Living the Risen Life

O Father God, we pray now that, since we can’t do anything as we ought without your help, by the Holy Spirit you will quicken our minds and teach our hearts and help us to live our lives in accordance with your Word. For we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I feel over the last few Sundays that it’s almost as if we’ve been climbing a mountainside, and it’s taken us some time finally to reach the final verse of chapter 2. You may have felt that way as well as we’ve dealt with these whole areas of freedom. And having scaled partway up the mountainside, we’ve now reached yet another base camp, and at least there is a vista before us as we’ve come to chapter 3. Because in chapter 3, from the first verse right through, certainly, to 4:6, at which point he begins to close off his letter with greetings—from 3:1 to 4:6—it is one long, sustained exhortation. It is very characteristic of Paul’s method to give an exposition of Christ and his gospel and then to provide an explanation as to how we may live our lives consistent with what he has previously expounded. He moves, as it were, from doctrinal indicatives to practical imperatives. And these verses before us in these coming weeks are a classic, concise outline of practical Christianity. For Paul, his faith is always a faith that functions. His doctrine is something which must inevitably issue in discipleship.

And in chapter 3, we discover the Christian lifestyle. But if, for example, you were to come as a visitor this morning and had never been here for a previous study in Colossians, then you may mistakenly assume that what Paul is doing is just calling people to a lifestyle. But for the last two chapters, he’s been making very clear that to try and live a lifestyle without first discovering the source of life is ultimately impossible and is certainly irrelevant. Paul is no mere moralist. He is not offering to us some framework of existence which we must try and achieve, but he is presenting to us the person of Christ, the power of the Spirit, so that knowing that within our lives, we may then live life according to this lifestyle.

It is an interesting thing when you consider the way that Paul does this frequently in his letters. He does it, for example, in Romans, where, having taken eleven chapters laying down doctrinal truth, he then uses the word “Therefore”—12:1. He says, “Therefore, I’m going to tell you what this means.”[1] I think you’d find the same thing, just from memory, in the book of Ephesians, chapter 4. Yes, in the first three chapters of Ephesians, he lays down doctrinal truth, and then, at the beginning of chapter 4, he applies it. He says, “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”[2] So unless we have been called of the Lord and have come to a knowledge of him, then any exhortation to lifestyle is hopeless.

The standards of Christian behavior cannot survive if the standards of Christian belief are eroded. That is something that has been forgotten in liberal Christianity. It has wanted to hold on to the external standards of what we call “Christian” while at the same time denying and diminishing Christian belief. And without that belief, that inherent awareness and understanding of God in Christ, then eventually, the ability to live by those standards falls away.

So, it is with that in mind that we look at this risen life of Christ, which is presented to us in these verses. In the coming weeks, we’re going to look at the Christian in his relationship to Christ, the Christian in his relationship to the local church, the Christian in his relationship to the family, the Christian in relationship to his daily work, the Christian in relationship to those who are outside of Christ. So it’s going to be extremely practical.

Now, as we’ve said before—and it’s important for us to remind ourselves of this fact—there are two overlapping issues which Paul confronted in writing this letter. On the one hand, there was doctrinal confusion, and on the other hand, there was moral carelessness. And no matter where you look in church history, you discover that the two are interwoven. Sometimes, one comes first, then the other follows it, and then vice versa.

The standards of Christian behavior cannot survive if the standards of Christian belief are eroded.

But within the Colossian context, people were becoming doctrinally confused, and they were living in the realm of moral chaos. In seeking to address themselves to this twofold problem, they were succumbing to the intimidation of false teachers, who, as we’ve noted in the past weeks, were offering to them a man-made religiosity. They were saying, “If you do these things, if you live your life in this way, then here are the keys to true spirituality.” Now, Paul has refuted that, and his concern is that these Colossian Christians, who genuinely know Christ, will not slip back into a man-made religion. Because, as we noted last time, man-made religion is ultimately powerless to deal with sin.

Now, just in case there’s any doubt in our minds as to what we’re talking about when we think about sin this morning, we’re thinking about verse 5 and verse 6: “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” And Paul has been saying to them, “Why submit to a series of don’ts as if by adding enough negatives, you’re going to create a positive—as if victory over sin can be discovered by sheer avoidance?” It can’t.

So what is the key to victory over sin? What is the key that opens the door for us to live a holy life? How may I harness impure thoughts? How may I face a world in which lust is a hallmark of daily existence? How may I go back into a lifestyle which is governed by greed and deal with it? And the answer which he provides is that sin may be conquered as a result of our union with Christ, so that if we are not united with Christ, then we may try to live a lifestyle, but we don’t know the life. So, no new life, no new lifestyle. And the lifestyle into which we’re introduced and the union which is ours in Christ is there for our security and is there for our liberty.

Earlier in the year, in March, when I went to the West Coast and flew back home, I don’t know whether it’s normal or whether something was wrong, but on one of the channels on the earphones, you could listen to everything that was being said for the whole journey between the cockpit and the control towers all the way along the flight. And as you know, I’m a very trusting passenger, and so I tuned in with great frequency to find out if we were still, you know, keeping track—not that I would have known.

But I noted at one point, as I heard them speaking to Nebraska or somewhere, the pilot—or the chief engineer, perhaps it was—called down a number. You know, he said, like, “Seven-nine-oh-five-seven-three.” And then it went [imitates static], and then the guy goes, “Seven-nine-oh-five-seven-nine.” And then I said to myself, “Wait a minute, here. That’s a difference of six. Even I know that.” Then it went again: [imitates static]. The guy said, “Don’t you mean seven-nine-oh-five-seven-three?” [Imitates static.] “Yes, you’re right. I did mean that.” I said to myself, “Well, I don’t know what a difference a six makes, but I don’t want it to get to a difference of six hundred.” Those things are important. And if the pilot is told, “I want you to stay at 450 miles an hour and ten thousand feet,” and he says, “I don’t feel like doing that; I feel like four thousand feet and 550 miles an hour,” we are in big difficulties.

Now, there is an approach to the Christian life which says, “Having been set free in Christ, all of this law and everything that the Scriptures lay down to frame my way of life is not important. So even if it does say I should fly at this level and at this speed, I don’t need to pay any attention to that. I can fly where I want and whatever speed I want.” Paul says, “No, you can’t. No, you can’t—not if you would live the Christian life the way God intends.” And you fly at this level and at this speed not so that your lifestyle may be ruined but so that it may be enhanced, not so that your freedom may be restricted but so that you may be ushered into perfect liberty. Security and liberty in the Christian life are found in paradox. And that is: in becoming a slave of Jesus Christ, I discover perfect freedom. Submission to the rule of Christ is perfect freedom.

Now, it’s with those thoughts in mind that we look at the three headings on our outline: the believer’s position, the believer’s priorities, and the believer’s prospect. We’ll spend probably longer on the first two than on the last.

The Believer’s Position

First of all: the believer’s position. We may discover this by paying attention to two key phrases that are before us in these verses.

First of all, in the very first verse: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ”—a very vivid description of what it means to be a true believer. When a person places their faith and trust in Christ, a number of things happen to them simultaneously. Or, if you like, in the Colossian context, Paul is saying to them, “When you came to faith and trust in Christ, a number of things happened to you. Not only did you die with Christ, not only were your sins forgiven, not only were you adopted into God’s family and given the status of sons, not only were you given a new nature, having been born from above, but also, you have been raised with Christ.”

When he wrote to the Ephesian Christians in Ephesians 2:6, he said this: “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” In the verses prior to that, he has made clear that before that, as non-Christians, as unbelievers, we lived in a totally different realm. But now that Christ has come to live in our lives, we have experienced a radical change of spiritual environment. Having been raised with Christ, we now live in a new sphere. We have been brought from death to life, from darkness to light, from bondage to freedom, and from a lifestyle which was characterized by this world to a whole new sphere of existence, because we have been made new men.

Now, to the unbeliever this seems very strange. Even the terminology seems rather incongruous. Nevertheless, if you are in Christ today, then you know what it is to have been transferred to a new sphere of spiritual environment.

“Raised with Christ,” and the second phrase which describes our position is in verse 3: “hidden with Christ.” “You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Of course, these Colossian Christians would have understood this, as it had been pictured in their baptism. Having gone down into the baptismal waters of the rivers around their area, they would have been placed underneath the water; they would have been raised out of the water. They would have gone in wearing the grubby clothes which had been part of their everyday routine. Having come out of the water, they would have removed their outer garments, and they would have been given a lovely new white outer robe in which to continue the rest of the day.

They understood the symbolism. They understood that going under the water was a picture of them dying with Christ—that what had taken place within their lives in an unseen way was now visibly portrayed. And having been raised up out of the water, it was a picture of the fact that they were saying no to their old life and saying yes to a new life in walking with Christ. Paul recalls that. He says, “You died, and now what is true of you? Your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

This is a reminder to us that this perfect union between Christ and his people is a heavenly union. It is hidden from man’s observation. And that is why, the Bible says—1 Corinthians 2—the natural man doesn’t receive the things of the Spirit, because they are foolishness to him.[3] If we were to go out into Cleveland today and conduct a survey just on the basis of the question “What is a Christian?” we would receive all kinds of answers: “A Christian is someone who goes to church.” “A Christian is someone who tries to live by the Sermon on the Mount.” “A Christian is someone who is kind and good and true.” And they would give to us, many times, a whole list of external characteristics, most if not all of which are wrapped up in the package of being a Christian. But all of them together would not touch the nerve center of what being a Christian really is, and that is being united with Christ, entering into a relationship with Jesus, being raised with him to the heavenlies, and our lives being hidden with Christ in God. He then becomes the ground of our security, because our lives are all wrapped up in Jesus.

We sometimes use that phrase, don’t we, of people? We say, “Oh, you’ll never be able to get him to come to that activity, because his life is all wrapped up in” whatever it might be. “He’s all wrapped up in his garden,” or “He’s all wrapped up in his career,” or “She’s all wrapped up in her knitting. She can’t come on a Thursday. She knits on a Thursday.” Whatever it might be. What we’re saying we understand. We cannot think of that person without thinking of that activity. And when Paul writes to these people, he says, “It ought to be that nobody can think of you but they think of Jesus, for your lives are all wrapped up in Jesus.” You see, that is the only ground of our security, isn’t it? That we stay the course. Why is it that you stay a Christian? Because you’re all wrapped up in Jesus.

It’s interesting, too—Colossians 1:22–23 (we just remind ourselves of it—that our security in Christ is never presented in isolation from the lives we lead. Somebody had asked me last Sunday morning: Do I believe in eternal security? The answer to which is yes, because the Bible teaches it. There isn’t even a question about it. For those who are truly in Christ, no one may pluck them out of his hand.[4] “Once in [Christ], in [Christ] forever; thus the eternal covenant stands.”[5] But our eternal security in Christ, it goes back a very long way in the eternal purposes of God.

And the interesting thing is that it is never presented in Scripture in isolation from the lives that we lead—so that, for example, Colossians 1:22–23: “Now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation”—notice the next phrase—“if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.” “He has reconciled you.” For what purpose? “To present you holy.” The ground of our faith is the work of Christ on Calvary, and the evidence of that fact being reality is seen in our continuance, so that we continue, and as we continue, we give evidence that we are truly Christ’s—so that we are not like those of whom the apostle John writes. He says, “They have gone out from us because they were not of us.”[6] In other words, as time has gone on, it has proved that they were like those people of whom Jesus spoke in the parable of the sower who were the “instant bloom and instant fade” variety—an immediate response and virtually an immediate death.[7] And there are those who have made a spurious response to faith in Christ, and they are nowhere at all today. Our continuance gives evidence of the fact that our lives are all wrapped up in Jesus.

Sure, we slip back. Sure, we see in ourselves the Prodigal who wandered off. Sure, we find that there are times in our lives where we are not walking with Christ as once we did. But for the true believer, there is within our hearts that propulsion and that wooing of God to return to the place of real hiddenness in his love.

And so Paul urges his readers, being unsettled by the intimidating teachers who were offering to them fullness and freedom by means of all kinds of things. He says, “I want you to understand this: that God in Christ has accomplished in your lives the miracle of spiritual regeneration—something that goes back into the eternal councils of God. Recognize,” he says in writing to them, “the divine manifestation of this sovereign act of God whereby he has transferred you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son he loves.”[8] And nothing that God ever does for a Christian is comparable to the miracle of regeneration. Nothing.

So that’s the position of the Christian. What’s your position this morning? Are you in church? “Well, I’m in a building.” I didn’t ask you that. Are you in church? Are you in the church? “Sure, I’m in the church! I came in the front door.” Uh-uh. This is just a building. We just meet here. The church are those whose lives are hidden with Christ. So I ask you again: Are you in the church?

The Believer’s Priorities

Secondly, we noticed the believer’s priorities. Having been raised with Christ and having our lives hidden with Christ, Paul makes clear to us the way we ought to be living. Herbert Carson, in the little InterVarsity commentary on these verses, entitles this section “New aims for new men.”[9] First I become a new man, and then I discover a new aim. It may be summarized in two phrases.

First of all: “Set your hearts on things above.” “Set your hearts on things above.” “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above.” You see, people who do not know Jesus find it unbelievably frustrating to be given a verse or a phrase like “Set your hearts on things above,” because they face the fact that they cannot do it, ultimately. Until there is that coming into my heart of the power of the risen Christ, then there is no desire from within me to set my heart in that way. The heart of man, the Bible says, is set away from the things of God. Contrary to things we often say, the Bible teaches that “there is none that seeketh after God … no, not one.”[10] Right? So that whenever a man’s heart begins to seek God, he may know something, and that is that God is already at work within his heart, inclining his spirit to seek him. So there are people who sit in church this morning, and they say, “I don’t know why it is that I keep coming back to this place. Ten years ago, you wouldn’t have found me dead in there. And here I am! I come every Sunday. Something’s going on!” You’re right. Something is going on. And it is not coincidence, and it is not chance, for God is at work within the lives of those whose hearts begin to seek after him.

Even my greatest earthly joy will be nothing compared to the joy that I discover in focusing on God, on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, the conclusion of that is, of course, that we seek the Lord, and we find him in Christ. We commit our lives to him in repentance and faith. We become new men. And then, in our new life, we live with our hearts in a different direction.

“Set your hearts on things above.” What does it mean to seek the things that are above? Well, it means to hold fast to Christ as the center and the source of all our joys. It means to enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. It means, ultimately, this: that even my greatest earthly joy will be nothing compared to the joy that I discover in focusing on God, on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, I want to tell you that that is something that we need to “work out” our “own salvation with fear and trembling.”[11] This past week, we had two of our dearest friends from Scotland stay with us. And this time last Sunday, within my heart, there’s a whole mixture of emotions. There is the joy of it being Sunday—of being together with God’s people. There is this special joy of being able to look out on the congregation and see two people whom you haven’t seen for a year and who are very dear to you and with whom you have the opportunity now to spend the next six or seven days. This morning, as I stand out here, there is the same joy at Sunday. There is the privilege of being amongst God’s people. But my two friends, this morning, are now back in Glasgow.

And as I now look out on this next week, I hear the Word of God saying to me, “Listen: Where is your greatest joy? Do you always need something down here to look forward to, to face a Monday? Do you always have to be starring your calendar for the next little thing that comes along?” We’re very natural. “But do you know,” says the Word of God to me, “Alistair, this morning, what it really is to set your heart on things that are above? Do you really know what it is for Christ to be the center and the source of all your joy”—so that if I did not have my wife and my three children, if I did not have my tongue and the privilege of proclamation, if I did not have the joy of this congregation to preach to now this morning, would my heart still be lifted up within me? Is my heart set? Where’s it set?

The very phraseology which he uses for “Set your hearts on things above” is not that of a casual glance, but it is that of a persevering effort. And I must confess that I’m fairly good at the casual glance, but the persevering effort is a different deal.

Most of you who have small children will have places in your house that the little ones congregate under every so often. We have a cupboard up on one corner of the kitchen where, every so often, you find two or three children just standing there, gazing up at it. To an outsider, they would say, “Very strange children.” Every so often in the day, they just go and gaze up at the cupboard. And not only do they gaze up, but they sometimes lift their hands up, and then they make strange noises at the same time. Now, if I opened the cupboard, you would know why. Because in that cupboard is a ridiculous amount of candy which has been sent to us from the United Kingdom. And they know that it’s there—their favorite sweets. So they don’t walk through the kitchen and casually glance up at the cupboard. No, no. They come, and they stare up at the cupboard. They set their hearts on that cupboard and what’s in the cupboard.

You got a dog? What time do you feed it? Five o’clock? We have a dog—a golden retriever. You just go into the cupboard, again in the kitchen, and you bring out the PAL meat for dogs—“Prolongs Active Life,” PAL. And the dog stares—unbelievable staring. I mean, he won’t take his eyes off you. Totally riveted! Why? ’Cause he wants what you’ve got and where it is.

Do you know, my friends this morning, if we were in earnest about setting our hearts on things that were above, people would walk past, and they would find us with our gaze directly to Jesus. Ultimately, the gatherings for prayer within our congregation would be larger than any other gatherings, so that our times around the Word of God would not be regarded as passing trivia, not time to shoot in for a casual glance, but sustained, persevering, committed setting my heart on that which is above.

It’s not uncommon, you know, to seek, but to seek to obtain the right thing is the distinctive factor. “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.”[12] See what he’s saying? “Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God”—the place of holiness, the place of intercession, the place of power. So when I set my heart on things that are above, I set my heart on growing in holiness, on deepening in prayer, and on progressing in spiritual power.

Secondly, I set my mind on things above. So much is spoken today about having a mindset: “What is your mindset?”—a kind of cliché. “Well,” says Paul, “I want you to have a mindset as well, as believers. Your minds are not to be controlled by purely earthly considerations. Your lives are not to be framed on the basis of purely human ambition, which is set within the framework of a world which is transient.” As believers, we are to learn to see things from an eternal perspective.

I don’t think the gentleman’s here this morning—and I wouldn’t mention his name in any case—but I got a classic illustration of this not so long ago from someone in the area who was offered the very top position in a vast corporate company. Would mean a huge difference in lifestyle, a big change, and he said, “No. Please don’t make me do that.” The reason he said no was not because he couldn’t do the job, not because he didn’t see the challenge in it, but because he responded to the opportunity with his mind set above. So he responded to it by looking at his wife, looking at his children, looking at the stage of their lifestyle and their relationship to the Word of God and to fellowship and to the place of the Word in their lives, and he says, “As much as I would enjoy that, I’m going to say no to it, because I believe that, using my mind correctly, here is where my wife will grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. Here is where my children may more likely become Christians and grow to maturity. And so I’ll say no to that, and I’ll say yes to this.” He set his mind on things that are above. He reminded himself that eternity’s going to be an awful long time in comparison to however long we may live in whatever position.

Now, the problem with this phrase is that so many times people think of it—“Set your minds on things that are above”—in terms of a kind of Christian mysticism, so that we sit around with our legs crossed, and we gaze off into the blue yonder, or that we go around in some kind of spiritual daze. That’s not what Paul is saying. What he is saying is this: “Learn to see people and see events in the way that God sees them.” That’s what it means to set your minds on things that are above.

You think back to the book of Nehemiah. And when the news came to him of the state of affairs in Jerusalem, remember, we told ourselves, he wept, he mourned, he fasted, and he prayed before the God of heaven.[13] Why? Because he set his mind on things that were above. All the other people said, “Hey, Nehemiah, the wall’s broke down.” Nehemiah goes into an amazing depression. And people are saying, “What’s the problem with a few broken-down walls?” Nehemiah says, “The problem is that God is being robbed of his glory.” And he saw it from a different perspective. His heart and his mind were framed with heaven.

And the fact of the matter is that so many of us as Christians are unable to tell our world about any otherworldly dimension because we don’t even know it! The problem is not that we’re so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly use. The problem is that we’re so earthly minded that we’re no heavenly use. And in our business and family life, in our lifestyle and the things we do, in the way we make our decisions, in the way we plan our futures, it’s very difficult for a society to see “What makes these people different?”

That is why it is easy to make ourselves different by external characteristics. So, we could all wear funny hats or all grow beards. Some of you could grow beards. But anyway, they all grow beards or all wear big red noses. Then we would be in no doubt. But that would be easy. That is easy. Mysticism and monkey business and all of that, going around dressed in a funny way, is an easy way to deal with it. The hard way is this way, but it’s God’s way.

The Believer’s Prospect

Finally: the believer’s prospect. Right now, this morning, the world does not see that we’re seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. It doesn’t realize, perhaps, that our lives are “hidden with Christ in God.” But a day is coming when Christ will be revealed for all that he is, to the astonished gaze of mankind. History is not cyclical. We are not deists. We do not believe in a god—somebody, something up there—who made a world and then just let it spin into space. We believe in an infinite creator God who has revealed himself in the person of Christ and that as surely as Christ was born as a baby in Bethlehem, so that same Jesus will return a second time for those who are ready to meet him.

For “when Christ, who is your life, appears…” That’s what it means to be a Christian. Christ is my life. He is my raison d’être. He is my love. He is my future. He is my hope. He is my security in the face of death. He is my life—so that I may face death because Christ is my life. “When Christ,” who is my life, “appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

You go to Times Square in New York, and you look around, and it says, “Appearing in concert with …: 7:30, such and such a place.” See what it says here? Colossians 3:4: “Scheduled to appear in glory with Jesus Christ!” This is fantastic! No wonder G. T. Manley, in his little book on the return of the Lord, said, “Let the pessimist look down, [let] the fearful look around.” Let them become preoccupied with Trident missiles and all that stuff over there in West Germany, and on the coast of Scotland, and big submarines up the Holy Loch, and all of that. Listen, friends: you may be concerned about that as much as you will, but it will not ultimately alter God’s eternal timetable. Let “the fearful look around; but let the Christian lift … his [eyes] and look up.”[14] Look up!

The direction of our constant meditation in these verses is where? Not inwards. Upwards! And some of us are so unbelievably confused and depressed and defeated because we’re looking in the wrong place—looking in: “How am I doing? How am I getting on?” Totally preoccupied with ourselves. Look up! Scheduled to appear in glory with Jesus: all those whose lives are hidden with him.

In a Baptist church in Brighton some years ago now, a young man sat amongst a congregation of about a thousand people. And he sat through the first part of the service, and he made it as far as the hymn before the message. And then he couldn’t bear it any longer, and he ran out of the church, and he ran out onto the beach in Brighton, on the South Coast of England. And with tears running down his face, he just walked and walked and walked along the beach.

The young man’s name was Hudson Taylor. He’d just returned from China, where he had seen that there were literally millions of people who had never heard about Jesus Christ once. And he returned to this church in Brighton, and he couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand what he referred to as the smug, self-satisfied singing of the congregation, content to come week after week after week just to get and to get and to get. He couldn’t figure, in eternal terms, how so many young people gifted as doctors and nurses and teachers and engineers and plumbers and joiners could sit in the comparative luxury of Brighton while China stood in need of Christ. And as he walked the beach, he cried to God, “Give me twenty-four people to take back to China with me to begin a work in mainland China to make Jesus known to that vast area.” And within twelve months, he left on the boat with twenty-four laborers—two for each province of China.

You see, the problem with Hudson Taylor was he’d set his mind on things that were above. He’d set his heart somewhere else. And I am rebuked every time I hear on the radio that little chorus that goes, “I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I’d rather be his than have riches untold. I’d rather have Jesus than” anything this world affords today—“than to be [a] king of a vast domain.”[15] Really? I look out on this sea of young faces here this morning. You’re asking, “Where does my future lie? What can I do? Where should I go?” Why not go for Jesus Christ? Why not get up and go somewhere where they never heard it? And I’ll tell you right now this morning: if God had given me that privilege, I would not be here, nor would I be in Britain, nor would I be in the Western world at all. But I have never received that kind of call. But should it come, I’m going.

You think in America this morning how many people are hearing their 150th, 2,500th sermon. And one of my friends, who’s now the director of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship—the China Inland Mission, which Hudson started with those twenty-four people—this morning is in mainland China with his wife, Jeralyn, and about that many workers to reach literally millions of people who never even heard about Jesus once.

May the Lord establish us in our position, convict us about our priorities, and remind us that our prospect is to see Jesus and to be made like him. And then our lives will be framed in the way he desires.

Let’s pray together, shall we?

Father, look upon us in your mercy, we pray. And grant that the only conviction that we may feel, any of us, is that of the Holy Spirit through the Word. But show us, Lord, your glory. Give us a wee glimpse, we pray, into that eternal dimension of life. Set us apart for you, and set us in the place of your choosing. Grant, Lord, that we may hear the words of Jim Elliot again: “He is no fool who gives [up] what he cannot keep to gain [what] he cannot lose.”[16] Because when Jesus appears, we will also appear with him in glory. Remind us, Lord, that the King is coming, and get us ready, we pray, for his arrival. For Jesus’ sake we ask it. Amen.

[1] Romans 12:1 (paraphrased).

[2] Ephesians 4:1 (NIV 1978). Scripture quotations in this transcript are from the 1978 edition of the NIV unless otherwise indicated.

[3] See 1 Corinthians 2:14.

[4] See John 10:28–29.

[5] John Kent, “Sovereign Grace o’er Sin Abounding” (1803).

[6] 1 John 2:19 (paraphrased).

[7] See Matthew 13:5–6; Mark 4:5–6; Luke 8:6.

[8] See Colossians 1:13.

[9] Herbert M. Carson, The Epistle of Paul to the Colossians and Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (1960; repr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 79.

[10] Romans 3:11–12 (KJV).

[11] Philippians 2:12 (KJV).

[12] Psalm 37:4 (NIV 1978).

[13] See Nehemiah 1:4.

[14] G. T. Manley, The Return of Jesus Christ (London: Inter-Varsity, 1960), 27.

[15] Rhea Florence Miller, “I’d Rather Have Jesus” (1922).

[16] The Journals of Jim Elliot, ed. Elisabeth Elliot (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1978), 174.