Psalm 107:1-9 Colossians 3:1-11 Luke 12:13-21
Singular Vision
Have you ever tried walking in one direction while looking in another? It doesn’t take long before you veer off course, does it? Even worse, you might trip and fall and injure yourself. And yet, spiritually, many of us attempt to live for God while keeping our eyes…and our hearts…fixed elsewhere.
Today’s readings from Luke 12 and Colossians 3 confront us with a piercing truth: we cannot live a Christlike life without a singular vision—without setting our hearts and minds on him alone.
Let us begin by hearing again Jesus’s warning through a parable and Paul’s exhortation to the Colossians.
In Luke 12, a man came to Jesus with a request: “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” A legal concern, perhaps not an unreasonable one, but notice what Jesus did. He didn’t address the inheritance, the legality, or even the issue of what is fair and what isn’t. Instead, he addressed the heart. He said, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
Then Jesus told a parable. You know it well: the rich man who builds bigger barns to store his wealth, who says to himself, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God calls him a fool. Why? Not because he was successful or because he was wealthy, but because his vision was fixed solely on the temporary, on the temporal, on the tangible, rather than on God and the eternal.
The rich man lived horizontally, concerned only with the ground he could till and the barns he could fill. But the call of Jesus is to live vertically, with eyes fixed on a higher reality.
You see, this is not a parable about wealth…it’s a parable about vision. When our gaze is divided…when we try to look both at Jesus and at the treasures of this world…we lose clarity, we lose focus, we lose purpose, and we lose spiritual vitality.
Jesus ended the parable with a stark and startling summary: “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” In other words, to be rich toward God is to maintain a vision of life that is not self-centred but Christ-centred.
Paul picked up the same theme in Colossians 3. He wrote, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is… Set your minds on things above, not on things that are on earth.”
The call is clear: if we are in Christ, if we have died with him and been raised with him, then our vision must be lifted up to what transcends life. Our minds, our affections, our desires must be anchored in heaven, not scattered across the passing priorities of this planet.
Paul didn’t say we should ignore the things of earth, but that we must not be governed by them. We must not let them become the guiding star of our lives.
Why? Because “your life is hidden with Christ in God.” We are not defined by our possessions, our popularity, or our productivity. We are defined by the one who sits at the right hand of the Father, and we live best when our vision is directed toward him.
In verses 5 to 11, Paul revealed how to obtain such a vision.
He said: “Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you.” Then follows a list: sexual immorality, impurity, greed, anger, slander, and so on.
A variety of sins, to be sure, but notice what all these things have in common: they are the result of looking elsewhere. They are the behaviours of hearts and minds distracted from Jesus, of lives turned inward or downward, but not upward.
Then Paul added: “You have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed… after the image of its creator.”
You see, a Christlike life doesn’t emerge by accident. It grows only in the soil of intentional vision when we choose daily to lift our eyes and fix them on the one who gave himself for us.
Just as a sunflower turns its face to follow the sun, so we must turn the gaze of our hearts continually toward Jesus. This is the only way to live lives that reflect his light and bear his likeness.
You see, a singular vision prioritizes the eternal over the material. It doesn’t ask, “What do I want to do today?” but “What does Jesus want me to do today?” How does he want me to live, to love, and to labour?
A singular vision frees us from compromise caused by covetousness. We are not measuring ourselves against people and their possessions, but against a selfless, sacrificial, and sacred Saviour.
A singular vision reorients our values. We begin to see people not as competitors or obstacles, but as image-bearers of God.
A singular vision produces peace. When our eyes are set on Jesus, we are less shaken by the shifting sands of circumstance.
So, dearly beloved brethren, where are your eyes today? What governs your affections? What demands your attention?
Jesus warns us in Luke: don’t waste your life on bigger and better. And Paul exhorts us in Colossians: focus on where Jesus is and who Jesus is.
The call of the gospel is not merely to believe in Jesus but rather to see everything through him, to live with a vision so singular that all else fades in comparison.
So, let us, then, seek the things that are above.
Let us set our hearts on Jesus, fix our minds on his beauty, our hope on his reality, and our daily living on his example. For only when we live with a singular vision will we truly live a Christlike life.
Now, I’d like to close with a poem I wrote recently titled, Insensibility
Awake, my soul, you sleeper sunk in dreams that blur your sight.
You’ve chased illusions far too long and have embraced the night.
The life you live is filled with noise, but he who knows your name,
still calls you back from every drift of comfort, ease, or shame.
Look inward, to the smothered space where memory still burns.
Look backward, where the loss began; look forward, where it turns.
You once were more than you are now, more than this restlessness,
a wonder shaped by holy hands and therein lies your rest.
Not made for hollow appetites or passing praise or gain,
but fashioned by the God who sees and understands your pain.
You live as if you made yourself, a riddle of your own,
yet still you bear the mark of him who is your cornerstone.
O God of grace, so long withstood, so grieved, so seldom sought,
when I remember who you are, I flinch at how I’ve fought
the whisper of your yearning heart, so stark against my shrill
and coarse insensibility, the clamour of my will.
I’ve known your name, but let it sink beneath a tide of fear.
I’ve heard your voice, but let it fade through each successive year.
How strange it is that seas obey, and demons heed your hand,
while I, the one you love the most, forget by whom I stand.
You’re my beginning and my end, my breath, my hiding place.
So, as I rush past sacred things, arrest me by your grace.
Undo the hold of false desires, and lift this heavy screen,
that I may walk with open eyes to grasp what lies unseen.
For you remember what you made, and you have never strayed.
You hold me in the mystery, though you have been betrayed.
Yet even in my bluster, there’s a cry that won’t be stilled,
a deeper thirst no vice can quench, no pleasure ever filled.
So come, and school my stubborn soul with truth I’ve failed to learn.
Let Jesus touch my inner core with life I cannot earn.
But if I crawl instead of run, still let me crawl your way,
and lift me from my shadowed self into the light of day.
Receive the prayers I cannot pray, the needs I can’t express.
Let mercy be my saving grace to raise me from this mess.
Not bound by what I’ve failed to be, nor buried in regret,
but drawn by love that won’t let go and never will forget.
Amen.
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2025.