'If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.'
'To seek' implies the direction of the external life toward certain
objects. It is not to seek as if perhaps we might not find; it is not
even to seek in the sense of searching for, but it is to seek in the
sense of aiming at. And now do you not think that if we had burning in
our hearts, and conscious to our experiences, the sense of union with
Jesus Christ the risen Saviour, that would shape the direction and
dictate the aims of our earthly life? As surely as the elevation of the
rocket tube determines the flight of the projectile that comes from it,
so surely would the inward consciousness, if it were vivid as it ought
to be in all Christian people, of that risen life throbbing within the
heart, shape all the external conduct. It would give us wings and make
us soar. It would make us buoyant, and lift us above the creeping aims
that constitute the objects of life for so many men.
But you say, 'Things above: that is an indefinite phrase. What do you
mean by it?' I will tell you what the Bible means by it. It means Jesus
Christ. All the nebulous splendours of that firmament are gathered
together into one blazing sun. It is a vague direction to tell a man to
shoot up, into an empty heaven. It is not a vague direction to tell him
to seek the 'things above'; for they are all gathered into a person.
'Where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God,'--that is the
meaning of 'things above,' which are to be the continual aim of the man
who is conscious of a risen life. And of course they will be, for if we
feel, as we ought to feel habitually, though with varying clearness,
that we do carry within us a spark, if I might use that phrase, of the
very life of Jesus Christ, so surely as fire will spring upwards, so
surely as water will rise to the height of its source, so surely will
our outward lives be directed towards Him, who is the life of our inward
lives, and the goal therefore of our outward actions?
Jesus Christ is the summing up of 'the things that are above'; therefore
there stands out clear this one great truth, that the only aim for a
Christian soul, consistent with the facts of its Christian life, is to
be like Christ, to be with Christ, to please Christ.
Now, how does that aim--'whether present or absent we labour that we may
be well pleasing to Him'--how does that aim bear upon the multitude of
inferior and nearer aims which men pursue, and which Christians have to
pursue along with other men? How does it bear upon them?--Why thus--as
the culminating peak of a mountain-chain bears on the lower hills that
for miles and miles buttress it, and hold it up, and aspire towards it,
and find their perfection in its calm summit that touches the skies. The
more we have in view, as our aim in life, Christ who is 'at the right
hand of God,' and assimilation, communion with Him, approbation from
Him, the more will all immediate aims be ennobled and delivered from the
evils that else cleave to them. They are more when they are second than
when they are first. 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God,' and all your
other aims--as students, as thinkers, as scientists, as men of business,
as parents, as lovers, or anything else--will be greatened by being
subordinated to the conscious aim of pleasing Him. That aim should
persist, like a strain of melody, one long, holden-down, diapason note,
through all our lives. Perfume can be diffused into the air, and
dislodge no atom of that which it makes fragrant. This supreme aim can
be pursued through, and by means of, all nearer ones, and is
inconsistent with nothing but sin. 'Seek the things that are above.'