Colossians Part 3

Audience Member: I memorized mine, but I don’t want to show off, so I’m going to read it. (laughter) 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, and that their heart. (fades out, can’t hear the rest)

Amen, thank you, sister, and we really believe you memorized it. You did? I forgot it. I believe memorization implies that you didn’t forget it. Oh, that was mean, wasn’t it? I apologize. I usually just do things like that to brothers.

Now, listen. Do we have any folks here tonight who were not with us previously? Yes, we got one. Anybody else? Previously this week. Okay, and you are? I’m sorry? Miguel. Miguel, okay, and where have you been, Miguel? Why haven’t you been here for the last two meetings?

Audience Member: I had to work this morning and last night. I had to work really early this morning; my wife was here yesterday and this morning.

Okay, shall we forgive him? Okay. Yes, brother. And who are you?

Audience Member: Jim, I’m from …. It’s a suburb just outside the city.

Now, then, I need to remind you that this morning, I came to a certain spot, and I skipped a bunch. Do you remember that? And then I went over to the point of who dwells in you. We’re going back to where I skipped. That’s page four, and it’s the third line, when Christ reconciled all things to Himself. Would somebody tell me, please, what verse that is for anyone who’s in the camera who is wondering where in the world we are? Anybody? One what? 120 approximately 120, alright.

Now then, there are many things we’re doing here, but one of them is we’re simply looking at this to see how much of it is individual and how much it is to a living, breathing body of people. Are you impressed so far? I was a little bit impressed. Medium impressed or a whole lot impressed? A whole lot impressed. Actually, you should be so impressed that you sell your home and move to the church. That’s how impressed you ought to be. Because brothers and sisters, this book and this drama, and this God, all of them are tied up with the body of Christ.

Now, we’re going to get something very beautiful. When Christ reconciled all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross, you Gentiles in Colossae. Is this plural? Although you were alienated from him and hostile in your minds and engaged in evil deeds, still Christ reconciled you, Colossians, in His fleshly body. I don’t know where Paul can get such an exclusionary view that he concentrates so much on a people rather than a person. Whereas our gospel today here in the 21st century is a gospel that just focuses on the individual. Brothers and sisters, virtually every line we have read here, outside this room and a few others, is all individual.

How many evangelists do you think have read this passage and said, Through Christ’s reconciliation, the blood of His cross, He has brought peace to you, the individual. But here is Christ bringing peace and reconciliation to a body of believers. The church is three years old, maybe it’s four. Most of those people found the Lord within a very short length of time. They are joined to one another, and they are all Gentiles, and they are all outside the commonwealth of God’s promise, that is, the Jewish race, but Jesus Christ’s blood on the cross reconciled not only the Jews but the Colossians in Colossae, and Paul sees this as all one time—all of you at one time.

Now, in a minute, this is going to get a little clearer that he has such audacity to make this an entire body of people reconciled to Christ, all at one time, and having peace with Christ through the blood that is on His cross. Alright. Do you agree that you were once engaged in things that were alien to God? Okay, as of right now, that’s got to stop haunting you. Do you understand as of now? Okay, we’re about to see something glorious. If you can touch it, it will change your life.

In His death, He reconciled you in His fleshly body in His death so that He might present you holy. I’m going to stop right there. When Paul refers to saints, I don’t know of a place in the scripture, and there may be one in the New Testament where there is a reference to a holy one. Do you? I never thought about this till right now. Someone get a concordance and look up the word ‘saints’. Would you? Has anybody got a big concordance with a new American, and you could look up the word in an exhaustive one, and see if there’s any place for the word saint? You are a holy one, I don’t know. Paul refers to the brothers and sisters always as holy ones.