Colossians Part 5

Audience: Oh, I was going to say, are we talking about the church?

Alright, you’ve been thinking individually, haven’t you? Haven’t you? You have been thinking individually. Isn’t it so easy to see these things individually? And yet, this is plural you all the way through. Those riches that you need so much are for the church. This is important; there are always some of us in the church who are poor. There are always some who are rich. Generally speaking, individuals get poorer. Generally speaking, the church is always rich. Generally speaking, the church is centered on the Lord. We find our riches as a body of people, not as an individual.

Our trespasses have been forgiven to us just as corporately as they have been individually, and this body of believers has had, follow me carefully, this body of believers has had her flesh crucified. The flesh of this person has been crucified. It is so important for you to understand that there is one human being in this room and that person went to the cross and died with Christ and that person rose from the dead and that person’s flesh has been put away.

As long as I look at this passage of scripture as an individual, and that’s the way it’s always presented to me, I really can’t believe my flesh has been put away. But saints, when you realize that this is a human being in this room, suddenly everything changes, and you realize, yes, the flesh has been put away. Is that not true? Can you not grab that far better than you can? You, as an individual, are a limb. Her flesh has been crucified. Like it or not, this lady is glorious. And you’re simply part of her.

The riches that we’re going to read all this over again in a minute are for the church. That salvation is as much the church as it is for you. Am I on scriptural grounds here? Let me tell you how much scriptural grounds I am on right now. Jesus Christ never died for you. Jesus Christ never loved you, and Jesus Christ never saved you. He loved her and gave Himself for her. Praise the Lord. Amen. That’s in the Bible. He loved her and gave Himself for her. He died for that lady, and she had her flesh crucified; she went into the grave. The flesh did not come out of the grave. The resurrected Lord with her inside, she, together with Him, rose from the dead. And you’re a limb. And what happened to her happened to him. I’m sorry. What happened to her? What happened to Him happened to her, and what happened to her happened to you because you’re a limb. Your brother’s getting that limb there on that video, that’s you. She rose from the grave, and you just accidentally got caught up in that because you were part of her; you’re a limb. Ain’t that wonderful? Ain’t that a better gospel? Isn’t that more liberating?

Brothers and sisters, when things get bad, get inside that girl because that girl’s inside of Christ. And we often try to put ourselves as individuals in Christ, but it doesn’t quite work. You get inside that girl and say, “I’m a limb.” And you can see that girl, glorious. And I want you to know something else. You can step back from this church, and you can see the flesh has been crucified. She’s not fleshly; every once in a while, one of her limbs thinks it is. You have never looked upon this body of believers as fleshly. You have yourself, but not her.

I’m not even saying a church can’t do that; it is possible. But brothers and sisters, the repercussions are far more horrible than when you get in the flesh. Thank God, all the alarm bells ring. You know, when the church has stepped away from her place in Christ, she also is in spirit, even when you are not.

Let me show you a part of a body that is not in spirit. Would you like to actually physically see that? Thank you. Would you hold that up? Just hold it up. Now, there is a member who is not in spirit. Do it again, please, sister? Oh, well, there it is right there. Now, that’s in the flesh. There is a member in the flesh. Thank you, Carmen. Carmen caught on to that immediately. Had y’all caught on? Can you see that and look at it and say there’s a piece of her body that’s out of sync right now? But not the body.

There existed a certificate of debt made up of all sorts of things, and every one of them was bad for you. Christ canceled out the certificate of debt, which was opposed to you and the church, and He has taken away the certificate of debt with every condemnation in it, and He nailed the certificate of debt along with all of the decrees in it to the cross. The certificate of debt has been taken away. The rules and the authorities were disarmed by Christ, and then He made a public display of them, and He triumphed over all rule and authority by means of the cross.

Now then, having said all of that, Paul suddenly remembers one more thing. First of all, he just gave circumcision down the country. Y’all don’t know that term, do you? He gave circumcision a very hard time. That ends right here. And then he switches back to remember the law and legalistic religious people, and it starts here. Another one of those passages that is there to enlighten you.

We’re about to look at something here that I think every one of us, till the day we die, is vulnerable to. No matter how much I stand up here and speak to you about Christ and I speak to you about grace, there’s a part of us, that religious nature, that has not yet been taken away from us in this bodily flesh of ours. By the way, all the religion in you is located in your flesh.

I’m going to get off the subject for just a minute, but we went through this once before, and I’ll remind you of this, too. The tree of the knowledge of what? Good and evil. That’s both our sin nature and our religious nature. Do you remember that? And the man who, you know, the guys in the mafia, they go around killing people and then selling drugs, and they give a couple of million dollars to their church. That’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And I don’t know why they do that, but then I don’t know why you do some of the things you do either. And sometimes I wonder about myself, too.