To honor the reading of God's holy word, would you please rise with me.
!
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 God's holy and authoritative word.
You may be seated.
Thank you.
Brian Johnson is a tech business CEO who has poured everything into one project.
Not dying.
Following a hyper regimented body care system, he eats a precise 2,250 calories every day.
He follows a particularly calibrated workout plan with 25 different exercises.
He maintains a specific body fat composition, measuring himself every day, and he takes up
to 100 pills of vitamins and minerals every day.
That's like two fistful of pills.
He even exposes himself to experimental medical procedures, like receiving blood plasma transfusions
from his own 17-year-old son, and subjecting himself to rounds of experimental gene therapies that are only legal in a few countries in the world.
The grand result?
Based on some recent tests, nothing's working.
He's aging just as fast as we are.
Now, human beings can live for another million years on this planet before Christ returns.
Make leaps and bounds in developing science and technology that I can't even fathom.
But this I know for sure.
We will always continue to die.
Because death is not merely a scientific issue.
It's ultimately a spiritual issue.
We have a dying problem because we have a sin problem.
For the wages of sin is death before a holy and righteous judge, and there is not a single one of us in this room that is righteous on our own standing before him.
Sin is the deadly, heart-stopping, lung-clothed, brain-rotting condition that wipes every single one of us out.
Sin is the only one of us in this room that is righteous on our own.
We are already living immortal lives.
In our passage this Easter morning, the Apostle Paul makes it clear that for all of you who have put your faith in Jesus Christ,
you have been united to him by faith, and therefore you have already died.
You have already resurrected with Jesus Christ.
And because of that, out of that, we can now seek the things that are above.
That's the main point of my sermon today.
So in turn, I'm going to follow Paul's logic in this short passage and talk about the foundation,
and then the focus,
and finally the future of the resurrected lives that we now live with Christ.
This Resurrection Sunday, we celebrate and we remember,
along with billions of others in the universal church of Christ,
the most significant event in all of human history.
More important than any war, any stock market crash, any natural disaster,
because this single event has single-handedly transformed and changed the course of human history forever,
for all eternity.
This one day in history is the very cornerstone of the Christian faith.
It's the hinge on which all of Christianity turns and hangs upon.
Without it, really, the rest of Christianity has no legs to stand upon.
Paul makes that clear when he says in 1 Corinthians 15,
if Christ has not been raised,
then our preaching is in vain,
and your faith is in vain.
We are even found to be misrepresenting God,
for we testified about God that he raised Christ.
And if Christ has not been raised,
then your faith is futile,
and you are still in your sins.
If in Christ we have hope in this life only,
we are of all people most to be pitied.
Here Paul gives the hypothetical,
the if,
if the resurrection weren't true.
But let's turn that on the head.
If the resurrection were true,
what does that mean for us?
If you are here today,
and you are not a believer,
I just want to personally thank you so much
for coming to join with us in worship
of our resurrected Jesus this Easter Sunday.
It's our joy and privilege to have you come.
And I encourage you to stick around after the service
so that we get to talk to you more,
we get to learn your names and your stories.
But given the importance of the resurrection,
and given the uncertainty of time,
and the certainty of future judgment,
I want to ask you a simple question now.
What do you think of the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Do you think this actually happened?
Do you think a man from the dead could be raised?
As you think about it,
I'm going to give you some food for thought
as we know some things about the end of Jesus' life.
Historians, both Christian and non-Christian alike,
have testified to these three facts
about the end of Jesus' life.
Number one,
we know that Jesus was crucified by the Romans.
Number two,
there was an empty tomb.
Number three,
there are multiple eyewitnesses
testifying that Jesus has resurrected and risen.
So there's a crucifixion,
there's an empty tomb,
and you have multiple eyewitnesses.
So if we have these facts,
what's the best way
for us to reconstruct what happened here?
How do we make sense?
How do we put these different pieces
of the puzzle together?
Some hypothesize that some claimed
to see and talk with Jesus
after his crucifixion,
not because he died and resurrected,
but simply because he fainted,
he swooned on the cross.
So then later,
when they laid him in the tomb,
he simply got up on his own power
and presented himself to others.
But there are problems with this theory.
One does not simply walk off
being scourged and whipped with lashes
that have these sharp pieces of metal
and bone nettled into them.
Just imagine how much Jesus' back
would have been torn up into bits and pieces,
the copious amounts of blood
that he would have lost.
That in and of itself
could have killed Jesus.
But on top of that,
he was crucified.
And crucifixion was a particularly
effective method
of capital punishment
that the Romans developed.
The Romans were master killers,
and it seems dubious
that they would have bungled this execution.
Others proposed that Jesus' body
was merely stolen from the body,
and mass hysteria spread like gangrene
because of this simple lie.
But if Jesus' body was stolen,
which again is a dubious claim in the first place
because it was heavily protected,
what do you make of these hundreds
of eyewitness testimonies
claiming that they saw,
they interacted,
they ate with a resurrected Jesus?
Well, someone might push back and say,
well,
they could have been in all on the same lie.
They could have been all lying together.
But keep in mind,
so many of these men
would leave their homes,
their families,
to go to distant foreign lands
to share this testimony
that Jesus has resurrected.
and many of them
would give up their very own lives
as martyrs.
You lie until a certain point,
but you don't die for a lie.
Still others believe
that multiple people
merely hallucinated
their vision of Jesus.
People nowadays still,
they claim to have seen
a recently deceased loved one
in a ghost,
in a dream,
in a premonition,
sure,
but when have you heard
of hundreds of people
all testifying
to seeing the same vision,
the same dead person?
It is a psychological impossibility
for hundreds of people
to all see the same thing.
So maybe,
just maybe,
the best answer
to make sense
of these facts
is the supernatural one.
Maybe,
just maybe,
the most plausible explanation
for this historical anomaly
is that these testimonies
are true
and credible.
Yes,
we aren't able
to prove the resurrection
today
based on any kind
of empirical evidence,
not in the same way
that I can prove
that gravity exists
by dropping this pen,
but we constantly believe,
we constantly believe things
based on
only eyewitness testimony.
testimony.
We as a society
wouldn't be able
to function
unless we believed
someone else's word.
After all,
how do you know
your date of birth?
Do you remember it?
No,
you simply trust
the testimony
of your parents,
of the doctors.
faith.
And while Hebrews 1.11
says,
faith is the assurance
of things hopeful,
the conviction
of things not seen,
that does not mean
that faith
is like a blind leap
into the dark.
Faith isn't like
a buffet line
where you
just go
and pick and choose
whatever seems
appetizing to you.
for the late,
great theologian
Augustine commented
that if you try
to have faith
without reason,
that is no faith
at all,
but that's credulity,
that's gullibility,
that's foolishness
that leads people
to believing
all kinds
of wacky things.
Instead,
faith and reason
have a symbiotic
relationship,
a deep congruity
between them.
And if you need
reason and faith,
Christianity
has strong,
very strong,
historical,
concrete data
to back up
its claims.
So I ask you again,
what do you make
of the resurrection?
If it were true,
what does it mean
for you?
I think that means
you have to follow
what the former
atheist and cold case
detective
J. Warner Wallace
has said and lived out.
I am not a Christian
because it works
for me.
I had a life
prior to Christianity
that seemed to be
working just fine.
And my life
as a Christian
hasn't always been easy.
I am a Christian
because it is true.
I am a Christian
because my high regard
for the truth
leaves me
no alternative.
if the resurrection
is true,
that means
every word
out of his mouth
is true too.
If someone
accurately predicted
the mega million
lottery numbers
every Tuesday
and Friday
for the past year,
you best believe
you're going to buy
a ticket
with whatever numbers
he tells you
to buy.
And if Jesus
accurately predicted
that he
would die
and resurrect
three days later
a supernatural feat
that defies
all natural expectations,
you best believe
you better take
his words
seriously.
That's why
the resurrection
is so important
because it substantiates
all of Jesus'
claims.
And similarly,
Jesus exhorts
his followers
in John 5, 24
to believe his word.
He says,
truly, truly,
I say to you,
whoever hears my word
and believes him
who sent me
has eternal life.
He does not come
into judgment
but has passed
from death
to life.
If we
are taking
all of Jesus'
words very seriously
and accepting them
as true,
what is he claiming here?
He's claiming
that he can offer
to us
the secret
of immortality,
eternal life
with him.
That's not just
in the future,
guys,
but it's now.
For did you notice
something about
the tenses
of these verbs?
For those who have
believed in Jesus,
he's saying that
you have
eternal life.
It's the present tense.
You have
passed
from death
to life.
It's referring
to an action
from the past.
Christ.
In the same
spirit,
the apostle Paul
in our passage
this morning
says,
if you have
been
raised with
Christ,
and later
he says
in verse 3,
you have
died.
All these verbs
are in the
past tense.
And Paul makes
it very clear
that over 200
times in his
writings
and in our
passage today,
that again,
for those
who have
put their
faith in
Jesus Christ,
we have
been united
with Christ
in a mystical
union.
Just like a
branch cannot
produce fruit
unless it's
connected to
the vine,
just like the
body cannot
function and
feel unless
it's connected
to the head,
and just like
how a husband
and wife
are so close
that they become
one flesh,
just like that,
Christ has
loved us
so intimately,
so wonderfully,
so powerfully,
that he has
inextricably
and united,
eternally
united ourselves
with him.
So much so
that wherever
Christ is,
we will go.
And whatever
Christ has done,
we can say
that we have
done.
So in our
passage,
Paul is
highlighting the
fact that yes,
we will die
and resurrect
with Christ
in the future,
that'll be our
bodily resurrection.
But in our
union with
Christ,
we have
spiritually died
and we have
spiritually resurrected
already with
Christ.
And what does
that mean?
For all those
who are born
in Adam
were enslaved
to sin.
We were all
born in sin,
meaning that
we are not
sinners because
we sin.
No, it goes
far deeper
than that.
We sin
because we
are sinners.
It's not
that we just
did bad things
here and there
once in a while.
No, we
were under
the dominance,
the control
of sin.
Sin was
part of us.
I think we have
a lot to learn
from this story,
from this strange
case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde,
in which the
author, Robert
Louis Stevenson,
he writes about
a Dr. Jekyll,
a nice,
kind man,
but honest,
and knows that
he has
some ugliness
to him,
some pride,
some bitterness,
and so he
decides to take
a potion,
a potion that
would amass,
congeal all
of this ugliness
into a separate
personality
named Mr. Hyde.
Unfortunately
for him,
Jekyll quickly
realized that
Mr. Hyde
was way,
way worse
than he could
ever have
imagined.
He's way more
insidious
and murderous
and ugly
than he could
have ever
imagined.
And eventually,
while he was
first able to
control that
transformation,
the power
of the potion
overcame him
and Jekyll
lost control
of Mr. Hyde.
He was unable
to suppress
the evil
within him.
And in the
final scene
of the novella,
Jekyll has no
solution but to
end his own
life to stop
Mr. Hyde.
And like
Dr. Jekyll,
we all
have had
that same
potion inside
of us.
It's really
a poison.
It's flowing
through our
veins.
It's giving
control to
sin to
our Mr. Hyde's.
For in so
many words,
it's like
Stevenson's
whole story
is just
taken from
Romans 7
where Paul
writes,
for I do
not understand
my own
actions.
For I do
not do
what I want
but I do
the very
thing I
hate.
I do
not do
the good
I want
but the
evil I
do not
want is
what I
keep on
doing.
If I
do what
I don't
want
is no
longer I
who do
it but
sin that
dwells
within me.
That's
all of
our
conditions
before
Christ.
So how
are we
cured
from this
poison?
How do
we regain
control
over our
sin?
For one,
Paul makes
it clear
that it's
not by
following a
bunch of
man-made
legalistic
rules.
This church
in Colossae
was being
tempted by
false
teaching.
Andrew
spoke about
it that
involved a
toxic brew
of legalistic
Judaism and
worldly
paganism.
These false
teachers added
a bunch of
legalistic
rules saying
don't handle,
don't touch,
don't look,
don't do
this,
don't do
that under
the guise of
holiness to
put death
to sin.
Expecting all
this rule
keeping to
have power
to conquer
our fleshly
impulses.
We in the
church, we
are still
tempted to
do the
same thing.
Every time
we sin,
we hurt
others, we
do things
that we
don't want
to do,
what is
often our
first reaction?
We just
throw at it
a bunch of
legalistic
rule following.
I'm going
to read my
Bible like
crazy.
I'm going
to pray
twice as
hard.
I'm going
to start
fasting.
Don't
get me
wrong,
those things
are good,
but they're
insufficient on
their own
because trying
to fight
sin, fight
your Mr.
Hines based
on your
own power,
it's like
bringing a
butter knife
to a gun
fight.
Paul says
himself right
before our
passage,
these man
made rules
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.
You can
try all
you want,
you can
work your
fingers down
to the bone
and you
will have
nothing to
show for
it.
But praise
be to God
that the
solution to
kill our
sin is not
to kill
ourselves like
Dr.
Jekyll.
And it's not
to kill our
bodies by a
bunch of
legalistic
rule following,
but it is
found in the
killing of
the Passover
lamb,
Jesus Christ.
For Jesus
Christ on
Good Friday,
though he
never sinned,
though he
never had a
Mr. Hyde in
him, he was
crucified as if
he did,
bearing the
total weight
of sin on
behalf of us
sinners.
Not just
dying,
for us,
but he
allowed us
to die
with him.
Not to
die in
sin, but
to die
to sin.
By grace,
we know that
our old self
was crucified
with him so
that the
body of
sin might
be brought
to nothing,
so that we
would no
longer be
enslaved to
sin.
For one who
has died has
been set free
from sin,
just like the
assurance of
pardon that we
read just
earlier.
God
is
so
whenever we
look at the
cross, we
ought to see
Jesus hanging
there, nailed
there because of
our sin.
But whenever we
look at the
cross, we ought
to see our old
selves, our
selves, the
ones who are
controlled and
dominated by
sin, crucified on
that cross with
him.
church, are you
aware that you
are no longer
controlled by
sin anymore?
But the same
power that
resurrected Jesus
from the grave
now flows through
your veins.
Resurrection
power, not
sin's deadly
poison, flows
now in your
veins.
This
resurrection
Sunday, we
don't just
remember Jesus'
death and
resurrection.
We remember
our own
death and
resurrection, our
own transformation,
our freedom from
sin and new
life in him.
We don't just
commemorate the
resurrection on
Easter, we need
to live it out.
And how do we
do that?
In our passage
today, Paul gives
us one command,
just one command,
highlighting the
focus of the
resurrected life,
which is my
second point.
signified by the
connecting words
if and for,
Paul shows the
foundation of this
resurrected life is
our resurrection
with Christ.
And out of that
resurrection power,
he then calls the
Colossians and us to
seek the things that
are above, where
Christ is seated at
the right hand of
God.
Again, Paul repeats
this command in a
slightly different way,
set your minds on the
things that are above,
not on the things
that are on earth.
And so while it is
true that we have
already died to the
power of sin, we
have already resurrected
by the power of the
Spirit, we have not
yet experienced the
fullness of
resurrection life with
Christ in heaven.
We know that by
experience, don't we?
Even as Christians,
after our transformation,
we know that we can't
coast in this life.
We're not out of the
fight because while
that poison that gives
total control to our
sin, that gave control
to our Mr.
Hines is out of our
systems, we can still
be discouraged and
plagued by sin by our
Mr.
Hines, the remnants of
him.
And if we weren't,
then Paul wouldn't have
to give a command like
this.
But knowing that we
are not yet in heaven,
he gives this command
to seek and to set our
minds on the things
that are above.
And what are these
things?
Ultimately, they're
summed up in the person
of Jesus.
Paul alludes to that
when he says, seek the
things that are above.
Why?
Because that's where
Christ is.
That's where he is
seated at the right
hand of God, the
Father.
Father, where he is
now ruling and reigning
as the supreme,
preeminent Lord of the
universe.
And after all, if your
life is indissolvably,
inextricably, irreversibly
united with Christ for all
eternity, then why would
you look to anything
else other than Christ
alone?
Both the Colossians
church and us today, we
are tempted by this false
teaching of syncretism,
of claiming to have
Christ, but then seeking
to add things to him,
seeking other things on
top of Christ.
Back then, their ancient
culture tended to look up
to the sky, and they
would feel this pull to
worship the sun god, to
placate it.
They would worship and
make sacrifices to the
rain god so that they
would get good rain for
their crops.
And in the same way, we,
while still teaching,
hey, you need Christ.
Christ is good, but they
also sought to placate
these other elemental
forces, like the sun,
moon, rain, and earth.
They taught them to
worship angels on top of
their worship of Christ.
They said, if you have
Christ, plus these other
things, plus these elemental
forces, plus these other
idols, you're going to be
better off.
You're going to be more
spiritually fulfilled.
After all, the more, the
merrier, right?
This is the faulty logic of
syncretism.
Is there value added to a
juicy, fatty, medium-rare,
A5 Wagyu steak if I squeeze a
whole bottle of Heinz ketchup
all over it?
Is there value added to a
sleek, elegant, 3.1 million
dollar Ferrari F80 if I slap
a hundred bumper stickers all
over it?
In other words, Paul needs
nothing extra, nothing more
than Christ.
He knows that nothing could
possibly add to his
spiritual fulfillment, to his
sense of safety and security
than Christ alone.
Because he knows that his
life, as he says in verse 3,
that his life is hidden with
Christ in God.
He knows, he knows that the
safest place that we can be is
sheltered.
Sheltered in the arms of Christ.
That he who began a good work
in us will surely bring it to
completion at the day of
Christ.
That he will never abandon, he
will never forsake us.
If you need to be reminded of
the safety that we find in the
refuge of God, just read the
Psalms.
And there you'll hear about how
God calls us the apple of his
eye, the pupil of his eye.
And just like how we instinctively
flinch to protect ourselves, God
is saying that he doesn't need a
moment to think and ponder, should I
protect my children?
No, his most natural, his
instinctual reaction is to shield
us, to protect us.
And it is sovereignty to you to work
all things for our good.
And I have to admit that this simple
phrase has been the greatest comfort
for me in this season as I've been
preparing the sermon.
And some of you guys know, Friday was my
last day of work as a full-time
engineer in the biotech, pharma world.
And tomorrow will be the start of
really the great privilege of full-time
ministry and working for this church.
I mean this when I say I have no idea
what the future holds for me and for my
family, but this I know for sure.
My life, my family's life, we are
hidden.
We are hidden in Christ.
Sometimes I have to remind myself of
that.
But this Easter, I look to the
resurrection as proof that Jesus
hides me from every unforeseen obstacle.
Every insidious enemy, every thorn in
my side, he will hide me from and he
will overcome them just as he overcame
death.
The resurrection for me is proof that God
can and he will bring death or bring
life from death.
Strength out of weakness and hope out of
despair.
And I know that some of you are enduring
through hard seasons.
A dark battle against depression.
A time of unwanted singleness.
A season of financial insecurity.
A loss of a loved one.
All that stuff makes the path to heaven
look dauntingly long.
But take heart, friend.
Hear this from God's word, which is true
even if you don't feel like it is.
Your lives even now are hidden, safe,
protected, assured in Christ.
Christ is not only the great source of
security for our lives, but he is our life.
As Paul writes in verse 4.
I'm sure you've heard and said something
yourself like, watching this show,
reading this book, playing this video game,
it's giving me life.
It is my life.
I'm totally obsessed.
In the same way, Paul is saying that
Christ is our life.
That a Christian is defined by a growing,
a healthy obsession with him.
Because the Christian recognizes that he is the
source of unfathomable riches.
That he is a well that will never run dry.
He is a precious diamond that you can turn
over and over and over again in your heart.
And you will see new beauties
and new angles.
He is infinite God.
No matter how much we grow and learn of Christ,
that distance, that gap between an infinite God
and finite creatures will never, ever be shortened.
How could the finite ever approach the infinite?
So don't ever think that heaven will be boring
one day for 10,000, 100,000, a million years
into heaven.
We'll still say and feel,
Christ is that good, that amazing.
I've only scratched the surface of him.
I'm totally obsessed with Christ.
Pastor Tim Keller shared a perfect example
of a growing, maturing Christian
that he once counseled,
who set her mind, her focus on the risen Christ.
Her old self was constantly in and out
of relationships with men.
But as her new self,
she spoke of an experience that she had
and some advice that she received
from a counselor.
She says,
I'm going to my counselor.
And she said,
I built my very significance
and acceptability and identity on men.
All of that is right and helpful.
However, my counselor doesn't have
a very good solution for me.
My counselor says that what I should do instead
is get myself a great education
and a great career.
Well, my counselor means well,
and of course,
I absolutely do need to get some training,
get myself a job.
But what she's saying
is that I should do that
so that I will feel better about myself.
But that would mean
I would be switching
from one kind of idol to another.
For many years,
my heart has been looking at men
and saying,
unless I'm successful at love,
I'm nothing.
But the therapist wants me
to look at my career and say,
unless I'm a successful,
independent businesswoman
who is in control of my own life,
I am nothing.
I don't want to be enslaved to my work
as I was to men.
I don't want to be as enslaved
to my independence
as I was to my dependence.
I'm actually being asked
to exchange a typical female idol
for a typical male idol.
And I don't want either.
when I go to church,
when I'm in worship,
when what Jesus did for me
is so real and so wonderful,
in my heart,
I speak to the men
that were in my life
and say,
I'm glad to know you.
And I certainly wouldn't mind
being married,
but you are not my life.
Christ is my life.
I'm done.
I'm done making anything else
in my life.
You're a good thing,
but you're not an ultimate thing.
I'd love to have a husband,
but if I don't,
I've got Jesus.
And I set my mind
on things above.
You can't give me
any of the things
that Jesus has given me.
this is a model example
of what it looks like
to seek the things
that are above.
This is the heart
of Christianity
over syncretism,
saying,
I'm done.
I'm done making
anything else my life.
I'm done making money,
marriage,
man's approval,
ministry even,
my life.
Above all,
Christ is my life.
So I'm gonna keep him
the center of my attention,
the focus of my life,
the north star
that I'm running towards.
even when obstacles
come my way,
I'm not letting that
stop me
from relentlessly,
persistently pursuing
my first love.
And when we do that,
when we endure
to the end,
the rest of the world,
they're in for
a grand old surprise.
because the fact
that your life
is hidden in Christ
has another meaning
to it.
Because who you are
truly isn't visible yet.
It's hidden.
It's concealed.
Your life on earth
looks like everyone else's.
You ride the T,
you go to work,
sit in class,
do your daily chores.
But what they don't know
and they can't see
is that you
are living
a resurrected life
in Christ.
We see this literary contrast
in verses three and four,
right?
Now we are hidden.
Now we're disregarded.
Now we're lowly.
But that day,
when he returns,
we will appear
with Christ
in glory.
and he's going
to return soon.
In other words,
what is true of you
on the inside
will always eventually
be true of you
on the outside.
If you are inside,
dead,
dead in sin,
you will be dead
on the outside.
If you are inside,
resurrected,
in Christ,
you will be resurrected
to live with him
forever in glory.
This is the guaranteed
future
of the resurrected life.
Many of you know
and love
Johnny Erickson Tata.
Such a faithful model
of how to live
with keeping your eyes
only on Christ.
Quadriplegic,
paralyzed from the shoulders
down from a diving accident
since the age of 17
in 1967.
She is now
75 years old
after almost
six entire decades
of persevering
and keeping her eyes
on Christ
with this disability.
Can you imagine that?
Even after battling cancer,
she is one of the longest
living quadriplegics today.
And she said,
I,
with shriveled,
bent fingers,
atrophied muscles,
gnarled knees,
and no feeling
from the shoulders down,
will one day
have a new body,
light,
bright,
and clothed
with righteousness,
powerful and dazzling,
now hidden
in a frail,
weak body.
but one day
revealed
in total,
stunning,
ineffable glory,
matchless,
staggering beauty,
that's going to be you.
All your permanent scars,
all your physical weaknesses,
all the body image insecurities
that you have
will all be put to rest.
You need not look
in the mirror
and sigh anymore
because the mirror
can't capture
who you truly are.
Soon and very soon,
you will be shown
in glory with Christ.
So knowing that,
Paul exhorts
the Colossians
and us
that because
we have been united
with him,
seek,
keep your eyes
on the things above
and keep your eyes
on the things ahead.
cultivate a heavenly perspective
and an eternal attitude
that should color
and permeate
all of our lives,
every single facet of it.
Instead of focusing
on next week,
next month,
next year,
we ought to focus
about the next million,
billion,
trillion of years
that we have
with Christ.
Knowing that you are now
living the resurrected life.
What would it look like
for you
to adopt
a heavenly mindset
right here
and right now
as a stay-at-home mother
doing another load
of laundry,
cleaning another
dirty diaper,
cooking another
family dinner,
as someone
who is overlooked
or overworked
at your job
right now,
as a spouse
experiencing
marital troubles,
as someone
dealing with
chronic sickness
and disability,
what would it look like
for you now
to cultivate
an eternal perspective?
You see,
setting your eyes
on the heavenly future
is not an optional
aspect
of the Christian faith.
For the gospel
is more,
it's more than,
and it's so important,
but it's more than just
penal substitutionary atonement.
It's more than just
God's courtroom.
As important as it is
because it doesn't capture
the entire story.
And frankly,
I'm convinced
that much of the
American church today,
me included,
we don't think enough
about heaven.
A professor from
Southern Seminary,
Matthew Westerholm,
studied the difference
between songs used
in American churches
from 2000
to 2015
compared to those
that are used
in 1737
to 1960.
Can anyone guess
what the main difference was?
He writes,
among many similarities,
the one difference
was striking,
the topic of heaven,
which was once frequently
and richly sung about
has all but now disappeared.
But the gospel stays
for us,
becomes real for us
with this lost discipline
of Christian daydreaming,
Christian imagination.
I'm not talking about
daydreaming
what we're going to eat
for potluck
or what you're going to do
over the weekend.
We're to imagine
what it's like
to see Jesus,
to reign
with the rest of the saints,
to see his face
for the first time.
That's what seeking
the things above
is about.
And it's not about
this Christian discipline
of imagination,
daydreaming.
It's not about
just wasting your time
speculating about questions
that we don't really know
about heaven,
that scripture
doesn't make clear.
For what scripture
does make clear
in heaven
is enough fodder
to fuel
our daydreams
and to give us
bright hope
for the darkest
of days,
for this next week,
this next month,
for whatever time period
that you deem appropriate,
I want to encourage you,
I challenge you
to think
and imagine
and daydream
about heaven
and do it
until it makes you happy
because it will.
Although many Christian songs
in our modern era
have lost the wonder
about heaven,
there's still
one classic
that models this well
that I can't get over.
I can only imagine
by mercy me,
I'm sure most of you
guys know it,
and as I read
this chorus,
imagine with me
that surrounded
by your glory,
what will my heart feel?
will I dance
for you,
Jesus?
Or in awe
of you,
be still?
Will I stand
in your presence
or to my knees
will I fall?
Will I sing
hallelujah?
Will I be able
to speak at all?
I can only imagine.
It's this kind
of imagination
that can empower us
with bright hope
to persevere,
to persevere
through this hard life
to make it
to the celestial city.
So let's seek
the things that are above
and seek the things
that are ahead.
God.
Because as another song
goes,
one day the sun
will set
in the west
for the last time.
One day
we're gonna earn
a dollar
that we spend
for the last time.
One day
we'll say goodbye
to our loved ones
for the last time.
One day
Satan will tempt us
in sin
for the last time.
and that last time
will be the first time
of an entirely new life.
That one day
we will walk
on streets of gold
for the first time.
And that one day
we will wake up
feeling no pain
for the first time.
And that one day
we will see Jesus' face
for the first time.
So with our focus
our foundation
our focus
and our future
set in Jesus Christ
for the rest
of our spiritually
resurrected lives
until our bodily
resurrection
with him
let it all be said
of us
as it was said
of Puritan Richard Sibbes
in his obituary
of that good man
let this high praise
be given
heaven
was in him
before he was in heaven.
Of that good woman
let this be said
let this high praise
be given
of heaven
heaven was in her
before she was in heaven.
Come Lord Jesus
come in glory.
Pray with me.
This resurrection Sunday
again Lord Jesus
we give all the glory
to you
and see that you
have done the heavy
lifting
that you have saved
us from our sin
and you have conquered
death
so that there is
no victory to hell
no victory to death
and sin anymore
and so we want to
keep our eyes on you
empower us
by your Holy Spirit
to keep you
the center
of our attention
the focus
of our lives
and wait for that
glorious future
that we will share
with you Lord Jesus.
In Jesus name
we pray
amen.