Colossians Part 2

Grace to all of you who are in Colossae and peace to all of you from God our Father. He has two words, grace and peace. That brother is obsessed with those words, along with the word Christ. I give thanks to God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, always praying for a corporate body of people, because I think corporately, I think of you as one person, and we will find that out later.

I’ve been praying for you as a body of believers ever since I heard of your faith in Christ and your love for all the other holy ones. Do you realize that you are already holy ones? Thank you, lady. All right, and of the faith laid up for you in heavenly places, and brothers and sisters, again, everything in me aches for you to not read that as you, the individual. And that’s not all, this is not a reference to heaven. As I recall, I’ve got to look up this someday, I think the word heaven only appears in the New Testament in one place. Every reference that you see that says heaven is not heaven. It’s either the heavenlies or heavenly places, and that is not a reference to the New Jerusalem or harps and clouds and gold and streets and all pearls and all of that stuff. It simply means the other realm.

That you might know what you have in your faith, what you have in the other realm. And it’s not you the individual, it’s you as a body of believers, and Lord Jesus, give the brothers and sisters in Chicago a glimpse of what they have in heavenly places. And may you more and more, and this is Gene Edwards speaking, not Paul, may you more and more and more find that place and touch it. And that’s my prayer for you. And that was Paul’s prayer for a church long, long ago. Well, as much as I, see what I did, the only other person in the room who can do something like that is Frau. I think we need to get a hold, don’t we? I think I got it this time. Good. All right.

Now, I’m not the first person to tell you this; you, as a people, Epaphras told you first. I’m just telling you what Epaphras told you; it’s my prayer that you will continue to see what you have laid up in heavenly places. Praise the Lord for Epaphras, and that is the good news.

Now, brothers and sisters, what’s the good news? Jesus Christ is the good news. And in the other book that Paul wrote, the twin to this one, 2 Colossians, he says,” I pray that you will understand and come to lay hold of the riches that are in heavenly places,” that are where? In Christ Jesus. Where are the heavenly riches, brothers and sisters? So, if you want to find them, what you do is you find the Lord Jesus. Not the Christ of Galilee in Judea, but the Christ Paul presents in Colossians. By the way, I am not here to put any of you under condemnation; we’re going to try to make a lot of this practical before I leave here this weekend. Okay?

This good news has come to all the world, and it has also come to you, and it is bearing fruit both in the world and those of you who are in Colossae and have, since that day that you heard and understood, what, the truth of the grace of God. Brothers and sisters in Colossae and Chicago, you were born free.

Does anybody here ever write new words to popular songs? Have you ever done that? Who could do it? Who’s good at that kind of writing? Okay, then, Darlene, you have an assignment. Okay, Darlene, y’all get together and write a Christian song to Born Free, okay? Will you do that? Okay, great. You were born free, and the Gospel is flowing in you. Amen, all right, good. The gospel is flowing and growing in you, just stay in the grace. The flowing and the growing end when grace goes out the window, and that’s the only thing in the world that can stop the growth of the Lord in you. Grace. This brother is obsessed with it.

All right, here we go. Don’t forget grace, would you? Epaphras, who is from among you and from whom you heard the grace of God, now here in Rome, Epaphras is my beloved fellow slave and a faithful servant of Christ both to you and to me. And brothers and sisters, that’s plural. He has been faithful to Paul in Rome. He is a faithful servant to the church of Jesus Christ. It was Epaphras who informed me of your love in the spirit.

Can you tell me the difference between your spirit and heavenly places? Can you tell me the difference between your spirit and heavenly places? I have two things I want to say to you. Every person in this room right now is thinking individually. Is that not true? Do you know you didn’t learn to love individually? You have a love for one another here. Every once in a while, it cracks a little bit, but generally speaking, is that not true, brother? Have a real affection for one another. Did you get that individually? I can tell you, you did not get that individually. The love you have here in Chicago, you cannot find in Christians because of individual discovery.

Brothers and sisters, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ has a spirit. Now, I want to really get clear here with you. This room is filled with individuals who have a spirit, but this room is also filled with one being. One human being. That person, unique among all other creatures on this earth, has a spirit. And you have learned to love one another by the one spirit of this one person, and you’re not going to find love for the brothers and sisters any other way.

I meet a Christian, and he loves Christians. Says things in his vocabulary, this is wonderful. He loves the Lord, he loves brothers and sisters, he’ll tell you he does. Stick him in the body of Christ and let him touch that one spirit, and he’ll come out of there with an intensity of love for the other brothers and sisters and the Lord, he cannot find within his own spirit. All right, praise the Lord. Are you with me? Are you following me? This is important.

Now, the other thing I wanted to say to you is it’s very hard to tell the difference between the spirit and heavenly places because your spirit puts you in heavenly places. Now, you get there in little ways and medium-sized ways and big ways, even our singing together puts us in our spirit. Holding on to one another, hugging each other, singing together like we did last night, puts us in our spirit, and we touch a little bit of other realms. Just a little, and the more we do that, the Lord gains a little ground in our lives, just a little bit. No big deal here, brothers and sisters. No big promises, just a little bit.