Live in Heaven that You May Really Live on Earth (Colossians 3:1-4)

Class Outline:

Thursday June 11, 2026

 

Intro:

 

We used the analogy of a two act play. Act I was the Christocentric believer living in the midst of the threat to the life (COL 2:16-23). Act II is the already but not yet future (COL 3:1-4).

 

The story of God for the believer does not separate these two.

 

Not time and eternity but time with eternity - parallax or 3D vision of time and eternity.

 

Main idea: The flash-forward vision of our certain future with Christ must make us seek the things in Christ and not the things of the earth.

 

COL 3:1-4

Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

 

Two Act Play:

Act I: Empty Promises Fill the World.

Act II: You’re Already Dead and in Heaven.

 

1. We are to keep seeking the things where Christ is:

 

Keep seeking (present imperative) and set your mind (present imperative) means that the tendency of your thought should always be to where Christ is.

 

The things above: Heaven’s holy, righteous, just, merciful, loving life.

 

EPH 2:5-7

even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

 

What is nowhere said in the OT is that the believers in Him would sit with Him at the right hand of God. Act II was not written until the resurrection of Christ.

 

Paul tells our hero to look up and not down - to look into the glory of Christ.

 

2. Act II: a flash forward to a certain future:

 

You have been raised up with Christ (seated with Him in the heavens), your life is hidden with Christ, you will return with Him. Paul puts all of these facts in the past (aorist) tense as if they are already true.

 

Paul’s program, his prescription is for a blessed life in time. Live in heaven that you may live on earth, but it is not some poetic dream, it is not an opiate to escape the realities of trials and tribulations by imagining heaven.

 

When Christ returns He will be manifested for all the splendor that He is, and so shall you in His glory.

 

1JO 3:2, 3

We know that when He appears, we will be like Him … And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

 

In our play, Act II, is a flash-forward. In story telling this is called a prolepsis. The striking example in Scripture is the Transfiguration of Christ.

 

Our life in Him is doubly secure: it is “hidden with Christ in God.” With Christ would be enough, but there is another layer, “in the Father.”

 

3. Everyone seeks: What do you seek?

 

The things above vs. the things on earth.

 

When it comes to the peddlers (COL 2:16-23) of philosophy who demand rituals, do not touch or taste or handle, be careful over the ritual and its obligations, invoke your angels - it is all essentially a gratification of man’s flesh.

 

PHI 3:17-21

Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. 18 For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, 19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. 20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; 21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

 

We do not trust ourselves, but Him.

 

PHI 3:3

who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh … [then Paul gives his impressive credentials as a Jew]

 

That is how Act II infects Act I. And the people enslaved to false ideas about religion and life must know the gospel. We do not ignore them or separate like church age pharisees, but we seek to disciple them.

 

COL 3:3-4

For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. 

 

Hidden is a perfect passive verb. It means your life has been hidden with Christ and still is. The passive means that you received this by grace. And as if this is not crazy enough, he then says Christ is our life. Not that He is like our life, but He is our life. As He is so are we.

 

The final Act: the second coming.

 

Paul cannot rest with our being seated with Christ in the heavens. There is another Act, the return. The returning King to claim His world must come from the seat of victory.

 

There is prophecy in the OT about the return of Christ.

 

ZEC 14:4

In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives.

 

MAL 3:2

But who can endure the day of His coming?

 

None of the prophets got to see you returning with Him.

 

The glory of Christ is the only true purpose for mankind.

 

Conclusion:

 

Act 1 and Act 2 (with the future promise of Act 3) set before us two worlds.

 

1PE 1:1

To those who reside as aliens,

 

Through every amazing step Christ took (living, dying, the grave, resurrection, ascension, session, and return) He took each believer with Him.