought to rise to newness of life on earth, and, as one man put it, “to soar to heaven in mind.”
And then he gives a second motive at the end of verse 1. We are to be governed by a heavenly preoccupation, not only because of our resurrection, but also, secondly, because of Christ’s exaltation. “Keep seeking the things above, whereChrist is, seated at the right hand of God.” And oh, is there a treasure chest of truth in this tiny phrase. We could take an entire sermon to trace that phrase from Psalm 110:1, through to Jesus’ citations of it in the Gospels to prove His deity, through the apostolic preaching of the Gospel in the book of Acts, all the way to its codification in that early creed of the church called the Apostles Creed—that “the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”
How we could feast our souls in the contemplation of the victory of our great Savior, whose humiliation we ponder with such grief on Good Friday, so that we look upon Him whom our sins have pierced, and mourn for Him as an only son; but now to see Him not only risen from the dead, but also ascended into heaven, crowned with glory and the highest honor (Heb 2:9), and sovereignty, and majesty; receiving all the worship He was denied during His sojourn on earth; glorying in the glory which He had with His Father before the world was (John 17:5)! O, how it makes our hearts glad to think of our Jesus, being honored with shouts of acclamation from the saints and angels, exalted “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named” (Eph 1:21)!
If our pearl of great price has ascended there, how our hearts and minds should ascend there with Him, constantly contemplating our glorious Savior in that glorious place! It’s as He Himself said: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21). We feel that, though necessarily in a much lesser way, when a loved one dies in Christ. I know so many of us have felt an even greater longing for heaven since our dear Pastor graduated to glory this past July. It’s easier to loosen the strings of our hearts from this world—and to fasten them upon that world—when we consider that those who are dear to us are there as well. Paul says, “Our dearest One—the loveliest of all our loved ones—has ascended into that world above. And so keep seeking the things above, where He is. Keep setting your minds and fixing your hearts on that world rather than this one.”
My kids love planting seeds in small pots, and watering them, and putting them in the windowsill in the kitchen to get sunlight, and watching them grow. And I love watching them observe how, when the plant begins to flower, it grows in the direction of the sunlight. In fact, I like taking a plant that has curved toward the sunlight, and turning it entirely in the opposite direction—only for just a few days to pass before it’s turned back in the direction of the sun. Paul says, “Christ our Savior is our Sun of Righteousness, who, by the loveliness of His glory and the power of His grace, draws our souls away from the things we are minding in this world and draws our hearts up and out toward heaven, where He is, so that all of our best thoughts are there.”
II. Be Directed by a Heavenly Preference (vv. 2–4)
Well, there’s a second duty that Paul calls us to in this text. Not only are we to be governed by a heavenly preoccupation. We also, number two, must be directed by a heavenly preference. Verse 2 again: “Set your mind on the things above, noton the things that are on earth.” And this is really a restatement of the substance of Paul’s command in verse 1. As we’ve said, they’re parallel duties. To “keep seeking the things above” is to “set your mind on the things above,” and then, of course, to live consistently with that mindset.
But there is some nuance between the two. For one thing, in verse 2, Paul makes explicit his focus on the mind. The verb is phronéo. Think on heavenly things. Give your mind to the contemplation of these glorious realities—as we’ve been saying. But the commentaries and the lexicons that comment on this word used in this context consistently emphasize that phronéo doesn’t refer to a merely intellectual process, but also to “a fundamental orientation of the will” (Moo, 248). It speaks of the “inner disposition” (MacArthur, 129) and concerns the “aims and motives” of a person (O’Brien, 163).
This means that this isn’t only a call to think on the things of heaven. It’s a call to engage your will in desiring the things of heaven. In fact, several of the older commentators, following the King James translation, paraphrase this verse by saying, “Set your affections on the things above.” And of course, the two are inextricable, aren’t they? Certainly you can’t love the things you don’t know. You can’t come to treasure and savor those things that you refuse to meditate upon. And, on the other hand, when you set your mind on these things—on the glories of heaven and the blessings of salvation and the unhindered fellowship with God in Christ—you can’t help but have your affections won over to heaven. You can’t help but love and enjoy and glory in what your mind fastens upon.
And so, dear people, don’t only occupy your mind with thoughts of heaven; tune your hearts to love and long for the things of heaven. One man said, “be so affected by their excellence and sweetness, as to thirst for them with an insatiable desire,” and then order your entire life to be certain that you will lay hold of those things (Davenant, 2:8). Labor to get your heart in such a frame that you can say with David in Psalm 42, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?”
But notice another difference between verses 1 and 2 is that a negation is added. “Set your mind on the things above, noton the things that are on earth.” As much as we are to cultivate our affections for heavenly things, we are to wean our affections off of and away from earthly things—not only to be preoccupied with that world, but to prefer the things of heaven over and against the things of earth. That’s why I call it a heavenly preference. We are, in some sense, to contemn and despise and regard lightly—the things of this world. And that antithesis is made plain throughout the New Testament: Paul says in Romans 8, starting in verse 5: “Those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.” And verse 7: “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.” There is this absolute antithesis James 4:4 says the same thing: “friendship with the world is hostility toward God.” “Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” First John 2:16 says, “All that is in the world…is not from the Father, but is from the world.” And so John commands us in the previous verse: “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” You have to choose! “No one can serve two masters,” Matthew 6:24—especially two masters as opposed to one another as God and the world. Either love for heaven will weaken your affections for the world, or love of the world will weaken your affections for God and for heaven.
And, oh, what a plague worldliness is on the evangelical church today! We could dwell long and hard in diagnosing where our own hearts have yielded to an earthly-mindedness. So many professing believers think that being a Christian just means adding Jesus to your life, so that with just a few tweaks of your social calendar, you can continue right on living the life you were living, just with some Bible reading and church attendance sprinkled in—almost like how you add an additional room onto your already existing house. These people don’t recognize that becoming a Christian is leveling your existing house to the ground with the wrecking-ball of regeneration, and building an entirely new dwelling from the ground up, in the image of Jesus.
And so, so many professing believers, just do everything they can to look just like the world. So many of them remain so infatuated with the world and its approval that they think they have to be as much like the world as they can in order for people to be won to Christ. But that is not the apostolic model. The light does not conform itself to the darkness in order to show the darkness how easy it is to become light! A light that conforms to the darkness makes itself useless. Salt that loses its saltiness, Matthew 5:13, is good for nothing, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. No, “the glory of the gospel,” said Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “is that when the Church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first.” He goes on to say, “It should not be our ambition to be as much like everybody else as we can, though we happen to be Christian, but rather to be as different from everybody who is not a Christian as we can possibly be. Our ambition should be to be like Christ, the more like Him the better, and the more like Him we become, the more we shall be unlike everybody who is not a Christian.” We don’t reach the world with our worldliness. That’s the world reaching us. We reach the world by being so taken with, and so governed and directed by, the things of heaven, that unbelievers can’t help but see the bankruptcy of the world, and the all-sufficiency of Christ and His Gospel.
Now, of course, we must live in the world. And that means, if we are to be faithful stewards of the Lord’s blessings to see that His purposes be advanced in the world, we have to devote some thought to how to get along in this life. But I love the way John Gill puts this. He says, “Though food and [clothing] and the necessities of life are to be sought after, and cared and provided for, yet not with anxiety and perplexity of mind, in an over thoughtful and distressing manner; nor should the heart be set on those outward things, or happiness placed in the possession of them.” That’s so well-said. And I think that’s precisely the balance Paul means to strike in 1 Corinthians 7:31, where he counsels those of us who use the world to be as though we did not make full use of it. You’ve got to live in a house, but you don’t have to be consumed with what house you live in. You’ve got to drive a car to get around, but you don’t have to seek your identity in what kind of car you drive. You’ve got to earn a living, but you don’t have to set your affections upon riches and the things money can bring you. We must use the world without setting our minds on it.
Well, just as with his previous call to the delightful duty of heavenly-mindedness, Paul gives motives for this duty as well. We should set our minds on the things above and not on the things that are on earth, first, because of our past spiritual death. Look at verse 3: “For,” that gives the ground or the reason, “you have died.” You have died to sin, Romans 6:2, and its dominion over you is broken. You have died to the Law, Romans 7:4, and its sentence of death can no longer condemn you. By virtue of your union with Christ in His death, Colossians 2:20, you, dear believer, have died to the elementary principles of the world, so that you don’t bother yourself with the phony, self-made religions of the world.
But listen to me, Christian: you are dead to the world! You are dead to this earthly system that lies in the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19), that is home to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16). Galatians 6:14 is one of the most precious verses in all the New Testament. Paul says, “May it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I [have been crucified] to the world.” “Set my mind on it? Fix my affections on it? I’m dead to it!”
A second motive. Not only because of our past spiritual death, but, number two, because of our present spiritual life. Verse 3 again: “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” See, you’re not just dead to sin, you are alive to God in Christ Jesus, Romans 6:11. You’re not just dead to the world, you’ve been raised up with Christ and seated with Him in the heavenly places.
Imagine a husband comes home one day and tells his wife that they should move from Los Angeles to Boston. She says, “Move to Boston? But your job is here. Our house is here. Both sets of our parents are here. The kids’ friends are here. Our whole life is here! How could you be thinking about somewhere else?” Friends, it’s the same thing. Your citizenship is there! Your freedom from the presence of sin is there! Your crown of righteousness is there! Every spiritual blessing is there! Your fellow believers throughout the ages are there! Eternal pleasures are there! Unhindered communion with the Father, Son, and Spirit are there! Dear Christian: your whole life is there! How could you be thinking about somewhere else?
Your life is where Christ is, because your union to Him means that you have died with Him and been raised with Him. And Christ is where God is, because they subsist in the same nature from all eternity—because the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son. And so your life, believer, is with Christ in God. And more than that: “hidden with Christ inGod,” which speaks to the greatest measure of safety and security that there can be. What does the Good Shepherd say, John 10:28? “No one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” He is our shelter, our hiding place, the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls.
Then a third motive for our heavenly- rather than earthly-mindedness. First, because of our past spiritual death, second, because of our present spiritual life, but third, because of our future spiritual glory. Verse 4 says: “When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” Christ does not just give us life; He does not just protect our life; Christ Himself is our life. “For to me, to live is Christ”! “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”!
And that Christ, though Himself hidden from the world’s gaze as He sits at the Father’s right hand, is coming again. And at that time, Matthew 24:30, “all the tribes of the earth…will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” And with the revealing of the Son of God will come the revealing of all the sons of God (cf. O’Brien 167). Just as you died with Him, were buried with Him, were raised with Him, and are now presently seated in the heavenlies with Him, so also you will be revealed with Him when He comes again. And Romans 8:19 says the whole “creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.”
And your true life, which, along with Christ, is hidden from the view of this world—such that you are despised and rejected by the world, even as your Savior was and is—on that day, your true life as it is in heaven will be revealed on earth. For by then, Philippians 3:21, the Lord Jesus Christ will have transformed the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory. Because “we know,” 1 John 3:2, “that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.” On that day, there will be no trace of sin in us. Not in mind, not heart, not in will, not in body. We will shine like the sun in the kingdom (Matt 13:43), and we will reign on the earth alongside our King.
Dear people: if that is our future, why should our thoughts be consumed with the things of earth? Why should our affections be wed to this world? What does this world have that should draw our minds away from that day? What does that day lack that any of our thoughts should fail to be fixed upon it? Matthew Henry wrote, “Our head is there, our home is there, our treasure is there, and we hope to be there forever.” We are dead to this world, our true life is in heaven with Christ, and we look forward to the perfection of our blessedness when He comes again.
Let us give ourselves, then, to the delightful duty of being heavenly-minded. “Let the world despise and leave me.” “You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.” Let all your thoughts be consumed with the things of God—the truths of His Word, the perfections of His character, the praise of His name, the sweetness of His fellowship, the blessings of His salvation, and the hope of His glory. Grace Church, be a heavenly-minded people.