Christ Who is our Life, Col, 3:3-4

We're going to move into our second half, if you will, of this passage, Colossians 3, 1 through 4. In order to do that and maintain continuity, I'd like to just touch on a few things we looked at last week. The prior context gives it all here. Last week's passage, we looked at verses 1 and 2. And so we're moving on to 3 and 4 here this morning. The point that we made last week, and the truth carries on here, is that application is all founded on doctrinal and positional truth.

There's been more than one person saying, how come you keep talking about your position? We're all sitting, right? Well, what this is focusing on is laying a proper foundation for application. That's the reason we keep laying it out. And we also keep laying it out that way because that's the way Scripture presents it.

Paul lays down chapter after chapter of positional truth before he begins saying, do this and not this. We also saw that it was foundational. It's not something you skimp on, but it's absolutely necessary. Lacking the foundation does make a difference.

Now, the other thing we pointed out here was that every believer, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ here this morning, it applies to you, every believer is seated with Christ in the heavenlies, positionally, and that truth carries over, and we've seen this in Ephesians 1.3 and 2.6, that place where we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies is the place where we have every spiritual blessing, not just some, not just a percentage, not some we're just waiting for. We have them now, every spiritual blessing, right this moment, if you're a believer. We are seated with Christ there.

Biblical application comes from that place. Very important. Biblical application comes from that place where we're seated with Him. The thing that is critical to get across, and this verse here just underscores it, Biblical application comes from our position that we have in Christ. We have been irreversibly blessed with Christ and the heavenlies, seated with Him.

That's where application comes from, not just that's where our blessings are, but that's where the application comes from. As I teach here this morning, the only way that it is useful is if I am coming from there. as you are learning here this morning. It is useful to you as you come from there, seated where He is. Unbiblical application, to take the reverse of that, doesn't come from our position in Christ and the heavenlies. Unbiblical application is going to come to you and say, look, this is how you're supposed to live the Christian life, and it's got every other solution but where you've been seated and blessed.

Every other solution. You see, this world has a whole bunch of hokey solutions. A whole bunch of them. They all come from somewhere other than where you're seated. Somewhere other than where you're blessed. So you say, alright, that's great. Good theory, Vern. How do I live life here? Life here is live from there. Seated with Him. Our life here has a purpose, that purpose being explicitly His purpose, His life. We have a life-driven purpose, His life and His purpose.

We made the point last week that in order to be of any earthly good, you must be heavenly minded. That's the exact opposite of the phrase I'm sure all of us have heard, No earthly good because they're so heavenly minded. No. What Scripture is spelling out here, to be of any good at all, you must be heavenly minded. Absolutely essential, not optional.

And finally, our motivation, our values, our time scale, the time frame in which we think, how we look at things, our perspective, are to come from there, where we're seated with Him, where we've been blessed, where He is. You see, we have a life-driven purpose, and that's what this passage here today focuses on explicitly.

As we look at Colossians 3, 3, and 4, and kind of do the second half of that passage, let's take a look at this first word. Paul is continuing on with this sense of logic that he's used here. And as he's done previously in Colossians, he does here. He is continuing to base his message on the logic of position, and this passage carries on that pattern perfectly, consistently. All of what he has laid out here, continued to lay it out in the Book of Colossians in terms of application, is founded on the position that the believer has with Christ, having been crucified, buried, raised, ascended, and seated with Him. The first half of verse 3 makes the point that the believer has died with Christ, and therefore died. You remember a few weeks ago we said, we've got good news for you, you're dead! This carries on the good news, it continues it.

So he says, therefore, if you have died, and we make the point out of Colossians 2.20 there, it's not an if, maybe, perhaps, it might be, but a logical if. He's continuing on the sense of logic. He uses that same sense there of if you have died with Christ, having been identified with him, to make the next statements here, to draw conclusions. So, in Colossians 3 here, you have died, or the King James, you are dead, The Greek word here has this idea that it's a past event. It has already happened. You have already been identified with Christ. Sometimes I'll hear Christians talking about, boy, I've got to work really hard on dying. No, you've already been dead.

It is the Lord who does it. It's not my work. It's his accomplishment. It's acknowledging what he has done, not working real hard to get it done when he's already completed it. It's recognizing what he's already done. It points to the past, doesn't it? It looks to that past event.

Paul repeats this concept here, as he did in Colossians 2.20, and it was implied by our having been buried with Christ in Colossians 2.12. So it's a continuing message. He's making some further conclusions.

And what we have to look at is God has a different solution for things, doesn't he? Now, we pointed out before, the world has a whole bunch of solutions. We call them hokey. All right, they're hokey. But the world has a whole bunch of solutions. And you've got to know that. The world's going to come up with some solutions for you. They're going to say, boy, I got it all fixed.

There's a problem. It's a whole tool truck full of solutions. You ready? It's not in good shape. It's not one you're going to want to use. The world has a whole bunch of solutions. They're all burned out folks. Because they just are not of any help. They don't deal with the problem. It's not a tool truck that we have any resources in. See there's an essential key here that the world does not have.

The believer has died with Christ. If we do not understand that that has taken place, if we don't understand what that means, we're going to be open to the world's hokey solutions. We're going to be satisfied, or at least enticed, with what the world has to offer, their burned-out tool truck. Having died with Christ, every single believer has no spiritual solutions that this world has to offer. See, this world's got a whole tool truck full, but they're useless. They're all burned out. Our hope and our perspective and our source are all with Him. We have died to, died in relationship to this world's solutions. Now, Paul comes on and says what might at first seem like a puzzling thing to say, You have died and, ah, you do have a life. You ever hear somebody say that? Get a life? Well, you got one. Alright.

Your life is hidden with Christ in God. Now, so why is our life hidden? What's that all about? Well, you see, there are things that are revealed in Scripture that are just not readily apparent. If you go up to somebody in the world who hasn't heard this message and say, hey, guess what? I've died with Christ. They're going to be, well, let's put it politely, puzzled. They're going to be baffled by what you're saying.

It is a revealed truth, not one that's readily apparent by looking at it. You cannot arrive at that truth just by examination, looking on the outside of anything. It's a revealed truth, revealed to us by God. It requires that we respond by faith, and that the world doesn't understand real well either. The truth is revealed to us. We respond by faith.

There's no work that is going to contribute to it. God has done the work. Now we got this word hidden. Let's take a look at it here. We're not talking about any hidden moose here, by the way. Okay, just to get it clear. This is a word that in English we've carried across with crypto in our word cryptic as that same idea.

It's a perfect, passive, indicative verb. Unless that baffles you, let's go through it one step at a time. The perfect tense has the idea that it's a completed past action, ongoing results into the future. It implies permanence, unless you see in the context that it's somehow reversed. It implies permanence.

Your life with Christ is hidden. Now, the passive voice means God does the hiding. It's God's doing. And finally, indicative means it's a fact. Why is he spelling this out this way here? This word hidden is more important than it might first appear. This is not, by the way, hidden as in just finding it. It's all around. He's got to look for this like a Where's Waldo puzzle. It's not like that. It's not like it's somewhere he's got to look for it and find it.

It is hidden in the sense that it is not revealed and evident here on planet Earth. When he says it's hidden and puts it in the perfect tense, it means it's a completed past action, it's permanent, that's a part of your position. The fact that it's hidden is not a disadvantage, because it's a completed past action, God did it, it is part of your position. That's a good thing that it's hidden.

Let's take a look at that more in a little bit here. God is the one who accomplished it. It's not something you have to go seek out, trying to find. Boy, you know, I got to work really hard to get into my position in Christ. Is that what he's talking about? No. The hiding is God's doing. Our place with Christ is not something we can have any impact on. We can't tweak it. We can't enhance it. We can't improve upon it.

It's out of human reach. And let me tell you, folks, that's a good thing. Your position in Christ, including your being hidden, is out of earthly reach. That's one aspect of this statement, it is hidden, that's a good thing. This earth is a place where things go wrong. This was a Trident missile here. It's not supposed to go in curlicues like that. This is planet Earth we're talking about here. This is the place where the term Murphy's Law was invented.

Things happen that are wrong here, that are not quite right. All right. Oopses. Oopses happen here on planet Earth. Lots of things. Things you'd rather didn't happen. The reason that you have insurance is because of stuff like this. Oops. How on earth some of this stuff happens, I don't know. But that's what things are like on planet earth. Remember that. All sorts of things happen. This is earth. You don't want your position in Christ subject to things like this. No. That's why you want your position in Christ to be hidden. Not here on planet earth. Not here on earth.

See, the false teachers that were teaching the people Colossae starting to come into the church. They have the idea of hidden too, but their idea of hidden is we've got this special secret knowledge that we're going to pass on to an elite few and the rest of you, well, that's just too bad.

Paul instead says no, we have a truth that we're going to proclaim to every single one and the fact that it's hidden is a good thing, but the truth is not being hidden, only our position. You see, this world is always going to concoct solutions, and those concocted solutions always have to do with things you can do, because the flesh always wants to do something. Or, if that's not good enough, always not do something. Or we'll give you a special experience, or there are some things that you can know or own, or there's going to be some kind of a solution that the world can cook up. it will always fail to put the focus upon Christ, as Paul is doing here. And notice that he doesn't stop there, hidden with Christ in God. Now that's a curious little thing to add to it. What's he talking about?

One of the things we find is that Christ repeatedly claimed unity with the Father. As a matter of fact, the Jews that he told that to got really riled over the fact. he constantly proclaimed his dependence upon the Father. The Holy Spirit's ministry is in cooperation with God's purpose and character. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are all involved in who we are. It's one of the things we've seen more than once as we've gone through the passages here in Ephesians and Colossians. Here's John chapter 10 verses 27 and 30 And remember, this is in the context of Jesus responding to some of the Jews who are, of course, wanting to snag him. And they said, if you are the Christ, well, tell us plainly. All right, here's his plain answer.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life, or I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them unto me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one in God. Now notice that the first part of what Jesus says, particularly the first part of verse 28 there, is an equivalent, approximately, of Christ who is our life. The Greek present tense there in verse 28 has the sense of, I am constantly giving them life. I am constantly, present tense continuing, giving them life, and then he goes on, and they shall never perish, and that's middle voice, they will never perish of their own doing, they cannot, and it uses the Greek ume, which means not the slightest chance, they shall not have the slightest chance of losing their salvation of their own doing, and that's not all, my Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one will snatch them out of my hand, And then, my Father who is given to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of His hand either."

Now, your life is hidden with Christ in God. You see that? He is constantly giving you life, if you're a believer, and your life is hidden such that nobody from the outside is going to take it. Your life is not subject to Murphy's Law. Your life in Christ. No pools with cars in them. No cars straddled between the pier and the boat. None of that. Spiritually speaking, those uncertainties, those oopses, have no place here. Your salvation is fixed and sure, hidden with Christ in God.

John 17, the Lord is speaking Our Lord is speaking in his prayer, high priestly prayer before the Father, and he tells him, we are one, I and them and you and me. Having a place hidden with Christ in God is something that is founded on an eternal relationship. It is not a relationship that is going to be shaken or broken or touched by this world. Being hidden, having your position hidden with Christ and God is exactly what you want. It is untouchable in the heavenlies. It is based upon an eternal love relationship between their members of the Trinity. So here we have in verse 3, For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Interestingly, Galatians 2.20 also conveys a similar message. I have been crucified with Christ, you have died with Christ, right? It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, His life. Similar message.

Now, we step into verse 4. There it says, when Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. The truths of verse 3 stand in the present, looking back to what God has done in the past. When we get to verse 4, Now we've got something different going on here. Except for who is our life, which is present tense. And remember that. We're not waiting for eternal life. If you're a believer, it's already begun. Who is our life now?

Verse 4, with the exception of that phrase, looks to the future. One of the things you'll notice is this word hidden is in verse 3. We've looked at that. Twice revealed comes out in verse 4. What is hidden will have a time of revelation. What is now not visible, what now must be revealed to us, taken on faith, will come to an end. There will be a time when it's fulfilled. The truth is spelled out in this passage, but we take it on faith. There will come a time when all that is hidden from us in our position in Christ will be revealed to us.

There is this word here, it's when, and the Greek word there is hotan, okay, and that's not this guy, and you look at his sunburn, you say, oh, tan, okay, not that, all right. No, this word carries the idea of whenever, okay, whenever, and it doesn't mean like, whenever, okay, it means, It's a certainty of a future event. The only thing in question is the timing. The only thing in question is the timing.

Something we pointed out in our Bible backgrounds class is in the Jewish marriage ceremony, it was the father's place in the ceremony to tell the groom, now, go get your bride. And the same thing is being spelled out here. Let's take a look at it in more detail. Christ indeed will be revealed to us, but the time has not been revealed. You see that? The reality of it has been revealed. It will take place. So he says whenever, not that it isn't going to happen or some question of it happening, it will happen, only the timing is at issue. That's all. But that fact has been revealed to us. There will be this future time when what is now hidden will be revealed to us. So we have a question.

Colossians 3.4, is it looking to the time of the rapture when we go home and are taken up bodily to be with the Lord, every single believer? Or, is it looking at the time at the end of the tribulation period, at the start of the millennium? Which one? Is that when it's revealed? Should we take a vote? Maybe not.

One of the things we see here is this revealed is used twice here, and this is phanerao, and I'll tell you what that sounds like. Anyway, this word shows up several times in the New Testament, and interestingly, where it does refer to either, you know, you say, okay, does it refer to the rapture or does it refer to the second coming at the beginning of the millennium? And every time it shows up in one of those two kind of contexts, it falls on the side of being the rapture. When we are taken up bodily, the church is taken up to be with the Lord.

First Peter 5.4, which is in a context speaking to elders. When the chief shepherd appears, you will receive an unfading crown of glory.

First John 3.2, and you can also reference 2.28, similar message.

Beloved, now we are children of God and it has not appeared, as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him. What we will be will be revealed. You want to know what you will be like? Like Him. You will see Him. What is now hidden will be revealed completely. Even the timing will be apparent.

Not that we'll care. So here's the answer. Basically, it's looking at the rapture rather than the end of the tribulation in the beginning of the millennium period. It's then what will be rewarded, as it talks about reward there, given resurrection bodies like his.

Our condition will perfectly and permanently match our position. You see, now what does Paul do? He lays out repeatedly, here is our position. Here's our position in Christ, and there is a calling and a telling you, this is the logical conclusion regarding your condition. The position is the basis for the appeal, telling you what's logical regarding your condition.

There will come a time when that will fall away, it won't be necessary. Faith will meet its end, even the call to believers for their condition to match their position will come to an end. That's right. It is important now. Faith is important now. Our learning these things is important now.

But all those will be fulfilled when we go to be with Him. Notice if we look at the prior context here, He's told us two things that we must do. must, not on the basis of do this or you'll be guilty, but on the basis of this is the logical conclusion, the only logical conclusion you can reach based on your position. Keep seeking the things above and set your mind on things above, and in contrast with that, not on things on the earth. Those are the two things that we're told we can do. The rest of it is all a statement of our position, every little bit of it.

As we go through here, starting with Colossians 3.5, we'll see Paul begin to address specific application more directly and persistently, and he'll begin dealing with specific morals and behaviors. For example, we'll get into Ephesians, and after he's been calling them saints, after he's been telling them that they've been seated in the heavenlies, he's going to get real bold and tell those saints in Ephesus, and remember what we said before, the Temple of Artemis, if you could get within a bow shot of the Temple of Artemis, you were exempt from any enforcement of crime. But he's going to tell the believers there in Ephesus, you who are stealing, stop it! Okay?

He's going to get very specific about application, not on the basis of law, but as on the basis of their position in Christ. So we're going to move ahead eventually here into specific application. But you notice he doesn't just start off with that. He doesn't even say anything about that until he first lays down a proper foundation in their position.

As we get into Colossians 3.5 and into the related applications portion, he's going to tell them, do not lie to one another. By the way, that assumes what's going on right now. that there is lying going on. He's saying, don't lie to one another. Wives, be subject to your husbands, and conversely, husbands, love your wives.

He's going to make explicit statements, but those explicit statements are not made without first laying down their position in Christ. Even as he makes these statements, they will often be still coupled up with statements of the position in Christ. And he'll lay those out clearly. Paul doesn't even begin to talk about those without first laying down position at length. He spells out in Ephesians chapter after chapter of position before he even begins putting a single imperative in there.

And we're talking about churches with moral problems. How about that? First give them a solid foundation and position. Don't just go telling them what to do and not do. And one of the things that he's clearly shown in both Ephesians and Colossians, the answer is absolutely not the law. Remember, as we looked at Ephesians 2, in order for the church to be created, the law had to be put out of commission. It's that serious. Bringing the law back into the church is a denial of one of the very reasons that Christ died. That's serious.

It is not just the Mosaic Law, but as he made clear in Colossians chapter 2, it is also any law approach to morality. You see, one person might say, well, we don't follow the Mosaic Law, but we've got our other list. We've got these other set of things that you're supposed to do and not do, and that's our list. And certainly we don't worry about the Law of Moses, but we've got our list, and if you follow that, why, that's just exactly what God wants. Paul deals with both approaches to this external morality list as an approach to believers and their personal morality.

As we go through this, one of the things we're going to find is the topical outlines of the application portions of Ephesians and Colossians follow one another, and they track perfectly. And so we're going to want to go through those, because they're very parallel, we want to go through those side by side. So we're going to study those portions together, but we can't do it yet. You're going to think, oh, heavens, not yet. No, not yet.

And the reason is we want to study Ephesians 3.1 through 4.16 first, because that's a section that is different in Ephesians from Colossians. And when we get done with 4.16 in Ephesians, we'll have the two application sections that will be in parallel and then they'll dovetail perfectly and we can look at them side by side.

So, after this week we'll be switching back over to Ephesians 3.1 for a number of weeks here. Now, there's another reason.

Ephesians 3.1 has got the word mystery in it several times and you know what that means.

Okay? Anyway, so we'll want to get over there too for that. And if you don't think that's funny, these guys do. Okay. Now, And finally, what we can do, we'll be able to, at a point there with 4.17 and 3.5, to be able to look at those two applications passages side by side after we've had enough moose. All right. But the thing we want to take from this passage, because we're going to be moving into some other passages, but we don't want to get it lost from our thinking and our perspective, OK?

In Christ, we have a life-driven purpose. A life-driven purpose. That is pivotal. His life. His purpose. In Ephesians 3.11, we're not only going to get past the moose there, but we're also going to talk about God's eternal purpose.

You see, there's no sense in giving this life some forced, superimposed purpose. Instead, what God has in mind is, no, you died. I've got a different life for you. And by the way, I had a purpose in mind before you were born, before I made the universe. And I've got you figured in that. You're a part of God's eternal purpose.

So His life for His purpose, the life-driven purpose, that's what He has in mind. You see, earthly solutions are always going to look to try to superimpose what looks like a purpose from the outside. I'm going to take this life and try to fashion it with some purpose. And by having this program or whatnot, we're going to come up with the right solution.

You see, human beings, and sometimes Christians can even get sucked into this, if we don't understand that we have a life-driven purpose, we're quite likely to get pulled into this world's concoctions, this world's hokey solutions. You're going to have programs, you're going to have the latest fad book, you're going to have trinkets that you wear, seminars to go to, there will always be something, and even Christians get pulled into these fads. They love to sell them over at the Christian bookstore. But the truth is, What God has to offer is no fad at all. As a matter of fact, His solution was something that He designed before this universe was even brought into existence. So how did God deal with things? His solution is radically different.

Let's not take this life and try to tweak it and improve on it and start a self-improvement program. Let's start off by killing them. Let's take every single person out there If they'll believe in Christ, we're going to start off by killing them. They're going to die with Christ. That's the first step. And then let's give them divine life, Christ's life instead.

That life. Not trying to improve upon the life here on planet Earth. Not trying to fly by pulling up our socks. Our blessings are all in the heavenlies of the Lord. You notice that God does the work here. God's the one who places our life and blessings in the heavenlies. He's the one who's done the hiding we saw here, passive voice.

God takes our entire personal history and puts it in Christ. The personal history that we think we operate by as human beings Oh, sorry, that's gone. You've got a different history now, a different life, a different history. Our very identity, who we are, our hope, is now in Christ, entirely in Him. And so that it is quite certain that all this world's solutions are put out of the way, we've died to all those, all this world's concoctions. They're out of the picture.

His purpose, as we'll see in Ephesians 3.11, God's eternal purpose. You see, we need an eternal purpose. Forty days isn't long enough. Let's pray.

Lord, thank you that as we look at what you have done, what you have accomplished, who you are, what you have made us to be in you, it is a marvelous and wondrous thing. As we examine our position and get insight into it, Lord, we thank you for doing something radical.

Not a minor tweak. Not trying to polish the outside of the rotten apple inside. But instead, Lord, giving us your life. Beginning our eternal life right now. Thank you for that. Thank you too, Lord, that our life is hidden. with Christ and God, that it indeed is not subject to this world's whims. I can't even mess it up. That's a marvelous thing.

We thank you for that wondrous thing that you've accomplished, that it will take the rest of eternity for us to understand. We will continue to gasp, Lord, at the marvelous grace, at the amazing grace that you have shown towards us. We thank you for that, in Jesus' name, amen.