The View

“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.”