Video Transcript: Heavenly Minded

But here are a few questions maybe to ask to find out whether you're really heavenly minded. First, am I eager to die and go to heaven. Maybe some here today are asking that question, a little more urgency, whenever you have a close call a brush with death, then suddenly, you begin to wonder, do I really believe in heaven? I know I found on a lot of airplanes in my life going various places and whenever that turbulence comes and starts getting really wild, I start grabbing my seat, and I start wondering, do I really believe all this? Do I really believe in heaven? Am I eager to die and go to heaven? Or am I eager for Jesus to come and return to Earth? We speak about a lot of things as Christians but really, when we can't say well, I'd actually love to go to be with Jesus and see him. Or we can say, well, I really would be excited about Jesus suddenly showing up. Then we've got at the very least some growing to do and being heavenly minded. 

Part of being heavenly minded is just paying attention to Jesus and having our thoughts where he is in heaven right now. Do I listen often to Jesus? Do I read the Bible and enjoy it? Do I like listening to sermons that explain and apply the Bible? Do I enjoy digging into books or having conversations with people or listening to the various ways that the gospel truths and the wonders of Jesus in heaven can be presented? Do I enjoy silent times with God? Those are questions that will show whether you are heavenly minded. Do I talk to Jesus a lot? We heard a message about prayer last week. It's one thing to hear messages about prayer to talk about it. It's another to actually pray and to set your mind on Christ and converse with him. Do I think often about Jesus as my day goes along? Is Christ on my mind? Do I have a sense that that I'm serving the king that he's with me, that he's living in me? Do I think often about eternity? Do I let my mind wander and say, You know what, what's that new creation going to be like? What's it like to be with Jesus in heaven right now? I urge each of you to just take those questions to heart because they'll give you a pretty good idea of whether you're at all heavenly minded or not. And I can't honestly say, Boy, every moment of every day I would prefer, as Paul says, to go and be with Christ, which is better by far than to remain here on Earth. And very often, my thoughts are on other things. 

Now, being heavenly minded involves a couple of things. Involves looking upward to Christ right now, as He’s seated in heaven and reigns there and brings his power to bear on all things. It's looking upward and it's also looking forward to the full reward and destiny that God has prepared for those who love Him. That's in our verse, you set your mind on things above where Christ is, and when Christ who is your life appears, you will appear with Him in glory. Second mind where he is that's looking up, looking forward to him appearing in glory and you appearing with him, and that's looking forward. And Paul has kind of a similar theme in Philippians chapter three. He says, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. He says, I want to know him and the power of his resurrection. That's looking up but I want to know Him, and may share in his sufferings becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. And he's looking forward. Forgetting what lies behind straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. A heavenly minded person has a mind that's looking upward and a heart that's desiring upward for communion with Jesus right now in heaven, and then also looking forward and desiring forward for the fullness of what God has prepared for us. 

Now, if you were released from prison to go to a halfway house, a place where former prisoners are trained to reenter society and to adjust to freedom and to productive life and to the good things of life again. If you were released from prison, and you were in a halfway house, where would your focus be? Would you be checking your old prison uniform to make sure the stitching was still exactly the way you wanted it to be? Would you be thinking about some of those bosses in prison that you were kind of scared of and that you kind of had to keep off your back and be very careful as you're tiptoed around them? If you were in a halfway house, already out of prison, your mind wouldn't be focused on prison life anymore. At least it shouldn't be. One of the challenges of course, is if your mindset gets bogged down in prison. Some people who are released from prison have a terrible time adjusting to life outside of it. And many people who have been released and set free from the grip of sin, set free from the powers of this age and are destined for the age to come still have kind of a hard time getting their mind off all the stuff that troubles them and drags them down in this age. 

Now, if you wouldn't focus on prison itself, and would you focus on the halfway house itself. Now while you're there anyway, you don't need to make the place a mess. And you might want to put some good paint on the wall. So it's nice for the next people to move in after you and you might want to keep it in good repair. And while you're there, you might want to get along with the people who are there. But your main focus when you're in a halfway house is not that house. Because  you know you're just passing through. You're there for just a little while, and then you're on to wherever you're going next. And so while you will try to be a responsible person in dealing with the halfway house and treat it well, that's not where your mind is. If you can take courses that are preparing you for your next step in life after the halfway house, you study those courses hard. Your mind is on what's coming next, not just the moment and your mind is on who's coming next. 

Let's say that you've been released in this case, some very, very wealthy benefactor, a billionaire and decided to give you employment and to give you some great opportunities and to settle you down into a fantastic mansion. Now if you were going to move into a mansion with a billionaire, you think you'd like to be in touch with that billionaire every now and then, even while you're in the halfway house. And when you think about the mansion now and again, if you knew that that was going to be your address you might even want to catch a picture or a few snapshots get a sense of the interior and what it looks like outside and you know, as much information as you could get. Maybe they weren't gonna tell you everything about it. But as much information as you can get you sure want wouldn't you and you'd be thinking about it a lot. And if you have the personal cell number of the billionaire, you might want to dial it up now and then not just talk with your fellow ex offenders in the halfway house. You can be kind to them and treat them well. But you'd want to be in touch with the person you're going to be spending the rest of your life living with and working for. Now wouldn't you? 

Now, it's very dangerous thing to get bogged down in a halfway house or to get bogged down in the past when the future is awaiting and when your benefactor is already willing to communicate with you and wants to hear from you. And so being heavenly minded, being a person of prayer, who wants to communicate with the Lord who has given us all this and having your mind on the things that God has prepared for those who love him. Jesus says I'm going to prepare a place for you. In my Father's house are many rooms, and I'm coming back to take you to be with me where I am. He says those things and if we take those things to heart, we're going to have our minds and our hearts and our desires on those things, aren't we? 

Now, when we think of what the Scripture says about this age and the coming age, here's just a little snapshot of Jesus first coming. There's a big break and this passing world age receives a decisive blow and the powers of the demons of the rulers are severely limited and curtailed and something big changes and the kingdom of God has already entered. Jesus says the kingdom of God is near. It's among you now that I'm here. And so this coming world age has already entered into this life. And you have these two aeons which you can call sometimes translated the world, sometimes translated this age, or this current evil age, or the coming age. That is the coming aeons those ages overlap. And in a sense, we live in a halfway house. God's Kingdom is already here. In one sense, we're already set free from that prison, but we're not quite to the mansion yet. We're in the halfway house. And in that halfway house, God calls us to be heavenly minded people who are thinking of the mansion and of the wealthy owner who loves us and invites us to communicate with them. So have your mind on Him. Have your mind on what he's preparing for you. 

Now if you look at that question, am I heavenly minded and decided the answer was not very, or not at all. Then the next step is to think about well, why is that? What are some things that keep me from being heavenly minded? I'll be honest, when I was working on this passage, it's a passage I've known and memorized for a long time. It's a passage I preached on a number of times in different settings, and then I kind of found myself stuck. And I think one reason I found myself stuck was I was not exactly heavenly minded and it's always hard to preach about being heavenly minded when you're not. And when you want to speak of this, and okay, I'm gonna get the teaching on this point, then that point and that point that I'll bring that all across and somehow they didn't quite cut it. And so finally, I just wrote down okay, what's some of my problems and figure out. Some of my problems that I can identify might be ones you have. And I think it's very important that your list may look a little different than the one I give you. The one I give, maybe it's because my mind was on that. Kind of happened to match up pretty well with the kind of message I was preaching on. So in dealing with my problem, I also got a sermon.

First of all, am I sure? Am I sure that Christ has really risen and really reigning? How strong is my confidence and certainty of that? Sometimes not as strong as it ought to be? If it were stronger, I would be more focused on that, and on him as the ultimate reality. How sure, am I even if he's for real, even if he's risen for real, that I'm in him, that I've been raised with Him, been born again to new life into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus that I have his life in me and that I'm alive in him. How sure am I of my connection to him? What are the desires and the distractions that crowd out that heavenly focus in my life? And there are a lot of them. And I'll give you an idea of what a few of those are, and you can make your own list if you have such. Have I died with Jesus to this world. This is a very crucial and this one I'll spend a lot more time on explaining as well as what that involves, but it is very, very crucial that we know what it means by experience what Paul means when he says for you have died. You have died. What's involved in that. Is Christ really my whole life? He says Christ who is your life when He appears, but is he your life? Is he, as one song puts it, Jesus, is all the world to me, really. And when I can't see, can I still walk by faith. 

The fact that I can't see it, and that sometimes can seem very distant and invisible to me. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. The hiddenness of it can be something that hinders my heavenly mindedness sometimes. The hiddenness, can I walk by faith when I can't see. And do I have a clear and thrilling picture of heaven? Or is it kind of a cosmic fog bank with a little bit of light in it somewhere? I'm not that fond of cosmic glowing fog banks. You know, and so, sometimes if my picture of heaven is just too vague, or too, whatever, but not real and gripping and thrilling that can hinder me from being heavenly minded. Well, I'll run through these a little bit because they do also parallel the passage that we're thinking about and I'll just give you permission. If you've got another one that you know is your obstacle, you can you can check out on me and ignore the rest of the sermon and think about that one. You know that the purpose of this sermon is to help you to think about am I heavenly minded and what keeps me from being so. Because the call of the passage is to be heavenly minded. So whatever it is, that hinders you and as well as whatever it is that helps you focus on such things. 

Well, am I sure that Jesus is really risen and reigning? The apostle Paul says, I delivered you as a first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures that He was buried that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. That's the objective gospel. That a holy God took our sins and put them on Jesus Christ, and Christ died to pay for those sins in accordance with the Scriptures and he was raised to new life and then in his resurrection, those who are connected to Him by faith come alive too. And do I believe that Jesus lives. Do I believe that he reigns. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved. But this is the most fundamental. You're not going anywhere if you don't have clear, firm answer to this. If you don't believe that Jesus has really risen and reigning, it's pretty hard to look forward to meeting something you're not sure is there or enjoying fellowship with somebody you're not even sure is alive. Okay. You have zero chance of being heavenly minded, unless your mind is convinced with the facts of the present life and reality of Jesus Christ and what he did to make you right with him. So, you know, I can't answer that question for you. I do know that there are times when, when I'm assailed with doubts or when my faith is weaker or less clear than it ought to be that this can be one of the big hang ups about being heavenly minded. That Jesus just, at least in that moment, doesn't seem that real or that alive to me. It's not something I'm proud of. But I think it's a fact that sometimes this is the reason for not being heavenly minded. 

And then the next question is, am I alive in him. Even if he's alive am I alive in him? You know, first Peter one, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he has given us new birth, in living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Do I have new birth? The same life that brought Jesus from the dead, is that life in me, Paul in Colossians chapter two says, You who were dead in your trespasses, God made alive together with him and only people who know that to be true that I've been made  alive with Jesus, only when that has that foundation of my personal relation with Christ has been laid, can I say well, then I can set my mind on things above where Christ is. Paul said something similar in Ephesians, God made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with Him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. There's a sense in which our life being hidden with Christ in God and him being raised and we've been alive in him and risen with him are already sharing in his reign in a certain sense. But the basic question for being heavenly minded on this one is simply do I belong to him? Am I connected to Jesus in His death and resurrection? Am I born again in him. Again, it is absolutely impossible, to be heavenly minded at all, without being born again and having the life of Christ in you, drawing you to the life of Christ above. 

It's very important. It's not to increase doubts and fears needlessly. But it is very important if your answer to the question is, well, yeah, I'm not heavenly minded, you're gonna have to ask, well, am I born again? Okay, and am I clear about that? Am I sure about that? Because sometimes even if you aren't born again, you have much doubt and uncertainty about your standing with God. And it's very hard for you to have your mind set on things above when you're not sure what your standing is. And so again, if this is an area of struggle for you, then it's very urgent that you seek the Lord and that you seek counsel from a brother or sister because it may be that you don't know the Lord and you need to. Or it may be that you're needlessly struggling because your assurance is not as strong as it could be, even though you do belong to him. Even though you do have his life in you. I know many people, sometimes I'm one of them, but I also deal with a lot of people who struggle with their assurance of salvation, and I am quite certain that they are safe people, you know, when I get to know and so I go through some of the marks of spiritual life with them, and it is often very helpful for them to realize Yeah, and they have a clear certainty they belong to Christ and then of course, a greater desire to see him, because they know they belong to him. 

Now, what desires do I have? What things am I kind of after or seeking and what distractions do I have that crowd out a heavenly focus? You maybe something just go and follow my favorite teams, and I'm just kind of obsessed and I've got all the stats. I've got all of this. I've got all of that and it just takes an awful lot of my time. Now, if you'd asked me do you care more about whether the bulls win the title this year? Or about whether you belong to Jesus? You know, hands down, if you're a Christian at all about Jesus, of course. And then you'll go and spend another 25 hours following the bulls. If you I mean, something can happen in our own life. You know, you can be watching TV program and somebody said, do you care more about TV or your kids? You could honestly say Oh, I care way, way, way, way, way more about my kids than about TV. And if you did a tally you’d find, yeah, I’m spending about seven minutes a day actually sitting down with one kid and I'm spending two and a half hours in front of the tube and you could still honestly say that you love your child more and maybe you do. But for one reason or another, the desires and distractions just crowd out what matters most. Whether it's a movie, a song, a game of program, you name it. We are surrounded with distractions and some of us are not so far gone that we love those distractions more than we love God or more than we love other people. It's just a somehow we have let them crowd things out. 

Maybe it's enjoying a dream vacation. saving up for it, planning for it and you just get your head going around something. Oh, money is tight. And I got to figure out how to get enough of it to for the stuff I want. I want to make a mark. You  know I'm getting to that age where a lot of my life is behind me. And I start thinking up, I’ve got a limited number of years left and I kind of want to have mattered. What do I do that is going to matter. But sometimes making that mark is not so God oriented as it is making sure I matter. Having a happy marriage and family is very, very high on your list and you might read a very long list of helpful books or watch a bunch of videos to help you be a better mom or dad or  you may if you're single and yearning to be married, you may spend a lot of time thinking about that. How if you only have that that's what makes you happy. And it can be something that occupies your attention. Getting ready for retirement. I mean the list this is a list that you got to just have your own and understand what those distractions and those desires are and then deal very firmly with them. If you find that your time management is just bad. You know what matters most to you and somehow what matters most is what occupies the least amount your time, then you simply have to start paying attention and rearranging your life. 

What's involved in seeking or setting your mind in dealing with these distractions? Well, a lot. But sometimes spiritual disciplines can get us started. Now, spiritual discipline can't have itself replaced being heavenly minded or make you any minded but memorizing key portions of the Bible so that your mind can just return to things that they go through your head again and again and again is very valuable. Meditate even on stuff you haven't memorized. You know, a lot of general stories that Jesus told, a lot of his teachings. Think on his words, think on things that he did. Think of who he was what he was like and who he is and what he is like. Read Revelation chapter one for a vision of Jesus reigning right now, and focus on that. Not just historical Jesus of the Gospels, but the reigning Jesus now and the glory that he's going to bring. 

And think about his return and about eternity and think often about such things not just when the car spins out of control, but more often. You discipline your mind to think about those things. Set aside daily times to think long, and longingly and then that spills over. As you discipline your mind and your heart more and more it can spill over more and more into what you think about and really to be ready for heaven. The main thing is to be ready for Jesus. The better you get to know him the more you'll want heaven, the less you get to know him, the less you’d be interested in heaven. It's really almost that simple of an equation. There are other things we said about heaven and I think I'm gonna say some of those in the next few weeks. You know, just some of the other goodies that are involved. But really, this is the core. If it's hard to want heaven, or if it's hard to really want to depart this life and be with Christ, it is because we don't know Christ well enough. If we do it, well all the other stuff won't matter. 

Now, I talked about the importance of being detached or dying to earthly things. What's meant by earthly things. Does that mean you just hate this world? Um, does that mean we should deprive our bodies and we should avoid everyday activities and relationships? Well, the apostle Paul has just rejected severity to the body a couple of sentences before saying this. So he obviously doesn't mean just mistreating and being severe to your body. And he doesn't mean just bailing out on life and paying no attention to the ordinary details of everyday life because right after he says this, he proceeds to give directions on your personal behavior in this world, on your relationships with fellow believers, on family life between husbands, wives, parents and children in how you do your daily work either as a slave or employee or as a boss and in your conduct toward outsiders. So he gives guidance in all these areas. So obviously, he's not just saying okay, don't have your mind on earthly things and don't even be involved in any of the stuff of this life anymore. What he means basically is that all of our earthly activities and all of our relationships have to be pursued with a focus on Jesus. And with a focus of does this matter for eternity. And how does the eternal shine its light on this?  

Now digging a little deeper what's meant by earthly in this passage or the things of earth or, as the Bible elsewhere talks about worldly. One thing that can mean is just the world as self made religion. We talked about that recently. And oftentimes people don't associate worldliness with lots of do's and don'ts and rituals and so on, but that's worldly. And that's one aspect of worldliness that need to be dealt with in order to be truly heavenly minded. The world as a system of sin, the wicked world, the world under the domination Satan is another way the Bible often uses the world and our pursuing our fleshly indulgences and just wanting what we want and grabbing what we want to grab. 

And then thirdly, there is the world of created things and of everyday activities and relationships. Now, one and two, you just have to get rid of completely. And number three, you also have to die to, but in a somewhat different sense. Not in the sense that you reject it as bad but even there you detach it as not your God and not the thing that matters most to you. The word self made religion well Paul says if with Christ you die to the elemental spirits of the world, why is if you're still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch and so forth. I've said a lot about that. I won't say anymore, except say that's part of being dead to the world. Is realizing you died to those elemental spirits and those basic structures are self made religion. 

There's the world of sinful impulses. And right off this passage, Paul goes on to say, put to death, what is earthly in you. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. And he goes on to say, put to death therefore your anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. So these are some of those sinful impulses and actions that got to be killed off. And that's part of the world that's gotta go. John says, again, speaking of the world as evil desires that need to be rejected. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride and possessions is not from Father, but from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. So the world of evil desires has got to go and we need to every day, as the Bible puts it, count ourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus. That's part of being heavenly minded, is every every day you get up in the morning. There's a 1000 opportunities to think about sin and pursue it and every morning afresh you wake up and say I'm dead to that. Christ, I live in you and just start your day and keep returning to that throughout your day. 

And then there's the word of everyday living, and this is a very tough one. And this is a hard one to think through and maybe we should even try to figure it out too much. But we do need to just ask ourselves hard questions. Paul says this is what I mean brothers, the appointed time has grown very short, from now on, but those who have wives live as though they had none and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing and those who buy as though they had no goods and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings in it. For the present form of this world is passing away. 

Now, this seems like a contradictory, certainly a paradoxical kind of life. I'm buying goods and yet as though I have nothing. I'm married, and yet it's as though I'm not. What there's something here that I think a lot of us don't get. Maybe none of us gets fully and for some it is taken the extreme of of just abandoning family and all of that. There were a few cases of that in church history, but for a lot of us we say, well, Boy, that's a strange sounding passage. I don't really get it. Next page, please. This is extremely important and it ties in with a couple of things Jesus said, If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. That's coming up in your Bible reading. 

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. Every day you pick up cross, and you say Jesus first, every day. That means if Jesus gives an order, and my wife doesn't like it, too bad. If Jesus gives an order, and it's going to cost me in relation to my material possessions, too bad. It doesn't mean that I hate my wife in the sense that I keep contempt. I mean, the Bible says Love your wives or love your children and so on. But it's like joining the military. If you get an order, whatever attachments you have, sorry, you're going. That's the way it is. And that's what it means in a sense to die to this world. That I've got my marching orders from Jesus and I can't let other attachments keep me from that. Jesus says unless a grain of wheat falls in the earth, it remains alone but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it. Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. That’s a strong language of hating your life and of hating all the things that matter a lot to you. And there's a sense in which they all have to matter zero to you in comparison with Jesus. 

Now, that's just not realistic. And maybe not and that's why our lives are so difficult. Because we don't find this realistic, we are paralyzed with fear that something might be taken from us. Because those things have come to matter to us so enormously, and we have not yet died to those attachments. We haven't yet learned the secret of living as though we weren't married. Of having stuff and yet living as though we didn't have that stuff and as though had no hold on us. 

And next and very closely related is, is Christ really my life? Is Jesus all the world to me. Well, this is in a sense, my favorite phrase in Colossians. Christ in you the hope of glory and Paul speaks of being strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith. I've been crucified with Christ, so he's died to the world. It's no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And this is just a question you know, I don't have lots of secret meanings and teachings to give you on this. I have this question. Is Christ in you? And is He really your life? Christ who is your life? Again, that's a very searching question. It's one that you're better off just thinking about a long time than reading lots of Bible passages about it, or having somebody to talk to you at length about it. Just ask Christ. I believe that you're in me because I'm a Christian. I wouldn't believe at all unless you've already done some work in me and taken over. But boy, there's a lot more of you that I would like to be aware of, and I would like you to be my whole life. The apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians when he said I can't decide whether I'd rather live or die. Living would mean useful work but dying Well, that's going to be with Christ which is far better. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. As soon as you can say, to live is Christ but dying his gain because dying is more of Christ than you will ever have experienced while you're living. 

Can I walk by faith in what's unseen. We look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. Your life is hid with Christ in God. For the things that are seen are transient. The things that are unseen, are eternal. Can I walk by faith?  Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 we walk by faith and not by sight. The reason the world doesn't know us, it's hidden here. It's hidden from the world and it's partially hidden even from us. The reason the world doesn't know us is they didn't know him. Beloved, we are God's children now and what we will be has not yet appeared. It is hidden with Christ in God. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. Now I have to accept that as a fact. That even if Christianity is true, even if Christ is the enemy, even if Christ is my all and those are some big ifs, and often are matters of degree. But even if all of that is true, I am not going to have a direct clear scene perception of Jesus inside me and of heaven. Because it's hidden. There is a hiddenness to faith that is impossible to erase the sight of glory. And a big part of faith is living with hiddenness and taking it on simply the word of God as the Holy Spirit applies it to our hearts and looking to the things that are unseen and keeping on looking but at the same time realizing that they are unseen and that they're hidden.

Now, not entirely hidden from us, even though they are. The world can't quite figure out this hidden life. One aspect of having a hidden life and I want to prevent a misunderstanding here. If your life is hidden you say, well, nobody can tell I'm a Christian. That's not what it's meant to be. Jesus says, Let your light shine before men. You know, you need to bear fruit. But when it's hidden from the world, it doesn't mean that there's nothing about you that gives evidence of Christ's life in you, but it means that your deepest tap roots of life can't be seen by anybody else. That's one thing that it means. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. And so the fruit is visible, but your source of life is hidden often from the view of others. They don't really know what makes you you and what the secret of your life and strength is. 

Another aspect of course of being hidden. The Greek word by the way, is cryptos, a crypt. But sometimes the crypt is a place for a dead body. But a crypt can also be a place that is a safe or a vault or a place that is extremely well protected. And so when you're hidden with Christ in God, it means your eternal life is totally safe. It's not vulnerable to the attacks of the earth. Because  your life is is already exalted with Christ in God and nothing can snatch you out of his hand. And so there's also something wonderful. You know, the hiddenness can be frustrating on the one hand, because you can't see and perceive it as clearly as you'd always like. But the other side of that hiddenness is it is completely safe with Christ in God. You're in his vault. Your life is and nothing can get or steal you. Jesus that's another reason why he says don't store up yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. Store up in someplace where the thieves can't get in and steal. And where your treasure is there your heart will be also. It's just another Jesus version of Colossians three verses one through four. Setting your heart on things above and storing up your treasure in heaven. 

And another question, what is my picture of heaven? It's an important one. When the other things are in a good position, but heaven is that glowing fog bank it still may have some very difficult time being appealing to you. Paul speaks of people who are enemies of the cross. He says, their end is destruction. Their god is their gut, and they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things. Now that's I include that sense to show you how dangerous and deadly it is to be set on earthly things. These are the people whose God is their gut. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a savior the Lord Jesus who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Now I think I'll spend some time next week just talking about eternal pleasures and about the wonders of eternity and of the thrill of it. I just want to mention now you know, he says transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, a body that can walk on water. A body that can fly. A  body that can go from one place to another instantly simply by wheeling it. A body that rules over the creation as God intended. A relationship with Christ. Our citizenship is in heaven and we're waiting not just our bodies but our Savior. 

And, again, our picture of heaven is going to be about as thrilling as our love of Jesus. And the measure of our love of Jesus is oftentimes the measure of how eager we are to see him face to face. These, at least for me are very searching at times, discouraging questions to probe and think about. At other times exciting and glorious ones, but they need to be thought about as preparation for becoming a more heavenly minded person. Maybe when I'm preaching next I'll just talk all about heaven. It'll be very heavenly minded sermon in that sense. But in a call to be heavenly minded, the danger is you might hear a sermon like that and like it. And then by Monday, you're back to your old Bob. And so it's very important to say am I really heavenly minded? And what are the things that keep me from being so. 

Just to quickly review those and think about what else may have come to your mind as we were meditating on, in this sermon. Am I actually eager to go to heaven? You know, the old story of the person who asked, well, is there baseball in heaven? And the person says, Yeah, well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is there is baseball in heaven. The bad news is you're pitching tonight. Well, sometimes we believe that heaven is real, and maybe even it has a lot of delightful things in it. But we still think would be bad news if we had to go there right away. And we do need to get to be more heavenly minded. And so in each of these, think about am I heavenly minded? Am I here for heaven, am I here for Christ's return? Do I like to focus on Jesus now and talk to him and think about him and think about my heavenly home? And then what are some of the hindrances. Am I sure that Jesus is for real? Am I sure my relationship with him is for real and that his life is in me? What are the desires and distractions? Have I died with him to this world? Can I live married as though not married? And having possessions and yet as though not having them? And can I in one sense, hate the things of this life and in another positive sense, love them properly for Jesus sake? Is Christ really the world to me my whole life? Can I deal with unseen things? And not just the stuff that's right front or my nose that I can touch and look at? And what's my picture of heaven? And explore whatever other questions as you think about this, what keeps you from being heavenly minded and address those and pray for God's help to overcome whatever these hindrances may be and understand realistically how this works. It does not mean that necessarily you'll have zero heavenly mindedness. And then 20 minutes later, you are 100% heavenly minded person from then on. There is a lifelong growth in your attraction to Christ in heaven and the heaven that he's prepared for and he's bringing back to earth again. 

So let's conclude by just going back to where we started and read this passage together. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears you also will appear with Him in glory. 

Lord, we pray that you will shower your grace upon us and by the work of Your Holy Spirit give us the foretaste of heaven, the first installment on our inheritance, the joy unspeakable and full of glory, and the foretaste of things yet to come. We ask Father, that you will forgive our many failings and our lack of faith. And we confess that we are people of little faith and yet Lord as with those first disciples, you often call them people of little faith, and yet you helped them and brought them to much greater faith and we pray the same for us. Help us Lord to set our hearts and our minds on the things above, to seek communion with you now and to desire and long for your return when heaven comes to earth and all things were made new. Lord, help each brother and sister here as we've been thinking about some very searching and challenging questions. Help us learn not to be cast down into discouragement by these. Lord, if we need a relationship with you and don't have one help us Lord to receive and pursue that before another day goes by. And where we see areas where we need to grow up, help us not to be discouraged, but rejoice that you're using this hour of worship even now to set our hearts and our minds back where they belong. On you. To clear away the things that hinder and to bring us closer to you, Father we pray now that you will make this happen in us and help us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For his name we pray, Amen.