ARE YOU READY? HOW MANY TIMES, do you think, have you been asked that question? Back in 1965, The Impressions released their album, People Get Ready, with its title song of the same name. It immediately rose to number three on the charts. So powerful was the song that it became a classic of the Rhythm and Blues genre.
Curtis Mayfield, a member of the group and the writer and composer of the song, was asked about its origins. He said, It “was taken from my church, or from the upbringing of messages from the church.” And, if you listen to the song, you can tell that. It talks about “a train a-comin’,” and it’s heaven-bound. “You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board. All you need is faith. You just thank the Lord.” But you’ve got to “get ready.” “People, get ready,” the song says, because here and there among us is the “hopeless sinner…whose chances grow thinner,” and “there’s no hiding place against the kingdom’s throne.”
The truth is, we may not be all that ready. When you think about it, in heaven we are to appear before a holy God, glorious in splendor and majesty, of whom Scripture says that He is “of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” (Hab. 1:13). Shall He then look upon us? I think how much wrong I have done and how I yet entertain sin as though it were an honored guest not to be turned away, while in God’s eyes it is utterly repugnant, not to be tolerated but rather destroyed.
So, God works in us to wean us from sin and to get us ready for heaven, ready to be in His presence without being consumed by the fire of His holiness. But if we’re to be ready, we’ve got to get on board. We have to get ready ourselves for heaven. And here in Colossians 3, Paul tells us how. It is by (1) readying our minds, (2) readying our hearts, and (3) readying our hands. After all, these are the three most important things about us: how we think, what we love, and what we do.
I. BY READYING OUR MINDS FOR HEAVEN
So, the first thing we have to do to get ready for heaven is: We’ve got to ready our minds. We’ve got to attend to how we think. Paul says in verse 2, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” So, what does that mean? Two things: (1) We have to think about where Christ is, and (2) we have to think about where we will be.
So, where is Christ? According to verse 1, He is “seated at the right hand of God,” the place of authority and power. He is in heaven. And we need to remember that. We need to think about that. The Bible tells us—does it not?—to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is” (v. 1) and to “set [our] minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (v. 2).
The poet Wordsworth has an oft quoted poem that begins, “The world is too much with us,” and in that poem he laments the fact that “we lay waste our powers” “getting and spending.” To put it differently, we squander our strength in pursuits unworthy of our highest goals. He says, “We have given our hearts away.”
So, we must recover them. And we begin by thinking about where Christ is. Why? Because that’s where we’re going to be.
And so, we are not only to think about where Christ is but also about where we will be. Look at verse 3. Paul says, “You have died.” You might say, “I didn’t know. Someone should have told me.” Well, I’m telling you. Now. You have died. The whole point of Christianity is identifying with Christ in His death and resurrection. Paul says in Romans 6, “We know that our old self was crucified with [Christ]” (v. 6), and in that same passage he says, “We have died with Christ” (v. 8), just like he does here in Colossians. And what he means is that we have died to sin. Paul says elsewhere that “those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24).
But that’s not the end of it. Paul also says, “If we have been united with [Christ] in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5), which means, “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (v. 8). Which is exactly what Paul says here in Colossians: “You have died, and.”—what? “you life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). And so, “when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (v. 4). What’s he saying? He’s saying, You will be in heaven. Give thought to that. Think about where Christ is, because that’s where you will be. Are you ready?
II. BY READYING OUR HEARTS FOR HEAVEN
If the first way we get ready is by readying our minds—setting them “on things that are above, where Christ is”—the second way we get ready is by readying our hearts. And when I speak of our hearts, what I mean is our affections, our desires. What do we long for? What do we cherish?
Now, Paul says here that we ready our hearts (1) by putting off what is earthly and (2) by putting on what is heavenly. And we must look at the putting off part first. And, believe me, it’s a bloody business.
What we are to put off, of course, is the desire for sin. You may notice that this passage has three different ways of talking about this. In verse 9, we’re told to “put off the old self.” In the verse before that, verse 8, we’re told to “put away” such things as “anger, wrath, malice,” and so forth. But the strongest language is the language used first, in verse 5. There we’re told to “put to death…what is earthly in [us],” things like “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness.” We must put them to death. We must be killing sin.
Why are we so loath to do this? Why am I so reluctant, so unwilling? I can hardly bring myself to kill a bug—not because I am afraid of insects but because I respect life. So, Jan will ask me to do away with some little critter, and I grab a paper cup so as to capture the hapless fellow and take him outdoors. I can’t create life, so I don’t like taking it. But let a scorpion show its evil form in my vicinity, and I have no hesitation. I’ll kill it without blinking and think I’ve done the world some good.
Why aren’t we like that with sin? Oh, it comes to us dressed in such appealing attire. But what we don’t see is the knife it carries in the folds of its robes. It is like a fishing lure, which I can only assume looks irresistible to a fish. But what the fish doesn’t see is the barb—and not just one in most cases but many. It looks like life, but it is in actuality death. And, to quote John Owen, we must be killing sin, or it will be killing us.
Our desires, then, must be transformed. Our affections must be changed. So we put off—or, better, put to death—what is earthly in us. And then we must put on what is heavenly. We see this in verse 9. We must “put on the new self,” which is, after all, “being renewed…after the image of its creator.” Do you see what this means? We were created in the image of God to begin with. We bear the Imago Dei. But we have sorely misshapen it. It is in the best of us a blurred image. But now, through Christ, the image is being restored. It is coming into focus. We are becoming more and more Christlike—or, at least, that is to be our intent—which means we are becoming more and more godly, “being renewed in…the image of [our] creator.”
Is that your desire? If you have died with Christ and been raised with Him, it is. It is your holy longing. Jesus once said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21). So, where is your heart? What do you have it set on? What do you desire more than anything? Is it Christ? It ought to be. I know that sounds “preachy,” but what do you expect? In any case, it’s true. And here’s the thing: Anything else you desire—though it may look pretty and promise much—it will in the end disappoint. Whatever it is—fame or fortune, sex or power, whatever—it cannot sustain and satisfy, not in the long run. For one day, if you are in Christ, you will be in heaven, and you will want to be developing a taste for it now. Because it is going to be all about Jesus. Do you think you can stand that? Best to get ready.
III. BY READYING OUR HANDS FOR HEAVEN
And you get ready (1) by readying your mind and (2) by readying your heart and by one more thing: (3) readying your hands. You ready your mind by knowing what’s true and believing it. You ready your heart by being the kind of person God created and redeemed you to be. And you ready your hands by doing on earth what is approved in heaven. If you are to put off sin—and you must—you are also to put on virtue. And that involves two things.
First, it involves living in fellowship with one another. The next verses in our passage are almost lyrical. Verses 12 and 13 show us what it means to live on earth while obsessed with heaven. “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other.” And then there’s verse 14: “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
In his book, Practice Resurrection, Eugene Peterson asks, “Why the church?” And his answer is worth contemplating. He says, “Because the Holy Spirit formed it to be a colony of heaven in the country of death.” What a compelling notion of the church—“a colony of heaven in the country of death.” And what we mean by “the church,” of course, is not the building or the institution but the fellowship, the people. What we mean is you. We are to be a parable to the world outside, a window onto heaven. We are to live with each other as if we were already in heaven. We are to live in fellowship with one another.
And the way we do that is by living in fellowship with Christ. That’s where the last few verses of this passage take us. They take us to Christ. Beginning in verse 15, we read, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” We move from there to verse 16, which says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” And then, finally, verse 17, where we read, “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Do you see how we end where we began—with Jesus? He truly is “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13).
And the more you set your mind on Him, the more you set your heart on Him, the more your words and actions reflect Him, the less appeal sin will have. Believe Him to be your priceless treasure, and you will have less cause to think sin will be your greatest pleasure. Love Him and desire Him above all else, you will find all else to have but fading beauty compared to His. Serve Him joyfully and with firm intent, and you will not then serve sin and self.
Ready yourself for heaven. Ready your mind, your heart, and your will. And one day, when you’re there, you won’t feel like a stranger. You will have finally and safely arrived at home. And you will be ready.
