Beyond a Tale of Two Cities, Eph, 2:4-7 & Col, 3:1-4

We'll be proceeding through these two passages here as sort of a revisit to some key points in the passages we've been looking at. And, you know, think about this a little bit. We started studying Ephesians and Colossians the last Sunday of, let me get this right, 2003? Something like that. So anyway, this has been quite a while. I've lost track of how many babies have been born since, you know, we started. But anyway, it's quite a few. The Ephesians 2, 4-7 is one that we would certainly want to key in on. Ephesians 2, 4-7 is all about what God has done and will do.

Notice what it says that God has done is just amazing stuff. Do you see anything in there that says you need to do something? You don't find it, do you? This is all about declaring what God has done and will do, and the only thing we did, and it's not spelled out in here explicitly, but elsewhere, all we did was belief. God did the rest, and will do the rest.

Colossians 3, 1 through 4, which we'll be paying a little more attention to as we look at things here this morning, It takes many of these same truths, but it is about what we are to do now as a consequence of the things spelled out in the Ephesians passage. It's a consequence of what God has done and will do, and one more thing, who Christ is, our life. So, with that, we want to take a look at, there's a couple of phrases here where there is something that is told to Christians, do this, okay?

Keep seeking the things above and set your mind on the things above. These are the two things that believers are to do as a consequence, as Paul would put it, as a logical consequence of the things that God has done, will do, and who Christ is. This keep seeking is a present active imperative. It has this idea, if we carry it over into English, you must by reason of your eternal position in Christ Be right now continuing to seek in your daily condition.

That sounds like a lot, but that's what he meant. Set your mind. This is the word phroneo. It's a present active imperative also. It has this idea, you must right now, on the basis of your eternal position in Christ, be continuing to have a mindedness. I know some of you might be thinking it would be nice to have a mind, but what he's talking about here, remember this, boy, this is a long time ago.

We have had a lot of babies since then. We studied in Philippians. We studied, and as we went through it, we found that in every chapter there's at least one occurrence of this word phreno, this one that we see here in the Colossians passage. Paul had woven this idea, this understanding of a mindedness throughout the book of Philippians.

This tapephrosone here is a compound word and it is a part of the same family of words, it just means a lowly mindedness and that's the example of Jesus Christ who being lowly of mind then is the example for us. See, it's really a question of how you see things, isn't it? That's really what he's talking about. He's not talking about a mindedness as some sort of an intellectual standing, but it's everything about the mind. It's how we see things in the big picture.

So, there's a key word that comes out here of this Colossians 3.2 passage, set your mind. The King James has set your affections there.

And I need to get something straight here, okay? He is not talking about things about this brain here and concrete. That's not what we're talking about. I need to clarify that, and the reason I need to do that is we've got some deacons in this church. If they get something in their head and I don't clarify this, we will be in trouble, okay? Anyway, so I just want to make that abundantly clear.

This freneo is to have a mindset about something, and it's a big word. It's not just some little small term. It has to do with the intellect, with the will, the emotions, the affections, the conscience. It's a big word. It means all those things. Not just a little bit like an idea or a concept. It grabs everything about how we see things. He is saying, set your total mind, everything about what your affections are fixed upon, everything about how you view things, what your perspective is, how you are inclined to make decisions.

All those things are put into this word. Here is a plural present active imperative. He is saying that we must, this is all of us, right? All of us must be continuing to be minded in this way, minded in the fullest sense of the heart, all of the inner being. Now, this mindedness is all about Christ.

Here Paul wrote to the saints at Corinth, and what did he say? We have the mind of Christ, not in a narrow sense, but in this big sense. As believers in our eternal position, We have this mind. And then he wrote, as he said to the Philippians, and we brought this up, this was this longer version of Phryneo, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.

And that's based upon the logical conclusion that can be reached from our eternal position. Not upon let this mind be in you because you gotta, because I say so. But it's the logical conclusion based on our position. He's calling us to live out through that mindedness, that total perspective. He's calling us to live that out in our daily condition, in conformity with our eternal position. So he says, keep seeking the things above, set your mind on the things above. Now, what do keep seeking and set your mind, those imperative verbs, have in common? What do they have in common?

The things above. Both of them. The things above. So, we got this question. What are the things above? What does he mean by that? The things above. What's above? The things above. Maybe he means above your credit limit. This is the time of year when that's what everybody's asking you to do, right? Keep seeking the things above your credit limit? Probably not. I know what it is. Here's Vernon and Nancy, they live on the fifth floor. We're to try to move to the upper floors right above us, right? Isn't that what he's talking about? Maybe not. Maybe this is the things above, see? Maybe not. Okay. The things above, he spells out what those things are.

Where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, and not the things that are on earth. Notice that he puts a negative on there, not because he's a negative guy, but so that it's very clear what he's talking about. To set your total perspective. Again, this mind here that he's talking about isn't just, I have an intellectual perspective or I've logically concluded and I'm going to let it stay there. He's saying everything about the way we think and feel and make decisions or affections, set your mindedness, your total heart on those things. and it's specifically not on the things that are on earth. Now, so what, when we look at this phrase, does he mean by seated at the right hand of God? What does that mean? Does he picture something like this? Probably not. Okay.

In Psalm 110, which by the way is the most quoted verse in the New Testament, the Lord, that is the Father, says to my Lord, this is Christ the Son, sit at my right hand and make your enemies a footstool until I make your enemies a footstool under my feet.

This is quoted here in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrews, a couple of places, and that's just for starters. Those and other scriptures describe Christ is at the right hand of the, no that's not the right one, this one, the right hand of the Father. In the Jewish expression, the right hand was the hand of power. That wouldn't apply to me personally, but the right hand is the hand of power. That's the way the Jews would express it. And so, to be at the right hand would be in the place of power. That's what he was saying here. Now, where is that?

Paul spoke about that place, and he spoke about it here, Ephesians 1.3. Remember, this is the start of the long Sentence in Greek, 3-14 of chapter 1, and he starts off, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that's the one where Christ is seated at the right hand, at the hand of power, who has blessed us, who's us? That's you and me, you who believe, right?

Who has blessed us with a few spiritual blessings. A couple. At least one. Every spiritual blessing. And where is it? In the heavenly places. You're looking for spiritual blessings? You won't get it by calling the 800 number at the bottom of the screen. You won't get spiritual blessings because you just dumped a whole bunch of money into the offering plate and you can't out-give God. You won't get spiritual blessings because you followed some list of rules. You have already been blessed, if you're a believer, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

Where? The heavenly places with Him, where He is seated now. That's what He means by the things above. That's what He means by where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Not here. We oftentimes will say something like, God bless you, and I'm not saying that there's necessarily something wrong with saying that. We oftentimes will look for blessings that we haven't gotten, But if we want to really get the picture of what he's saying here, everyone who believes, whether they know it or not, everyone who believes and has put their trust in Jesus Christ is already blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's where the blessing is. Now, extra good news.

You've died. Remember you died, right? Remember that? Okay. No? That's okay. When you were united in Christ's death by God's doing, it was God who did it, not because we tried really hard, or not because God says, oh, you're an awfully good Christian. We're going to unite you with Christ now. You've been trying awful hard. He doesn't do it that way. When you believed, your earthly life ended there. You were raised and seated with Christ. But he starts off when you died.

Now, some of you may remember the untouchables. You may remember that far back. As believers, our blessings are also untouchable, but far better than the guys on the TV show. Our blessings are untouchable because they are hidden. Your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Now, so what does that mean? It means that your life here as it was is all over. It's done. You're out of here. How about that? You're out of here. You're through. Can we go home? No, you can't. You're out of here. We're done. Your life here as it once was is all over. It was crucified with Christ. You are now in Christ. Just remember, it is in Christ that you are seated and blessed. Where He is, with Him, where He is now seated, at the right hand of the Father, that place, nothing can touch or change it.

We're not talking about hidden moose here. And the word is crypto, we're not even talking about kryptonite. This is a word that means, we get our English word cryptic. It's something that is hidden, something that is not immediately visible and evident. It's a perfect passive indicative. What do we mean by that? It doesn't mean you're supposed to be perfectly passive right now. Don't go to sleep on me, please.

The perfect tense indicates a completed past action, so it doesn't say, as you try harder over your life and you come to church more often, then you get hidden with Christ and God. No. It's a completed past action, ongoing results in the future. Do you believe this morning? If you believe this morning, it's a done deal. In your position in Christ, it's already there. It also implies permanence.

I don't get unhidden. It doesn't happen. We have no place where it describes somebody being unhidden. And the perfect tense gives a powerful implication of you are permanently hidden with Christ in God. And finally, the passive voice means that God does the hiding, not us. This isn't a hide-and-seek game. God does the hiding. and the indicative is a statement of fact.

Do we get that? It's a permanent thing. God's already done it. It's a done deal. It will have results on into eternity. It is irreversible, and it is a fact. It is a spiritual fact. Then he says, when Christ, who is our life... So think about this. If we're done here, and the things that we're seeking, because that's what he said, aren't to be found here on earth, How am I going to live in this thing? What's supposed to happen with this thing here? It looks like I'm still here. How does that work? Well, let's take a look. You see, we've got a big question here. He says we've died and we're out of here. Matter of fact, you're hidden with Christ and God. You're in the heavenlies. You've been blessed up there. You've been seated there.

Alright, if that's the case, how do we play this planet Earth game? How do we play life here on planet Earth? I still got this thing hanging around. How does that happen? When Christ, who is our life, He is the one who lives it out in this thing, in this body. His life, not mine. I'm out of here. Christ who lives in me, the message of Galatians.

After all, I've died. also Galatians 2.20. As Paul, later on in this very same chapter, will tell the believers at Colossae, may the message of Christ, the word of Christ, dwell in you richly. That word dwell is make its home in. Live itself out.

It is Christ who is to live this life here. If Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. We will anticipate a time, up until then, this body is still here, we will anticipate a time when the Lord will be revealed to us and we'll be revealed in new bodies with Him in glory. At that time, we'll see Him as He is. Faith in the facts. Will we have to have that when we go to see Him face to face? The faith will be fulfilled. Our hope will be fulfilled.

And then we'll be rewarded by Him. One of the things we pointed out going through the book of Revelation, boy this is even farther back, is one of the last things Jesus says in Revelation is, behold I am coming quickly and my reward is with me. Essentially, here's Jesus, he's got the last things he's going to say in the New Testament, and what does he say? I can't wait to reward you. He's looking forward to it, and we can too.

So this is the end of our tale of two cities, parallel study of Ephesians and Colossians, but we want to kind of pull together what all together was Paul saying. I think he was saying these three things. We can summarize it this way. He's talking about our eternal position in Christ. He was talking about our walk by the life of Christ and our spiritual growth in Christ. Those three things. Notice what the focus is on all three.

Christ. In order that we understand our position in Christ, the first one there, our walk by the life of Christ, the second one, and our spiritual growth in Christ, Paul has written a great deal about Christ the Son, put a great focus on Him. And one of the things we found as we went through the book of Ephesians, eight times the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are mentioned all in the same verse or the same passage next to each other. It's because all of God is involved with you and your relationship with Jesus Christ. Amazing stuff. Let's take a look at that.

The first one here is the Apostle's statements of spiritual fact about you, the believer. This is your eternal position. This, as we said about the word hidden, is fixed in the heavenlies, irreversible, untouchable, incorruptible, and a done deal. Secondly, our walk by the life of Christ. He has talked about And this has typically happened in the last half of each of the books we've studied. The exhortations to live in our daily condition on the basis of that eternal position. And thirdly and finally, the spiritual growth by God's doing as you live in your eternal position. Let's look at this first one. We've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Any of those missing? We short any of those? No. Every single one. And we're not waiting for some of them to happen. They're all a done deal.

We have unfathomable riches. The word riches keeps popping up as you go through both Ephesians and Colossians. Wealth. People in this world pursue wealth. He said, as a believer, you've got it in Jesus Christ. And finally, to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery. Wealth of glory. Glory is the essential character of God's being, the essential brilliance of who He is. A wealth of it, not skimpy, not just barely enough, not just barely visible if you squint, which I have to do a lot of these days. Anyway, but a wealth of glory, lots of it. As we put up on the screen earlier on here, Every spiritual blessing comes from where you are seated with Christ right here. Are you seated there now? Yep. Are you blessed 100% right now? Yep. Are you in Christ right now? Yep. That's where all the blessings are.

And finally, the believer who does not know his or her eternal position in Christ cannot walk in that position in his or her daily condition. What does that mean? It means that, and we actually had several people ask about this, you guys are spending months and months and months talking about your position. And there's a good reason for it. Because unless we understand our position, our daily walk cannot be in our position, cannot be out of that position that we have. So that's why we spend months and months and months talking about your position in Christ. Because that's where we are to walk from.

And, all of the logical imperatives that we've seen, in Ephesians especially in the last about two and a half chapters, all those logical imperatives are based on position. The imperatives, if we don't have an understanding of our position in Christ, will come across looking like this.

Law. And you know what the law looks like? This. It is, as Paul calls it, a ministry of death and a ministry of condemnation. It is not that the law is bad. He even says the law is a good thing. But our ability to hold up to it is not there of our own, so by grace. Secondly, we walk by the life of Christ. The exhortations, as we just saw in Colossians 3, 1-4, to live in daily condition on the basis of our eternal position. Notice what he did.

He didn't say, look, you're Christians now. Start living nice. He said, you died and because you died, live this way. He said, Christ is your life and because of that, live this way. It is because of your position that there is a basis to talk to you and to appeal to you based on your position for your daily condition, how you live, how you walk, how you interact, how life gets carried out.

The spiritual and moral problems at Ephesus and Colossae were huge. Matter of fact, big. Really big. Paul was not writing to a church where the people were starting off, they were pretty nice anyway, and so he was just kind of tweaking it. He instead was writing to churches where the problems were massive. Huge problems. As big as those problems were in Ephesus, and here he's going to write to a church where he's going to say, stop your stealing!

Quit lying to each other! And that porneia stuff that you're doing, that's got to be cut out. He doesn't even start that until he's spent three and a half chapters telling them who they are in Christ. Can you imagine? Here's these people that are carrying on immoral acts every day. It's their pattern of life, and it doesn't start off saying, you've got to cut it out.

He starts off telling them, you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. He starts off telling them, you've been seated with Christ. He starts off telling them that the very angels are learning about God's wisdom and glory and character by watching God work in you. Then he tells them, stop stealing, stop lying.

Though the saints at Colossae were being introduced to a toxic concoction, I call it a spiritual bilge, and that's probably being polite. They were introduced to this concoction of things that had come from Greek philosophy, from Jewish speculations and mythology, and even some stuff coming out of Hinduism and Buddhism through the Silk Road. A big mixture of all sorts of spiritual guck. And all this concoction was coming at them, And what he does there, he doesn't just come at them and say, look, you've got to get this sorted out and that sorted out and this sorted out.

He says, you need to know who you are in Christ. That'll be the starting point for getting this whole mess straightened out here. You need to know who you are in Christ. It's with him. Now, on the basis of that, then you can walk. Then you can seek the things above. But you've got to know what's there. You can have your mind set on the things above, but you've got to know what's there. As big as those problems were, he urged the believers to walk in their daily condition on the basis of their eternal position. Fixed, irreversible, untouchable in the heavenlies.

He didn't urge that they do it by their own efforts. He didn't say, look, here's what Jesus would do, you do it. He said, no, this is by his life. You've died, so don't let the dead you just try to copy Jesus. You've died, but Christ is your life. Let Him live it. Let Him do it. That's your position, and that's His. His life here, my life up there. That's the exchange that the Lord has in mind. So, it does matter what we say. It does matter what we do because what we say does things. What we say does matter, however we say it.

Finally, our spiritual growth is in Christ. This spiritual growth is by God's doing as you live in your eternal position. Spiritual growth happens in each believer as each believer walks in his eternal position in Christ. That's when we grow. Does the Lord use those other times? Yes. But the growth happens when we walk with Him. And we as a church together grow as we grow into the Lord. We are the assembly, not of those who said, I've got to be on church on Sunday morning because I've got to get my spiritual brownie points. But we gather together as a fellowship of those who share the life of Christ, His life here.

If you look at this passage in Ephesians 4, 11-16, we've taken out, for the sake of being able to have it readable on your print, this first verse on the growth gifts, that is, the Lord gave apostles and prophets and evangelists, pastors and teachers to the church body, and we've also taken out this verse 14, which describes immaturity. To focus on this, here is this passage 4 in Ephesians 12 and 13, 15 and 16, that's bulging with language having to do with what spiritual growth in the church body looks like. Not just how do we grow individually, certainly that matters, but how do we grow as a church body and what does that look like when that's happening. So this whole passage is bulging with this kind of language, describing how that looks. centered upon in verse 15, but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up into all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ. Christ is the center of our personal spiritual growth and our growth as a church body. In Colossians 1, 28 and 29 that we looked at, well that's a while ago, anyway, last year, well I can say that, last year, It is growth's target, growing toward maturity. Striving, now this is real interesting.

This is Paul's own description. He says, I labored. By the way, that word labor means labor to the point of exhaustion. He says, striving, agonizomai, which is where we get our word agony. This is from an athletic book, Agonizomai. You can imagine some sprinter who doesn't matter the contortions on their face, they're still putting it all out.

That's the way he describes it. And then he says, how does he carry out this intense athletic effort working to the point of exhaustion? Does he do it by putting forth his best effort? Does he sing, give of your best to the master? No. He says, God is the one who energizes it. God is the one who does it and accomplishes it within me. On the outside, it looks like exhaustion. On the inside, it's God doing it.

It would be like if I was digging, you know, fence post holes all day, had these clamshells and pulling it out, but had gloves on. As human beings, we're like the gloves. You know, did I work really hard? Yeah. Are the gloves all worn? Yeah. Who did the work? The hands inside. It's not ours to do. It's the Lord's to do. On the outside, it may look exhausting. On the inside, it's Him doing it, not us.

So as we look at this, these three areas that Ephesians has continued to focus on are eternal position and Colossians as well. And Ephesians particularly, first three and a half chapters, all talking about our position in Christ. Both books have talked about our walk in the life of Christ on the basis of our eternal position. This, because of our eternal position, is how we moment by moment by moment live.

His life, not mine. Christ, who is our life. And finally, our spiritual growth. It happens in each of us individually as we behold the Lord, as we together gather as a fellowship of those sharing the life of Christ, we grow together as a church body.

There is growth as a church body and growth of each individual. Both of those take place. This is a diagram you may have seen in a couple of different contexts. I know we went through something similar to this in church history, but I want to go through it piece by piece.

This first step, our eternal position in Christ. This is the Apostle's statements about spiritual fact, about you the believer. And once a person becomes a believer, this eternal position in Christ is there. It is fixed. Does the believer, when he says, Lord, I put my trust in your death, burial, and resurrection, your death for me, I believe you are the Son of God, does that person know everything about their position in Christ? No. It is true. They just need to catch up with the understanding of it, don't they? That eternal position in Christ is there, it is there for eternity from that moment forward. A walk by the life of Christ. You see, a believer is either in one of two positions spiritually.

Certainly, they are in Christ, but they are either in a place of beholding Christ, that is, walking in the Spirit, so as not to satisfy the desires of the flesh, and this would be 2 Corinthians 3.18 and Galatians 5.16, or if at one moment their position is unchanged now, if at one moment they're not walking in fellowship with the Lord, then they're down here. There is nothing in between. A person does not walk 30% with the Lord and 70% not, or the other way around. This isn't a percentage or grayscale deal. You're walking in fellowship with the Lord at any moment or not. The relationship with the Lord is there for eternity, but the fellowship is moment by moment.

Now, then there is the spiritual growth. As a believer walks in fellowship with the Lord, spiritual growth takes place. This is the progressive spiritual growth. It happens in each believer as that believer beholds the Lord. 2 Corinthians 3, teen spells out the truth that we are transformed from glory to glory as we behold him. The Lord does the growing, we do the beholding. So as we look at each of these truths, Ephesians and Colossians have spelled these things out, and marvelously so.

But there's no question, all of them focus upon Christ, and we should too. We'll be starting next week into our study of the book of Isaiah. And as we do so, we'll be looking at some passages initially that will help us introduce the book and get a sense of what the book is about. He's going to be telling us details about Christ seven centuries before Christ even walked the earth in his first coming.

Let's pray. Lord, as we look at these books that your servant Paul, when he was in prison, wrote before us, and as we look back on our study of them for almost the last two years, Lord, what can we do but be giving you thanks? What can we do but respond to those things and say, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. We do thank you. We do bless you, Lord, for that. out of your unfathomable love for us, you have blessed us unfathomably as well. Thank you for those riches that are so vast. Eternity will be required to see them all. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.