Colossians 3:1-2 “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

So long as we keep thinking about the evening news, our body’s aches and pains, the mountain of work we can’t get on top of, our fear of school shootings and terrorists, the security we so desire but never really achieve, the more pessimistic and depressed we get. So long as we struggle with our own lack of self-control, so long as we fret over our own inability to be as good and moral as we desire, the more we lose heart and lose the motivation to try. These things kill the spirit.

We need to set our hearts and minds on things above. Heaven is where our focus belongs. It needs to be the object of our concern, our hopes and goals and dreams. That is not merely for a distraction. Setting our hearts and minds on things above isn’t escapist, like reading a book or watching a movie gets our minds off our reality. No, Paul gives reasons far more compelling than that.

“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” We died? How? When? He is referring to the death we died with Jesus since he went to the cross as our substitute. Our worldly obsessions, our selfish cravings, our moral failures–all of them were nailed to the cross when Jesus died. That life is buried and gone as far as God is concerned. We died to sin. No need to dig that corpse of a sinful, worldly life up and keep looking at it.

But there is so much more than a death here. “…your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Jesus is not just our death. He’s our life! We not only died with him. We rose with him. He is still our substitute, not just at the cross, but even now at God’s right hand in heaven. This is how God sees you. He doesn’t have to go searching for you here on earth. He can turn to his Son, seated in glory at his right hand, and there he sees you and me as glorious, perfect creatures, because our lives are hidden with Christ in God.

Is it hard to see, then, why we want to spend more time looking up, to see our life above? What happens when a child grows up in an abusive home? Over and over he is told he is stupid and worthless. Over time he begins to believe it. Then he begins to act that way. It becomes his identity. How he sees himself has an effect upon everything else in his life.

Now, what happens when a Christian fixates on his existence in this world? He is constantly confronted with his frequent moral failures. His life is full of disappointments and troubles. Relationships are messed up. Career goals don’t pan out. His body is subject to sickness and decay. Death is inevitable. If that is all the input we receive, or if that dominates, won’t we see ourselves as dying failures and act accordingly?

But that is not the truth! That life died with Christ at the cross, and our real life is hidden with Christ in God. Although we can’t see it now, God assures us that we really look like Jesus in all his glory. That is our true identity. Because of the forgiveness of sins we are holy saints. We are creatures of heaven.

When we believe that, won’t it make all the difference for our lives? Don Matzat tells the story of a man who worked as a janitor. He had immigrated to this country from Iran, where he was a high official in the court of the Shah, (the ruler of that country before the Ayatollah took over). Because of the way the man carried himself, and spoke, and behaved, you didn’t get the idea that you were talking to a janitor. He continued to see himself as someone important. He believed that one day he would be restored to his former position. That was his identity, and it drove the way that man lived.

Dear friends, see your life above, hidden with Christ, where you are seated with him at God’s right hand in glory. Then you will live like those who died and rose, who died to sin with Christ and rose with him to heavenly life.

Luke 10:39 “She had a sister named Mary, who also sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what he said.”

I have a number of “honey-do” projects that need to get done. Several years ago I bought Pergo flooring for my home study, and I still haven’t installed it. The frame around my back door is falling apart and needs to be replaced. The wall in our master bath near the shower could use a little patch work. Other projects wait for my attention.

Most likely, I will hire someone to get these projects taken care of. They will come and do the work. I will appreciate their service. If they do it well, I may even hire them again. But their work hardly means we have a close relationship.

When my wife gets a day off, she usually takes the kitchen back from me and does the cooking. She often helps with the yard work. I appreciate the help.

But I don’t want her to spend the entire day doing housework or getting projects done. I want us to get some “we” time. I want to sit and listen to her tell me how her life is going. I want time to tell her how much she means to me as well. It’s far more important for our relationship that we are communicating: speaking and listening to each other.

Isn’t that what Mary was doing with Jesus? We don’t know the specific content of their conversation, but I doubt very much that he was lecturing her about good behavior. No doubt his words were leading her further and further into the great heart of God. There we find love that seeks us no matter what we have become. There we find he forgives us no matter what we have done. There we learn he takes us back no matter how many times we have turned away. In opening our eyes and hearts to God’s grace, Jesus’ words bring us closer and closer to God himself. They deepen our relationship. They strengthen our grip on his gifts. They fill us with trust in his promises, because faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

There is a brief scene in the movie You’ve Got Mail, in which Tom Hanks, who has put Meg Ryan’s bookstore out of business, visits her with flowers when she’s sick. He has discovered she is the anonymous woman he has been falling in love with online. She doesn’t know he’s the man she has been chatting with yet. Before he leaves, she mentions the online relationship to him. “On the internet,” he says. “Yes.” “You’ve got mail,” he says. “Yes!” “Powerful words,” he says. “Yes,” she says, as if mesmerized just to think of them again.

Powerful words. That is the one thing necessary for us who follow Jesus, powerful words in which we are not serving him, but he is serving us. His powerful words inspire us to sacrifice for him only because he sacrificed body and soul in our place on the cross. “We love, because he first loved us.” “This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his only Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

So Jesus shows us the one thing necessary. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.” Jesus will always love your service to him. Don’t stop giving it. But none of that matters if he doesn’t serve us first, because we can neither have nor maintain our relationship with him without his word of grace. Hearing it, reading it, having it is the one thing necessary.

Luke 10:38-40 “While they were traveling, he entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who also sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and she came up and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.”

Of course Martha was distracted by her many tasks! At least thirteen men had just arrived at her home. She had no refrigeration. She had no food in cans or boxes. She couldn’t pull sliced bread out of a plastic bag. It’s possible she was baking more bread on the spot. Two sisters wouldn’t keep so much food around for themselves. It would spoil. Maybe she was butchering some chickens or had some stock of dried fish to put on the table. Have no doubt, she was suddenly a very busy woman. Wouldn’t you be if you were about to feed so many?

To her credit, Martha offered herself for this. She was not afraid of the challenge. She “welcomed him into her home.” And by accepting her offer Jesus was sanctifying and approving her service. The fact that his visit would challenge Martha, that it would be inconvenient, did not stop him from going.

This is how he deals with his people, and maybe that surprises us about serving him. He doesn’t limit the service he desires to the easy project or convenient opportunity. It doesn’t bother him that the things he asks may require sacrifice. They may change our plans. Sometimes they may even ruin our lives. He didn’t come to be our hobby or fill our spare time. He came to occupy all our lives, all we do. He wants your service, even if it kills you.

To this point, we have nothing but praise for Martha. Then she develops an attitude. “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.” It’s not wrong to want other people to serve Jesus, too. He desires their work no less than ours. He will sanctify, bless, and approve it just the same.

But Martha’s words aren’t a pure invitation for Mary to participate in the joy of Christian service. There is a note of self-pity, and self-righteousness, in her complaint. “I have to do this all by myself.” There is the poison of legalism in her solution. “Make her help me.”

So much Christian service is infected and spoiled by the same rotten attitudes. No doubt you are familiar with the “Twenty-Eighty” rule: Twenty percent of the people do eighty percent of the work, and give eighty percent of the offerings. I have heard it discussed at countless meetings in the churches I have served. It may be helpful to know that the tendency exists. But so often it gets mentioned more as a complaint, a moment of self-pity and self-righteousness for the “good” people who have sacrificed their time and energy to get the job done.

Are we happy to serve Jesus or not? Do we really believe that it is privilege, or is it just a burden taking me away from what I really want to do? Should our Lord be pleased if our service is given from such a grudging, resentful heart? Jesus knows a little something about having to fix issues and get things done all by himself. That’s how it went when he suffered and died to save us from sin. Yet the author of Hebrews tells us, “for the joy set before him (he) endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God.” Even more than Jesus wants our service, he wants a heart that is willing to give it.

Martha’s legalistic solution was no better. It is a fine thing to serve Jesus dinner. It is a fine thing to serve on a committee, volunteer to clean, teach a class, or make a visit. But a rule forcing people to do these things may do more harm than good. If we create a group of people giving their time for fear of criticism or embarrassment, what’s that service really worth? Aren’t we helping them become the people Jesus once confronted? “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.”

Serving Jesus is a joy, and a privilege. Let’s not ruin it by resenting those who may be doing something else.

Luke 10:30-37 “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way, a Levite, when he arrived at the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion. He went over to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him. When I come back I’ll reimburse you for whatever extra you spend.’ Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

We could spend a lot of time talking about the the setting of Jesus’ parable, the crime, and the medical aid given. But the focus is on three men: the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan. A priest was a clergyman. This was long before the scandals that have done so much damage to the clergy’s reputation in our day. This was a society that had not drifted so far into atheism and agnosticism as ours. You still expected the priest to be one of the good guys, but in Jesus’ story he walks on by.

The Levite was a full-time worker at the temple. We might compare him to a ministerial staff member who takes care of music or administration. In a smaller church perhaps he is a member of the church council. This guy is also into his religion. It’s his life. You might expect him to show it by stopping to help. But he passes by on the other side as well.

You probably know that the Samaritans were regarded by Jews as enemies. They had intermarried outside their faith and nationality. They had polluted the Jewish faith with unbiblical teachings from the nations around them. The fact that they were related, that they were not-so-distant spiritual cousins, only made the resentments worse. Compare the idea of a Samaritan, if not the specific man in the story, to anyone who seems anti-American, ungodly, or both. For some it might be the illegal immigrant or fundamentalist Muslim. For some it might be the Christian from the mainline church that has bought all the way in to the modernist heresies: embracing the sexual revolution, denying the deity of Christ, rejecting the miraculous elements of the Bible as myths and legends. In our time, maybe it’s the political opponent who stirs the most passionate disgust. Pick someone whose values and beliefs are pretty much the opposite of your own, and you have some idea of the regard Jews felt for Samaritans.

Jesus might have made his point by making the Samaritan the man who was beaten up and left for dead by the thieves. Perhaps some kind Jew could have come along to help him. Don’t treat people whose religion and politics are opposed to yours like enemies. These are your neighbors, too.

But the twist comes when Jesus makes the Samaritan the hero. The jihadi rescues the struggling Christian. The self-assured skeptic shows compassion to the faithful Bible believer. Socialist protester befriends Tea Party activist or vice versa. The point is: if this person could be my neighbor, anyone can. Are they human? Do they have a pulse? Don’t ignore them. Don’t just tolerate them. “Go and do the same.” “Love your neighbor as yourself.”            

And do so remembering Jesus has so loved us. He has rescued us from death and danger. He has taken care of our souls at great expense to himself. He has carried us to safety and has left nothing for us to do or pay as he has nursed us back to spiritual health and life. He hasn’t merely answered our questions about pleasing God with strong commands or clear examples. He IS the answer, with the gift of his own forgiving grace.

Luke 10:25 “On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’”

This expert in the law asked what may be the most important question in the world. Unfortunately, many people don’t even care about it today. They don’t care about eternal life because they are too obsessed with the life they are living right now.

If our only question is, “Teacher, how can we put bread on the table?” Jesus has some interesting answers: “Don’t work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life.” Or “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.” Or, “So do not worry saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ for the pagans run after all these things…”

If our only question is, “Teacher, how can we have better relationships?” Don’t forget he said, “I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law–a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” He’s not saying he is in favor of such broken families. But don’t be surprised if following him doesn’t fix everything, either.

No, the deeply important questions are the eternal ones, like the one here. There were some problems with the way the man framed the question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” as though this were some kind of do-it-yourself project. If we think this way, we betray a woeful lack of perception about our own shortcomings. We are thinking far too highly of ourselves. As an expert in the law(an Old Testament scholar), this man should have known that from his own Scriptures.

Instead of calling him out directly, Jesus did a very Jewish thing. He answered the man’s question with another question. “‘What is written in the law?’ he asked him. ‘How do you read it?’ He answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind;’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ‘You’ve answered correctly, he told him. ‘Do this and you will live.’”

Wait. What? You can have eternal life by doing this? Love God so completely with your whole self, body and soul; love other people like you love yourself, and you get to go to heaven? It’s that simple?

Well, yes and no. We are tempted to think this sounds easy. When I teach the first commandment, I often ask the students: “How many of you think that you have kept this commandment?” Almost every hand shoots up. “I love God,” they think. “I put him first in my life. I don’t worship some other deity in some other religion.”

But if we love God so much, why don’t we trust him enough to stop worrying about the things he has promised to take care of? Why are we more interested in the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the place we live, the car we drive, the health we seek, the politics we practice, than we are in the things of his kingdom? The truth is, loving God doesn’t help us get into heaven because none of us do it, not with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength, and all our mind. We love him casually, occasionally, if at all.

So that man’s answer doesn’t get us eternal life. But it is a step along the way. If we take the words seriously, they destroy all hope in ourselves. They force us to look seriously into the loving, gracious face of the man guiding this conversation and ask another question, “Teacher, how can I receive eternal life?” That answer is staring us in the face. Trust in Jesus’ love, not your own. His whole life, from start to finish, was perfect submission to his Father’s will. “This is my Son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased,” the Father thunders down from heaven twice in his ministry. That is perfect love on which you can depend, love offered to satisfy God’s demands of you and me, love that offered himself to whips and beatings and death on a cross as the payment for our own sins.

Eternal life is not based on what we do. It’s based on what Jesus did. It is not a goal we achieve. It is a gift we receive. Jesus’ life and death made God happy with us again. That’s the complete answer to this serious question about pleasing God: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Luke 10:20 “Don’t rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Power is not a bad thing in itself, especially power over the dark spiritual forces. God needs someone to exercise this power in his plan to save people.

But separated from its saving purpose, its freeing effect on souls once ruled by Satan, the power to drive away the spirits is just a phenomenon. It’s merely a novelty, almost a clever trick. Some people can wiggle their ears or curl their tongue in a circle or crack their knuckles. Maybe they find it entertaining or take some small pride in it, but how does it really benefit them?

Jesus doesn’t want spiritual gifts and powers to turn into a temptation to pride. He is nipping this tendency in the bud for the seventy-two returning from their mission trip. Later Paul would have to confront the Christians in Corinth who could speak in tongues because they became infatuated with the ability and forgot that God gave it to them to serve others. It didn’t make them better than other believers or closer to God.

The real prize always remains the same: “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” This isn’t something we do. It’s something we receive. It is not a reward we earn by faithfully doing mission work or living a life of love. It is the gift that was already ours before we did anything for God. He made it our own from the moment we came to faith.

Your name has been written in the book of life. It is inked there in the blood of Jesus. No matter how the fight with Satan and his allies seems to be going, that is reason to be happy. It is a victory already won, not a fight for something you hope to achieve. Live in its joy, then share the message that can add other names to the list. A few simple words can make an eternal difference for them.

Luke 10:19 “Look, I have given you the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy; nothing at all will harm you.”

You may know that this is one of the passages taken out of context by some Christians to promote the practice of snake-handling. Many years ago I served a congregation in Atlanta, Georgia. We were at the foot of the Appalachians. The Atlanta Journal Constitution ran a series in their Sunday paper on Pentecostal snake-handlers, because a man had been bitten and died handling rattle snakes. The snake handlers believe that if you have enough faith you can handle the snakes and not get bitten, or not be affected by the bite. But that is taking Jesus’ words out of context, turning a promise into some sort of twisted command.

Jesus words aren’t telling us to seek out the snakes and scorpions. They simply promise protection if they get in the way of legitimate mission work. Sometimes mission work can be a little dangerous. Before I moved to Atlanta, I spent a year doing mission work in crime-infested neighborhoods in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Some of the homes I visited weren’t very safe. At one duplex where I taught a Bible class I learned that the upstairs neighbors ran a crack house and suspected I was a cop. One day when I was canvassing, I walked past a park where I saw a police car speeding down a sidewalk. A group of excited kids told me there had been a shooting, and that if I looked over here I could see where the bullets scraped the sidewalk. The threat of violence was always present, but none of it ever affected me.

That’s not to say no harm is possible. We know what happened to these men eventually. Only one of the Twelve died a natural death. In 2 Corinthians 11 the Apostle Paul lists some of the many things he suffered for the gospel: whippings, beatings, shipwrecks. Yet until he had completed his mission and God was done with him on earth, he walked away from all these things, including a snake bite.

So Jesus’ words aren’t encouraging us to put ourselves needlessly in harm’s way or seek out danger. But they do offer a freedom from fear, a freedom to pursue our gospel work boldly. We spread the gospel with an otherworldly immunity from harm, a promise of heavenly protection, until our mission is complete, our time is up, and our Lord is ready to welcome us home.

Luke 9:59-62 “Then he said to another, ‘Follow me.’ ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘First let me go bury my father.’ But he told him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and spread the news of the kingdom of God.’ Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go and say goodbye to those at my house.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”

Each of these men wanted to delay following Jesus. “First let me go…” Each excuse had to do with family: a funeral and a farewell. Each request probably sounds reasonable to us. Who wouldn’t attend their parents’ funerals? Who wouldn’t let their family know they were leaving on some endeavor and would not be returning soon?

But Jesus sees more in these men than we can. His responses indicate they have an issue with priorities. They still don’t grasp the place God’s kingdom demands in our hearts. Family duty is important, especially if they are still alive. But burying the dead is largely ceremonial. The man making the excuse says nothing about comforting the living, and the kingdom’s claim on our lives is higher still. What his soul needs at this time is Jesus, and so do those he could preach to.

Family affection is strong. The Lord designed it to be that way. But what if the family is pulling us in another direction, trying to talk us out of our devotion to Jesus? Will we really say farewell to them? If we can’t make a commitment to follow him, what good are we to the kingdom then?

It’s not that family is unimportant. It is that Jesus doesn’t want it to become an idol in our lives, standing between us and following him. “He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me,” he warns in another place. Following Jesus may mean parting with family, at least from the top spot in our priorities.            

It also leads to wonderful places. Following him leads to knowing the truth, seeing the world as it truly is. It leads to God’s family and a loving Father’s waiting arms. It leads to the peace of forgiveness and life that never ends. We may not have anticipated the difference following him makes in our lives. But we lose nothing of lasting value when we do. Don’t be afraid to go where he leads.