Good afternoon, brothers and sisters. Well, that is so wonderful. We can worship our God and stand on His Word.
We want to read some verses from Colossians 3. If you would open your Bibles, please, we will read the first eleven verses.
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience.
And in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.
But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.
Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old man with its evil practices, and have put on the new man, who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—
a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, and freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.
—Colossians 3:1-11
And then just some verses in Ephesians 2, as our brother read this morning—Ephesians 2:4.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
—Ephesians 2:4-10
Our Father, we come to You with this gospel presented before us. We thank You so much for the Word of God upon which we can stand, as our brother has testified.
And now we pray that, by the Holy Spirit, Your Word could become living to us and enable us to stand more fully in that spiritual ascendancy to which we have all been called. Help us, Lord, in this time. With our tired bodies, quicken them; and our minds, quicken them; especially our hearts. Quicken us to respond to You in worship and commitment.
We thank You, Lord, for this time together. In Jesus’ name, amen.
We certainly had a wonderful introduction this morning, with our brother Stephen sharing regarding this matter of spiritual ascendancy. I think most of you were here—perhaps some were still on the way—but basically he said that spiritual ascendancy is when we obtain, by grace through faith, that which was attained by our Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of Man when He died, rose again, was raised up, and was seated at the right hand of God the Father.
It is the Lord Jesus who did all that. But we, by grace through faith, enter into the good of it. There is a frequent expression that could be applied to spiritual ascendancy: somebody is truly living in the good of the gospel.
We read in Ephesians 2 regarding our death, our being quickened, raised up, and seated with Christ; and then, “By grace you have been saved through faith.” But Paul’s understanding of what it means to be saved is much more than simply coming to Jesus and having our sins forgiven.
When Paul speaks of being saved, he includes being raised up and seated with Christ in the heavenly places, attaining to spiritual ascendancy. This is all involved. When he says in Ephesians 2:10 that we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which He prepared beforehand for us to walk in, he is again speaking of this spiritual ascendancy that all of us have come to through Jesus Christ our Lord.
I thought afternoons would be a better time to share practical things. I want to share some practical things with you in these two sessions. Today, I want to look in Colossians, because there we see, as it were, the objective basis of our spiritual ascendancy.
Specifically, Colossians emphasizes the necessity of our standing on the Word of God. Alan’s song was no mistake at all, nor was his testimony, because this is exactly what we want to share this afternoon.
For us truly to go the way of spiritual ascendancy—I suppose that would be the title of my two messages: “The Way to Spiritual Ascendancy.” The first way, which we will talk about more or less today, is found in Colossians. It tells us the priority of the Word of God being truly understood, embraced, and stood upon by faith, if we are ever to come to this place in our life and experience.
Let me give you three little points from Colossians 3. I know this is also a siesta-friendly time of day, and just in case you fall off and have a big line going down your note page, if you can get these three things down, you will have basically understood everything I want to say.
First, Colossians 3:2:
Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
There is some objective ground here—something we can do. Set your mind on the things above.
Second, notice Colossians 3:10: the new man is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.
Very much connected with our spiritual ascendancy is a true knowledge of who we are, made in the image of the One who created us.
Third, in Colossians 3:16, which we did not read:
Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thanksgiving in your hearts to God.
There we are. Those are the three points, all having to do, as it were, with the Word of God.
Tomorrow, I want to consider the way of spiritual ascendancy by looking in Ephesians. We are all going to be dealing with these two books this weekend. In Ephesians, I find the basis of our attaining spiritual ascendancy through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let us look again for a moment at these verses in Ephesians 2. It speaks of us being made alive together with Christ in verse 5, raised up with Him in verse 6, and seated with Him in the heavenly places in Christ.
All of this is possible because of what Paul says in Ephesians 1. There he is speaking about the surpassing greatness of God’s power toward us who believe. How great is this power? It is the power exercised in Christ when God raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.
Do you see the connection? Because He was raised, we are raised. Because He has been seated at the right hand of the Father, we are seated with Him in the heavenly places. There is a gospel connection here.
Paul’s point in Ephesians 1 is that we might see, by spiritual revelation, this tremendous spiritual power that is moving us and pressing us into this reality. It is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, fully able to raise us and bring us onto resurrection ground.
Tomorrow, Lord willing, we will look at Ephesians and at some of the exercises of spirit that bring us into this process of spiritual ascendancy. But now, let us go back to Colossians.
Before we launch deeply into Colossians, one thing is worth noting. Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon are commonly called Paul’s prison epistles. He wrote them from prison, and most believe that all four were written at approximately the same time while he was in jail in Rome.
The interesting thing about these four epistles is that they represent Paul’s highest thought. As a body of literature, they are a testimony to Paul’s spiritual ascendancy.
In the New Testament, there is no man as unique as Paul—Christ excepted. Paul had such deep experience. He was such a faithful brother. He went through such suffering. He did such masterful building. In every way, he was an unusual man. But let us give him credit for being a sinner saved by grace.
He progressed spiritually even as he served the Lord. When you compare his earlier letters to his later letters, there is a noticeable spiritual ascendancy testified to when you read these amazing letters.
In his earlier letters, Paul was laboring, preaching the gospel, experiencing persecution, and facing difficult situations. As he preached the gospel and built the church, he often had to fight, defending the gospel against Judaizers and all kinds of false doctrine.
In Galatians, you find him addressing Judaizers who were getting into the gospel and distorting it. In Thessalonians, some of his earlier letters, you find him contending with those teaching false things about the second coming and the day of the Lord. He had to straighten out many outward matters.
But now we see him in Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon. He is in jail. Could I put it this way, for simplicity? His outward ministry is over. Yet he has come to the place where he is ministering more effectively than previously.
We see him in these letters and realize that this man may be in jail, but he is unhindered. He has come to a perspective and a place—seated with Christ in the heavenly places—where he is aware and able to minister in a way he perhaps never saw so clearly before.
When we are busy doing things, we do not always see so clearly how much God can do. Sometimes the Lord lays a missionary or pastor on his back with an illness, only for him to discover that God can still work while he is laid down. It is a lesson for all of us.
Look at Colossians 1:28. Remember, Paul is in prison. He has brothers and sisters who come and minister to him, and perhaps he can speak with them in some limited way. Yet when we listen to him, we do not get the feeling that he is held back in any way.
We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.
For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.
—Colossians 1:28-29
For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf, and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face,
that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself,
in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
—Colossians 2:1-3
Here is Paul in jail, yet wrestling and struggling. He is an unshackled intercessor. He is not able to go, and in Asia Minor there are many Christians he has never even seen face to face. But it no longer makes any difference.
Before, he saw and worked with everybody face to face. Now there are people becoming Christians whom he knows only by name, as he hears reports. It makes no difference. We find him up in the heavenlies, praying and interceding. “Oh, I wrestled for the Colossians today.” You might ask, “What are you talking about?” Yet his wrestling was effectual.
He was living in spiritual ascendancy. Even as Jesus came down, died, and rose again for our sake to attain this place, Paul has come to a place of intercession and unceasing priesthood, even though he is in jail.
Do you sense that he is bound up? Of course, I am sure there were times when he paced around and said, “I wish it would stop raining. I wish I could jump out the window and hang glide.” But that was not his situation. While he was in jail, he was wrestling. Is that not wonderful?
When you read these epistles, you do not get the feeling of somebody trapped, limited, and unable to go on. Here in Colossians, Paul is traversing the heights and depths of Christ. He is up in the mountains: “Wow, look how big Christ is!”
Many of you have heard me speak from Colossians about the macrocosmic Christ and the microcosmic Christ. Paul speaks of the macrocosmic Christ, who is over all and created all things. Paul had time, and God revealed to him such a wonderful revelation of who Christ was. There is nothing higher or more wonderful than this.
I always picture the writers of the New Testament as poor little cameramen trying to take a picture of Jesus. After all, the Gospels and epistles are little photographs of Jesus.
Mark begins with one of those little cameras—out comes a little picture. Mark gives us the Gospel of Jesus, the Savior, the Servant, the Son of God.
Then Matthew comes along, and the Spirit says, “Matthew, move the camera back. This thing of Jesus does not start at the Jordan River. This thing of Jesus starts with Abraham and God’s promise to the Jews.” So Matthew has a wider-angle lens.
By the time Luke writes his Gospel, the Spirit says, “Move the camera back, Luke. It starts with Adam.” His genealogy begins there in Luke. Look how the camera is pushed back to take in Jesus since Adam.
Then John comes along. “John, go to the end of the universe and capture it.”
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
—John 1:1
What a picture! There is a long lens on that one.
Now Paul is in prison, and the Spirit says, “Move the camera back. He not only created everything; everything was created for Him. Get hold of that. You have really got to take it back now.”
So there is Paul in jail, measuring the height, depth, length, and breadth of Christ. This is his remedy for the Colossians for anything small. His understanding is unshackled. This is spiritual ascendancy.
Or consider Paul in Ephesians. “Poor fellow is in jail.” No, he is not. He has become a worshiper. In his letter to the Ephesians, is he praying? Is he worshiping? He is praying and worshiping.
He says, “I bow my knees,” and I believe Paul got down on his knees. He says that he worships and gives thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe he was raising his hands. Was he on his knees or raising his hands? He was praising, exhorting, and praying.
Here is an unshackled prayer, an unshackled preacher, and an unshackled writer—writing and praying, writing and praying. That poor amanuensis was writing it all down, never able to figure out, “Are you praying now, Paul? Am I supposed to be writing?”
Paul realized the importance of the revelation of the Spirit to the truth, and so he pressed these things on.
Then consider Philippians. I simply want you to see that this man is in jail, but he is in spiritual ascendancy. Is he full of sour grapes? No, all he is full of is joy—unshackled joy.
He says, “This matter of me being put in prison has worked the reverse of the way the devil intended. More people are getting saved than ever before since I was thrown in jail. Everybody in Caesar’s household knows the gospel. And some of the brothers, finding out I am in prison, have redoubled their efforts and faithfulness to preach the gospel.”
“Praise God for my being jailed!” You cannot hold him down. Even those people preaching in order to get at him—who cares? If they are preaching Jesus, that is fine.
Here is a man full of joy. While he is in jail, this is the one thing he does:
Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
—Philippians 3:13-14
This man is in unshackled pursuit of Jesus. Forget the bars; forget the jail. This man is free.
Even in Philemon, we see this little picture of Paul saying, “You know, Onesimus running away—the whole terrible circumstance—worked together for good. The Lord had His hand in the whole thing.”
When we read these letters, we say, “Wow, look at the place he has come to. Look where he is standing. Look how he is administering the Word. Look how he is praying. Look at him wrestling in intercession.” Here is a brother who has come into the reality of what we are calling the way of spiritual ascendancy.
This matter of spiritual ascendancy, which Paul is in as he addresses the Colossians, enables him to see beyond their circumstances to the spiritual issues behind them.
This is one mark of spiritual ascendancy: somebody can see the spiritual realities and issues behind outward conflicts. Paul was very clear as he wrote to them.
The mark of somebody growing in this way spiritually is that they realize that ninety-nine percent of the circumstances in their life have some spiritual reason to them. Maybe one percent are merely circumstances.
In our early days, we think that ninety-nine percent of the things in our life are because of a bad employer, a rotten circumstance, a nasty wife, or disobedient children. It is never our fault, you see. There are never spiritual issues involved in our difficult circumstances; it is always just the luck of the draw.
But with spiritual maturity, we see that the events of our life all have a working and a goal. Paul sees behind the things taking place among the Colossians.
The problem with the Colossians, these young Christians, has to do with what I will call insecurity. They were insecure.
Paul sees that their insecurity has become ground for the enemy to capture, oppress, and put them in some kind of bondage. He looks beyond their insecurity and sees what is lying underneath. He sees the lion roaring and taking hold of some of these Christians.
What do I mean by insecurity? The Colossians were embracing philosophies, religions, and even asceticism because they felt that they were not good enough Christians.
They were the kind of Christians who think they are spiritual by saying, “Oh, I am not holy enough. I just do not know enough. I would like to serve God, but I do not know enough. I do not have enough power. I do not have enough faith. I do not believe enough. I do not serve enough.”
That is ground for the enemy to come along and gain an advantage over you. The key word is enough.
When we say, “I do not believe enough,” it gives ground for me to do something about it in myself. “I do not know enough”—so I go and learn Greek. Then, having learned the Greek New Testament, I still do not know enough.
This matter of enough is where the flesh gets involved. Where the flesh gets involved, religion can come in, because religion speaks to our flesh.
The insecure natural mind, in order to know more, will eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and get itself into even more trouble.
Religious men came along and told these people, “The whole Christian faith is involved in many mysterious and complex mysteries.” The Colossians said, “Ooh, that sounds exciting. I can get my mind all worked up and discover all kinds of interesting things.”
But it is a trap for the Christian.
A prevalent view at the time of this letter was the Greek view of man as soul and body. This philosophy, associated with Plato and Socrates, came to a dualism in which the soul was good but the body was bad.
Therefore, they said, you have to beat up on the body. You always have to hit the body because the body is bad. All your temptations and the reason you lose your temper are because your body is bad. “Bad body, bad body.”
Meanwhile, your soul is supposedly good: “Oh, I am such a good person. I just have a bad body.” Religion loves that. It plays right into asceticism and all kinds of things.
What is really needed is an understanding that man is body, soul, and spirit. When you understand the dynamics of the spirit of a man, you understand the soul’s proper relationship. It is not that the body and soul are evil; the question is, who is running the show? That is the key.
But religion says, “Take your good soul and do something about your ugly body.”
Paul addresses this in Colossians 2:23:
These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.
—Colossians 2:23
Oh, how the Christian gets sucked in. Now listen, let me make the point before I go on. I do not want you to misunderstand.
What Christian here is willing to raise his hand and say, “I am holy enough”? Nobody. Do we want to be holy? Then we run to Christ, who has been made sanctification to us.
Do we want more knowledge? Then we come to Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Our desire to be more holy, to have more knowledge, or to serve more faithfully means that we run to Christ and take His yoke upon us.
It is always running to Christ that enables us to grow. Religion does not have us run to Christ; it has us do something about it in ourselves and form a very complicated religious system.
Christian Chen is one of the most complicated Christian men I know. I say that because, at the end of the summer, I went on a trip with our brother and another hundred and fifty people to Turkey, Greece, and Italy, in the footsteps of Paul.
Along the way, I got hold of a little book on Greek mythology, because we were visiting the temple of Apollo, the temple of Zeus, and so on. I wanted to bone up on it. Christian Chen is divinely simple compared with the complexity of Greek mythology.
When you touch human religion, it is so complicated. There are so many gods, idols, people doing and counterdoing. Every god who does something has another god who does not like what was done and counters it. It is such a complicated mess.
It made me realize how complicated religion is. How simple it is to be hidden in Christ and to take Him as our provision. That is spiritual ascendancy.
The Colossians did not understand this completely. Paul’s remedy for their insecurity is: “Oh, Colossians, look at Christ. Look how big He is. He has swallowed up this trap. He is the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form. You are complete in Him. Do not say you are incomplete.”
Or, as we read in Colossians 3:11, at the end of that wonderful passage: “Christ is all, and in all.” There is your religion: Christ is all and in all.
Christ is enough for my holiness. Christ is enough for my knowledge. Christ is enough for my faith. Christ is enough for my serving. Now you are in a good place.
Paul emphasizes this in a number of ways in Colossians, especially this fact: you need to lay hold of the Word of God and gain real spiritual understanding of the will of God.
The Word of God and the will of God—these objective things are absolutely essential for spiritual ascendancy. If we are light on the Word of God, the enemy has ground to fool around with us.
One of Paul’s prayers is found in Colossians 1:9:
For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
—Colossians 1:9-10
Let us stop there, because you see where he is going. We need knowledge, but with true spiritual understanding. It comes from the Word of God. It is so essential, brothers and sisters.
If we are going to speak of spiritual ascendancy, before we wobble off into the heavenlies and start sitting on clouds, the whole matter has to do with a real understanding of the Word of God.
Positionally, every Christian is already made alive, already raised, and already seated. Right? Is anybody still flying but not seated yet?
Because Christ was made alive, raised, and seated, when you embrace Him and are in Christ, it has already happened to you. It is done. That is objectively true. That is your position.
But there is also the subjective side. Paul says at the beginning of Colossians 3:1, “If you have been raised up with Christ.” Now wait a minute. We have just been saying that you have been raised up with Christ. How can he then say, “If you have been raised up with Christ”?
He is using a rhetorical “if.” He is calling our attention to the fact that we need always to ask these things of ourselves in spiritual reality. Not merely, “Are we in the position?” but, “Are we in the life?” Are we truly living in the good of this gospel?
Let me ask three questions presented in Ephesians 2 and Colossians 3.
First: you have been made alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. The question is: Are you really alive to God?
Sometimes I fear we speak as if everybody is already sitting up on a cloud. We need to ask these basic questions. Some people would say, “I have confessed Jesus as my Lord and Savior,” but you do not sense the spark of life. Where is that livingness, that quickened experience?
Are you alive to the reality of the presence of God, or do you not sense Him? Now, I do not want to scare you. Many people are true Christians, but somehow their flesh has brought them into such a state that they do not sense the presence of God.
I am not trying to question your basic Christian confession. But I know that many Christians say they believe in Jesus Christ as Savior, yet there seems to be no living spark of the Holy Spirit in their life.
Are you full of the Holy Spirit? Is the Word of God alive to you? Are you alive in the body of Christ? Do you see that you are part of something? Do you join in the worship?
In other words, not merely, “Have your sins been forgiven? Are you going to heaven?” Are you alive now? Let us ask ourselves that question. Are you alive, or are you merely talking the talk? It is an important question.
Second: we have been raised up together with Him. Yet Colossians says, “If you have been raised up with Christ.” Why would Paul say that?
Has the power of the cross brought us onto resurrection ground? If we really are raised up with Him, we have put aside the old man and put on the new man. We understand what that means. We are living on resurrection ground.
Brothers and sisters, there is no old man who is going to sit with Christ in the heavenly places. He would be tossed right out. Just as Satan was thrown down to the earth, your old man would be thrown down. He would never make it up there in the first place.
There is no room for the old man in the heavenly places. There is no room for the old man in spiritual ascendancy. The power of the cross brings us from the old man to the new man and to living on resurrection ground.
Do you live by that life within you?
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
—Galatians 2:20
Life within us—it is so important. Paul is saying, “I know you are Christians, Colossians, but if you have been raised up, there should be this response of seeking the things above.” This is the product of a life living on resurrection ground: you seek the things above.
The third question is, in one sense, the issue of this weekend. We have been seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Have you been seated with Christ in the heavenly places? What does that mean?
I will call it, for a moment, the ascended life. Is it merely an occasional, infrequent spiritual awareness of something beyond us? At a funeral, we get the idea that there is something more to life. Is that occasional brush with spiritual reality beyond this world what the matter is about? No.
Spiritual ascendancy, or the ascended life, has at least three characteristics. I am a one-two-three type of guy. Write down one, two, three, and then take your siesta if you need to.
First, the mark of somebody living the ascended life is that they see earthly things from a heavenly point of view.
Of course, when an earthly thing first happens to you, you see it from the earthly point of view. A difficult circumstance comes, and your flesh immediately starts reacting. Your mind begins working: “How can I escape the situation? How can I beat that person up? How can I gain the advantage when they are gaining the advantage over me? This is unfair. This is unjust.”
That is our initial response. That is our humanity. But are we going to get into the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, hidden in Him, to the point where we see the thing from the heavenly point of view?
Recently, we were praying in Huntington about Israel and the conflict with the Palestinians. I had recently been reading Daniel, where Michael is presented as the archangel of Israel, standing and fighting for Israel.
I was thinking about Gabriel’s report: “I was delayed in Persia when you prayed, and I had to wrestle before I could come, and Michael was there fighting.” Suddenly I saw that all the things happening on the ground between Palestinians and Israelis are only the visible expressions of things happening in the heavenlies.
In that prayer, I laid hold of this and said, “Lord, You are the Lord. You sit on the throne in the heavenlies, and I pray to You, binding those Palestinian principalities in Jesus’ name.” The next day, there was some relief reported in the newspaper.
This is not to speak of my great prayer prowess, but to say this: if we could come to the prayer meeting and see the matters before us from the heavenly point of view, I wonder how different they would look.
This is one of the earmarks of somebody who lives this kind of life. We all begin with the earthly point of view, but then what do we do with that?
Second, and most importantly, somebody living in ascendancy sees Christ enthroned and reigning over all. They do not merely say, “I believe it, I believe it, I believe it.” They see Christ’s throne reigning over all.
We come to situations that seem so dark—a situation in our fellowship, a situation in our family—and they seem hopeless. Our dear brother Alan shared such a wonderful testimony today: a hopeless situation. Then, by the Word of God, he saw Christ reigning on the throne. He believed, and he ate.
Brothers and sisters, if our view of the heavenly places is only of demons and angels chasing each other, we miss the point of the heavenlies. The point, which we will speak of more tomorrow in Ephesians, is that Christ is seated on His throne in the heavenly places, far above all those angels and animals.
To see that is to be in a place of ascendancy. John presents this in his first letter as little children, young men, and fathers. What is the characteristic of fathers? They have known Him who is from the beginning.
Take a situation in which sparks are flying and the enemy is assailing. Fathers are able to get up there and see Him who is from the beginning—Him who is above time, fighting, and circumstances.
Somebody in ascendancy, in the end, sees that Christ is reigning on the throne in the situation, and they take hold of it in Jesus’ name.
The third characteristic of spiritual ascendancy is the offshoot and fruit of the first two. A person is, to a large measure, freed from their own self-care and self-centeredness.
Our lives are too absorbed in self-interest and self-anxiety. “What am I eating? Am I taking enough vitamins? Am I missing B12? What is the stock market doing?” But somebody who has entered spiritual ascendancy has less care for themselves and more care for the Lord.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians that one died for all, therefore all died; and that those who now live should live for Him, no longer for themselves. It is over.
Put it this way: you and I are dead. We died when we embraced Christ. That is it. We are no longer to be preoccupied with making money or worrying about our family. We are living in the ascended life now. We pray for others. We are concerned for others. We want to know what pleases Christ.
Now listen, I am not talking about forgetting to iron your clothes or having to be reminded to eat. There is a legitimate area of self-respect necessary in anybody’s life.
But preoccupation with ourselves is transformed into being more concerned about other people than ourselves. Is this not Paul’s exhortation in Philippians 2? If there is any consolation of love, any fellowship in the Spirit, do not think about yourself. Think about Him. Have the mind of Christ Jesus.
He, having everything, became nothing for our sake. Have that same mind. This is the ascended mind and attitude—not so concerned with yourself. Your life is over. You are dead. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. Now let us get down to important things.
I think of Aaron when he became the priest. Spiritual ascendancy is actually a function of priesthood.
Aaron once had a wife, children, a car—well, utensils—and his ordinary life. Then God said, “You will be My high priest.” He put off his clothes, left his television behind, and his life was over.
Aaron’s life was over, and he lived the rest of his days as an intercessor on behalf of the children of Israel before God.
Even when his sons performed that terrible act with strange fire and were struck down, God said, “Do not even weep for them. Your life is over. Live for Me. I want you to be sanctified before God’s people. You live for Me.”
There is a person who learns spiritual ascendancy. We put off our own clothes, so why be worried about clothing anymore? Now we live as priests for the King and for our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. There are marks of the ascended life.
Having given you this picture—maybe it is not beautiful to you, but it is a picture—we can say that there is an enemy who will strike at anybody desiring to obtain the good of the gospel and live in spiritual ascendancy.
This enemy comes, as Peter says, like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He is looking for something in us that he can take hold of.
We are thankful that our Lord Jesus, throughout all the days He lived on earth in His flesh, gave Satan nothing that he could take hold of. In John 14:30, Jesus says:
I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.
—John 14:30
Satan had plenty outside. He had Jesus’ body. He took Jesus’ clothes. He beat upon Jesus’ body. But these things were external. He could not remove the peace. He could not remove the union Jesus had with His Father. “He has nothing in Me.” There was nothing Satan could take hold of.
The enemy, when prowling about, is looking for something he can take hold of in us. Let me show you a few Scriptures that mention such things.
In 1 Timothy 3:6, Paul speaks concerning overseers:
And not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil.
—1 Timothy 3:6
Pride is ground. A young man’s pride becomes ground for his sifting. Remember how Satan desired to sift Peter as wheat? Pride is ground for sifting. Whenever our pride gets out there, the enemy has found something he can use.
Second, look at 2 Corinthians 2:10-11, concerning the brother who had been severely disciplined for immorality:
But one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ,
so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.
—2 Corinthians 2:10-11
How does the enemy gain advantage in a situation? When discipline becomes judgment. When discipline becomes penalty.
When we discipline someone, whether in the church or in family life, the discipliners are also being disciplined. If we get to the place where we mistakenly say, “We are right; that person is wrong,” and personal vengeance comes into our response, then we continue being severe with that brother, and the enemy gains an advantage.
It is only up to the Lord to judge. We are to discipline, and we are under discipline when we discipline. But when we treat somebody more harshly than their discipline warrants, we give Satan an advantage.
Or consider Ephesians 4:26-27, a very confusing verse to angry people:
Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.
—Ephesians 4:26-27
What gives the devil an opportunity? Anger held onto. If you go to bed and are still angry, you have given the devil a place. He will take advantage of any place you give.
We have this lion roaring, seeking a place. What is he doing? He is looking for something external in order to rob you of the internal.
You have union with Christ. Your life is hidden with Christ. You have peace with Christ. Satan wants to get to the internal by striking at the external.
He strikes at the mind. Your mind is an external thing. He attacks it with feelings of depression, hopelessness, faithlessness, questions, and doubts. He assails us with these outward things to disturb our inner peace.
Will you take hold of that inner peace and resist in such a way that the devil finds he cannot get at you?
He also attacks our body. Is that an outward thing? Oh, yes. Isn’t it interesting that it is usually about 7:15 on Wednesday night—forty-five minutes before prayer meeting—that you suddenly become too tired to walk another step?
A sudden sickishness comes upon you. There are twenty-six symptoms, none too strong, but together they say, “Honey, I had better stay home from the prayer meeting.”
It is just something to bring you down on the inside. But if you stand your ground and get to that prayer meeting exhausted by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, you will go home refreshed.
In all these ways, he tries to attack the outer thing in order to get at the inner.
James gives us very practical advice in James 4:7-10:
Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
—James 4:7-10
Here is spiritual ascendancy: humble yourselves in the presence of God, and He will exalt you.
Let me ask you a question: what can the enemy do to you when you are humbled in the presence of God?
If we take this verse and forget, “Submit yourselves to God,” but remember only, “Resist the devil,” we are in a battle, and he will probably win. We have not done the first thing necessary: hide yourself in Him.
Find yourself hidden in Christ. Draw near to Him. That is what you do first. Do not begin by fighting the devil. Draw near to Him.
In the presence of God, humble yourself. Then watch all the enemy’s tools suddenly become ineffective. Resist the enemy, and he will flee from you.
But if we are not hidden in Christ, abiding in Christ, dwelling in the secret place, all our resisting will get us nowhere.
When you hide there, it is not that you defeat the enemy by brandishing your sword and chopping him into bits. He simply knows that you are in the hiding place. He cannot get at you, so he goes away.
Every time he tries to touch the outward, you run into Christ. Then it is useless. Disappoint the enemy. Hide in Christ. This is your place. This is the place to be.
In Colossians, the problem was not merely that Satan was prowling about. The problem was that Satan had come as an angel of light.
In 2 Corinthians 11:14-15, Paul says:
No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.
—2 Corinthians 11:14-15
The problem was that angels of light, in the form of religious men, had come among the Colossians and preached religion to them.
Why is religion such a danger to spiritual ascendancy? Because religion offers soulish ascendancy.
If our life is hidden with Christ in God, and we are living by His life and learning to live by His life, we find ourselves in spiritual ascendancy. But religion comes and says, “I offer you soulish ascendancy.”
“If you come to me, I will teach you things nobody knows. You will gain knowledge, and your soul will gain knowledge. Or if you obey me, do this to your body, do that, and become ascetic, then your willpower will become stronger and stronger.”
“If you do this, your emotions will become stronger and stronger.” Religion offers soulish ascendancy. But in the end it causes more problems in the flesh and does not help you at all in spiritual ascendancy.
Religion is the old man thinking he can be like Jesus. Religion is the old man believing that his soul is actually good. He does not understand that he has been crucified with Christ.
Beware of any doctrine of man that brings Christ so low that we can come up to Him. Religion is very dangerous.
To the Colossians, religion was sidetracking them from Christ. Instead of Christ being everything, they were being sidetracked by asceticism and their own observances.
How many of you had a religious background before you became a Christian? Ah, there is one person who flung a hand up to the ceiling.
Let me tell you the good thing about religion: it temporarily makes you feel good. “Oh, I went to church. I lit some candles. I went down and up, down and up. I read this book. I read it backwards. I read it in Latin. I feel so good.”
All such religion offers temporary good feelings, but it only makes your soul stronger. It becomes a danger to true spiritual progress.
That is why Paul comes to these Colossians and openly exposes these religious things as not according to the gospel. But it is not enough merely to expose the false if people do not take hold of what is true.
Let us finally return to Colossians 3 and look at those three points again. We need an objective basis in the Word of God if we are to know the reality of spiritual ascendancy in our lives.
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
—Colossians 3:1-3
When religion comes to offer you something, or when the devil says, “I found a place in you,” run into Christ. Your life is with Him now.
Seek the things above, because when you do, there He is, sitting on the throne—right there, just as the Scripture says. He is your all. He is all and in all. He is your fullness.
Brothers and sisters, you may think we are fanatically Christocentric, but I believe that if we truly abide in Christ, He brings us to perfection unconsciously, for the most part.
Abide in Christ. Be hidden in Christ. I love this grace: hidden in Christ. You are dead. Thank God, I am dead. Oh, I am such a nasty person; I am so glad I am dead. My life is hidden with Christ in God. Such good news! I want to lay hold of it.
Then, by the work of the Holy Spirit, there is the second thing. As Paul speaks about putting aside the old man and putting on the new man, he briefly defines the new man, which is Christ in you.
You have put on the new man who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.
—Colossians 3:10
This means that you are being renewed. You are finding out who you really are. Who is the new you? You discover who you really are as you discover who He really is.
That is why it is necessary to abide in Him. Do you know who you are? Do not give me your name and address. Do you know who you are? You discover it as you discover who He is.
Then, what are you to do? Do you want to make a Christian feel guilty? Ask them, “Do you know the will of God for your life?”
We all feel we are such bad Christians. But listen: what are you supposed to do? What is the will of God? Do you know the will of God for your life?
The will of God—what you should do—is all hidden in what Christ has been made to you. I know that sounds a little spiritual, but that is the will of God, even your sanctification. That is the will of God: that you abide in Him.
Do not speak of the will of God merely as things you should do. When Paul speaks about understanding the will of God, he means understanding what God has done in Christ.
Forget about yourself for ten nanoseconds and see all that God has done in Christ. Then you will see what you should do.
You have been created for good works, which God prepared beforehand. But you will never find them by continually asking, “What should I do now? What should I do now? Maybe I will try witnessing. Maybe I will try reading my Bible more. No, it is prayer time. What should I do?”
You can get yourself into a real religious runaround.
What should you do? Go into Christ and say, “Lord, here I am. I am in You, and You are in me. Thank You for this abiding. Thank You for this hiding place.” He will send some registration within concerning what you should do and what you should be.
You receive blessings in your life. As you get older, one of the blessings is seeing your children growing in the Lord.
My younger son has struggled in his own way with his Christian life. He called me just last week and said, “Dad, I am so nervous. I do not know what to do.”
I said, “What is going on?”
He said, “I have been praying, and Jesus put this friend of mine, whose marriage is falling apart, on my heart. I should go witness to him.”
I said, “Hallelujah!”
He was simply praying, and the Lord told him to do that. He was not saying, “Okay, I have to witness to somebody because at church I have to mark that I witnessed to somebody this week in the book.” No.
He was worshiping the Lord and reading the Word, and the Lord put that friend on his heart. He got up the courage, went and had lunch with the man, and talked to him. He shared the Lord with him. Praise God.
The Lord has plans for our lives, things for us to do. He wants us to be fruitful. But what does John 15 say? It is only when we are abiding in Him that we can ever be fruitful.
Feel the place of spiritual ascendancy. What I would like to say today is very objective: find yourself in the Word of God.
As Colossians 3:16 says:
Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
—Colossians 3:16
Let us be those in whom the Word of God richly dwells. We will find ourselves, by His life, increasingly in spiritual ascendancy as we see Him enthroned and stand upon the truth of the Word.
Brothers and sisters, this is our precious provision from heaven. Let us pray.
Thank You, Lord Jesus, that by Your doing You have become to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
We are dead. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God, and You are transforming us so that we will be like You in glory. What an amazing thing.
But if we dwell on ourselves, or try to do something in ourselves, we fall prey to religion of all kinds and all subtle complexities.
Oh, grant that all of us here would be solidly in Christ, known as being in Christ as our residence, and knowing His life in us as the speaking, as the rhema, as the living waters day by day.
Oh, Lord, we know that we will not be raised from this earth by stripping our human bodies, but by being lifted by the Spirit of Christ and seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.
Oh, we just say, Lord, by Your Word we stand there today. Grant us to see things from a heavenly point of view.
Help us always to know that Christ is reigning upon His throne in all things. Bring us to the place where we live a life not so preoccupied with ourselves, but living for the One we love.
Make these things real to us, even as we examine the Word of God to see whether these things are true. We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.