Living by Faith: Entering the Invisible Realities of Christ (Part 2)

I do not nullify the grace of the Lord, for if rightness comes through the law, then Jesus Christ doesn’t even need to come to earth. If it does not come by the law, then He desperately needs, for my sake, to come to earth. Okay. I said I would read about…we’ve got six chapters, don’t we? I’ll read three of them. Oh, thank God for this verse. This is becoming very real to me.

I still do not understand how it happened in the early days of the church in Santa Barbara. You all know that the church was hardly a year old when…maybe a year and a half old…when about a hundred people moved in, and they all had a very long history together, and it was a very poor history and a very…I’m even going to say a very ugly history, in that they were ugly people, and they were all much older than the brothers and sisters in Santa Barbara. One of them said, “We have to go to all the churches in the area and interrupt their meetings on Sunday morning and tell them that they should leave the organized church.” Oh, and there were so many of them, and they were so much older, and they were just new there. It was probably one of the first things they did. Their brothers and sisters didn’t protest it. They went around to the churches and disrupted their services, and you’ve never heard me tell this story because I’ve tried to ignore it. I wasn’t there. That was a church being foolish.

Will you just keep in mind that the church can be foolish? I have told you before that a bunch of young people went to Portland before anybody else arrived. They all piled into one apartment building, and one boy began to sleep with a girl across the hall, and nobody did anything about it. Then they argued over whether a Christian should correct another Christian. Yeah, there are some things you correct him and some of them said, “Well, we have to tenderly love him and bring him back.” Some of the brothers tried that, but he wasn’t about to change, and he still insisted on being with them. The others said, “Well, we have to be patient with him…”

A group of people can be very foolish, just downright stupid, in fact, but that’s not my point. My point is that there is a corporate-ness to us, and a “we” here. Here is a person who is foolish. This person is not always foolish, but at times, this person is foolish. May the Lord give us a Timothy, who will come by from Derbe, and come to Iconium, and say, “Hey, this isn’t really smart.” May the Lord give us a Timothy who will go not only to Derbe and Iconium but also to his own church in Lystra, and say, “This really isn’t very smart.” May the Lord always give us one person within the body who can say…we’re being a bunch of fools.

But whatever else I have just said to you, remember that there is corporate wisdom. There is a person, and there can be corporate foolishness. Doesn’t matter what it is. Here is a body of believers who are moving together and are one person. But you know something: foolish or wise, it’s still the church. Now, don’t ever forget that all of these graces we have just considered are not only for you as an individual, but for the church of Jesus Christ. It reaches not only the individual, but also the corporate. If any of you ever get impatient with a church, just remember, you personally are foolish, and the church that you were in, or are in, in Orlando…would you like for me to tell some tales about you and your foolishness? You don’t want me to do that, do you? You think y’all ever be foolish around here? Go back, turn around, and look at some of the things you said and did.

Look at some of the things that, right now, would never happen among you that used to happen. They wouldn’t happen. If you can’t think of any, get me off to myself aside, and I will tell you things that you used to wonder, “How on earth are we going to handle this?” And today you wouldn’t even blink at it. This happened to the Galatians. They didn’t remain foolish, brothers and sisters, and you will not remain foolish. So, you have to be patient with the church, the way Jesus Christ is patient with you, and so do I. And by the way, brothers, that will also cause you to be patient with your wives and sisters. It will also make you very, very patient with your husband and children.

Alright. You foolish Galatians. Now we’re back into Now, all of this last chapter has been individual—every bit of it. But there are also invisible things there. Are you following me? There are also invisible things. Oh, you foolish Galatians, who has “witchified” you? Please dwell on this for a minute. Can somebody tell me where Galatia is located? Well, let me ask it this way. How far do you figure Galatia is…let’s go back to Iconium as an individual church. It’s one of those in Galatia. How far do you figure it is from Jerusalem? About 20 miles, 100 miles. You say 100. I don’t know myself. I think around 600 miles, which is a long, long way to walk, and everybody did. So, try to think of it as a long walk, try to think of it as if you were going to go visit one of the churches in Galatia, and you had to walk to get there. That’s a long, long way.

Okay, but look at this. Jesus Christ was publicly crucified in Galatia. All I can tell you is that it’s about 20 years after the crucifixion, and they’ve only been Christians for a maximum of 3 to 4 years. Listen to me, you all, there’s something about the power of the word of God, and I’m not talking about scripture. I’m talking about the declaration of the gospel to you; that in your own life, somewhere in your life, you really saw, came to understand that Jesus Christ was crucified for you, didn’t you? Did that not become a very real thing to you, and is it not real to you now? I don’t understand this passage either, Michael, but I am telling you there’s got to be something in it that’s got nothing to do with time and that I can walk as a Christian not more than 20 years and 600 miles away from Jesus Christ openly, physically dying for me. Well, if that’s true, then I can stand here in Orlando and know that Calvary is not more than a few miles away.

Now, just let that soak in for a minute, would you? That Golgotha is just located a little way outside of Orlando. Let that profoundly affect your life. And that you were alive on this earth when He died. You have come to believe in Him, and you saw Him crucified, and you also know He rose and He indwells you. How would that affect you in relationship to the law? How would that affect you in relationship to your walk with Him? Jesus Christ was crucified just outside the walls of Orlando in your lifetime, and you have been saved through His blood, and you follow Him.

I think we can add a little more to our understanding of seeing things that can’t be seen, and refer to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as something we were eyewitnesses to, and to the profound effect this has had on our lives. In fact, I would ask you to do so tonight or tomorrow or this weekend or very soon, don’t let it be forgotten that you go to the Lord and say, “Lord, for my sake as a Christian, I accept the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as having taken place right here in Orlando in my lifetime. Now, Lord, let that affect my life as reality.” I believe that will become a powerful weapon in your hand, in your heart, and in your spirit, your soul. And you can speak, not outside this room, but to one another, as those who saw Him die for you.

And you know, the Holy Spirit is in you, and the word is in you. The story is in you, and the Lord is in you. And that event is very real to you. In fact, I have a notion it’s about as real to you as it is to some people who witnessed that event. Let it become an event. Gene, I can’t do it. Yeah, that’s what I was talking about yesterday. We are those who make invisible things visible. We are those who take things eternal and bring them to earth. We are those who deal with space and time as though they did not exist. Yes, Jesus Christ was publicly crucified in your presence. That’s what that verse says. I want to do that. I think from this day forward, I would like to know that I saw it happen. Horrible thing I saw, but praise God, the memory of the horror has been erased by the fact that I was also in Orlando when He rose from the dead.

Lord, I want to treat You as though You were crucified in my lifetime and rose from the dead in my lifetime, and that I was present when it happened. And Lord, let nothing that comes into my life, through men or through a message, ever take away from me that I saw you die for me and rise. And now Lord, I pray that it will not be just for me, nor for Sandy, or for Davey, or anyone else in this room, but a church was present when Jesus Christ died and rose again. That we as a body of believers stood there at the foot of Golgotha and watched You die for us, that we know what the crucifixion is, and we know what the resurrection is. Would You bless us with such a realness in our spirit and never let such a sense leave us?  Amen.