“THE VIEW”
Colossians 3:1-2 (Read from NIV and THE MESSAGE)
ABC’s “The View” - the winner of the 2003 Daytime Emmy® Award for "Outstanding Talk Show" as quoted by its own website! ABC News correspondent Barbara Walters, the renowned Whoopi Goldberg, comedian Joy Behar, actress/comedian Sherri Shepherd and The Australian Outback “Survivor”, Elisabeth Hasselbeck are the featured hosts. Their discussions relate to the exciting events and entertainment of the day.
CBC NEWS MORNING – segment called “POV” or “Point of View”. Viewers are invited to share their Points of View on current events or political issues. For instance, CBC asked if people will engage the CRTC in discussions about commercials being too loud. Of the 1,123 votes (as of July 19, 2010), 86% (971 people) said they will be part of that dialogue!
People have an opinion, a point of view. Oftentimes, speaking our point of view changes very little, if anything, except how it makes us feel – “I said my piece!”
Point of view is everything however in terms of how we understand life and deal with living – priorities, focus, perspectives and pursuits.
Colossians 3:1-2 talks to us about how we should see things and how we need to see things in our materialistic, God-ignorant, it’s-all-up-to-you society.
- J.B. Phillips who translated Rom 12:2 as letting the world squeeze us into its mold…thinking, behaving, attitude, prioritizing
To have a healthy point of view
1. CHECK YOUR POINT OF VIEW
(3:1) “Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts”
Message – paraphrases “set your hearts” as meaning, “Act like it!” To say: “Since then you have been raised with Christ, act like it!”
- “Since then” … no doubt! If any doubt, there begins the problem.
- “Act”…connotation – choice, a decision regarding direction, behaviour, focus.
Sometimes our point of view or perspective doesn’t behave like people who have been raised with Christ. One source stirs our hearts with the story of “Michelangelo’s indignant protest, when he turned in his stormy way upon his fellow-painters and demanded, ‘Why do you keep filling gallery after gallery with endless pictures of the one over-reiterated theme, of Christ in weakness, Christ upon the cross, Christ dying, most of all Christ hanging dead? Why do you concentrate upon that passing episode, as if that were the last word and the final scene, as if the curtain dropped upon that horror of disaster and defeat? At worst, all that lasted for only a few hours. But to the end of unending eternity Christ is alive, Christ rules and reigns and triumphs.’”
Our “act” is often, “OFF”! Too often we’re in a funk in the shadow of the cross instead of walking in the blaze of the empty tomb! Too often we behave as if Christ is still dead. He isn’t! He’s alive, have you heard? I am sure Father wants us to leave this place today like someone captured by the experience of Christ alive in us!
(3:1) - “Set your hearts” and (3:2) - “Set your minds” – potentially one lesson is the merging of emotion and intellect, both arrested by awareness of God, here; now! “Set” – engaging emotion and intellect should become a priority … both conscious and actively witnessing that we have been raised with Christ!
Scholar Dr. William Barclay captures what happens to the follower of Jesus who is plugged in to the resurrection – “the Christian will view everything against the background of eternity and no longer live as if the world was all that mattered.” He further offers that this change of heart, this change of focus means we use the world’s things in a new way. “He will…set giving above getting, serving above ruling, forgiving above avenging.”
Our point of view – an experiential reality of God at work – or not, is critical to how we respond to life and its challenges.
- Pastor Randy Alcorn, pastor of a large church for 13 years. Being a board member of a crisis pregnancy center led to peaceful protests for the unborn. It also resulted in being arrested and jailed. He had to resign from his church to spare it from legal actions, could make no more than minimum wage. Another abortion clinic filed suits and they were awarded $8.4 million. Alcorn says, “By all appearances and certainly by the world’s standards, our lives had taken a devastating turn. Right? Wrong. It was one of the best things that ever happened.” He then goes on to tell of tremendous ministry opportunities that followed as a result. Now that’s a healthy perspective, a spiritual point of view. This is how one acts when aware they’ve been raised with Christ!
- Marberry, Picirilli and Ellis in their book “Galatians through Colossians”: “Instead of making outward behaviors in themselves the standard of spirituality, the goal established is a heavenly mindedness. Sometimes the thought of being heavenly minded is ridiculed because people forget about the here and now on earth. That is unfortunate because the key to earthly effectiveness is a heavenly outlook.”
- Scholar, Reverend James Hastings: “To be ‘risen with Christ’ is to possess a new viewpoint, and to judge things by altered standards of value.”
Pont of View is paramount because
2. PONT OF VIEW DETERMINES PURSUITS
Continuing in 3:1 – “Since then you have been raised with Christ set your hearts (where?) On things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”
Message: “Pursue the things over which Christ presides.”
We live in dangerous times. Mankind has always lived in life-threatening times. Author and Pastor, Chuck Swindoll warns of the danger of substituting the temporal for the eternal. Humanity has faced this danger since Adam and Eve, the danger of substituting the temporal for the eternal. Adam and Eve did it when they ate the forbidden fruit. Cain did it when he killed his brother, Abel. Esau did it when he sold his birthright to his younger brother, Jacob, for a bowl of stew. Judas did it when he betrayed Jesus. Are we doing it? Are there ways you are substituting for temporal things, giving away the eternal in exchange?
Have to determine where your heart is set and if displaced, you must reposition your reality to embrace the instruction to “set your heart on things above.” Jesus said in Matthew 6:21, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be.” If your treasure is temporal, your heart is set there. If eternal, it is set there. If your soul is danger, get out now!
How do you get out? How do you save yourself?
3. ADJUST YOUR PERSPECTIVE
(3:2) “Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things.”
Message: “Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up and be alert to what is going on around Christ. – That’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.”
Not “what is going on around you”. What is going on around you?
- Pain and problems, strife and struggles, hurts and habits, enslavements and addictions. Need something bigger and better than that and that something bigger includes being “alert to what is going on around Christ!”
What is going on around Christ?
- Stephen being stoned for his faith in Christ – Acts 7:56, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
- Matthew 19:28, you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
- Hebrews 8:1, Taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens”
- Rev 3:21, ’He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne!”
- There are elders around his throne sitting on 24 other thrones! (Rev 4:4), there will be flashes of lightning and peals of thunder from his throne (Rev 4:5); God holds the book of life on that throne (Rev 5:7) and we can go on and on!
- What do these references tell us about what’s going on around Him? It reveals authority in place of anarchy; control instead of chaos; life instead of death; victory instead of defeat; mystery replaced with full disclosure of God’s plan never once lost or overcome but fulfilled! That’s what’s going on around Him! He’s sitting on the Throne of thrones! Even Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, William and Princess Kate will bow to His Lordship!! That’s what’s going on around Him!
That changes things doesn’t it?!
- 2nd potential lesson about setting heart and mind – Heart (affections) and mind (reasoning). By recognizing what is going on around Christ, the defeatism and agony of the temporal soon pales and is pushed to the shadows!
Seeing things from His perspective includes the instruction of commentator William McDonald. He offers that the Christian should not be earthbound in our outlook. We should view things not as they appear to the natural eye but in reference to their importance to God and to eternity.
- Birchy Bay – hill next to our residence. 20 minute steep climb. Perspectives – standing on my front lawn versus the peak of that hill. See the car broke down; the lady appears anxious pacing around but there’s the tow truck coming in the highway so she’s gonna’ be looked after in a few moments. She could only see her perspective from the immediate, surrounding realties of her condition. I could see the bigger picture – help is on the way
- For me it was a snapshot of Christ’s perspective! Too often I can only understand what’s going on from the purview of my front lawn. I need to remember a ‘Higher’ perspective that is in play.
When we look through heaven’s eyes, to quote A T. Robertson (author), “the Christian is seeking heaven and is thinking heaven. His feet are upon the earth, but his head is in the stars.”
WRAP
• What’s the view like where you are?
• Where is your heart set?
• Is it time to adopt a different point of view and look at things through a ‘Higher’ perspective?
