Winona Conference Part 2 – You’re Made for Two Realms

You spot a town. You walk in, and you’re so relieved. All the houses look just like they’ve been built in London. The people are walking up and down the street wearing fashions from Great Britain. You look into the windows, and there is food—you recognize roast beef and potatoes. And you notice that they have good British tea with kettles, just like the kettles where you came from. The guns are the same. The books are the same. The buildings remind you of dear old London. The fashions in the windows—the women’s fashion—you’re relieved. Your wife will not feel deprived. They’re the latest fashion from Great Britain. You are in Philadelphia. You are in a colony of Great Britain, and it is a miniature of London, and you feel at home. There’s tea every afternoon at three, with crumpets. There’s a dance in the evening. They dance to whatever is popular in Great Britain at the time. There’s horseback riding and fox hunting and deer hunting, just like in Great Britain. You’re home. You’re in a colony of your native land.

Now, can you follow that? Okay, now let’s back that up to Rome. Pisidian Antioch is in the wildest part of the Roman Empire, and there’s been a lot of rebellion there, and you’ve been sent there. You know this town did not start off being a Roman settlement, but you have heard it’s been Romanized. You have the same misgivings; you walk into the town, you get down to the center of the city, and lo and behold—it literally is a miniature replica of downtown Rome. The colonnades are there. The forum is there. The food is the same. There are Roman soldiers standing there guarding each street, just like they do in Rome. Chariots come by; the people are dressed the same, and you hear Latin. You are in a colony of Rome. You are home. Do you understand what a colony is now?

What do fish run around in? Schools. What do dogs run around in? Packs. What do geese go around in? Gaggles. Does anybody know what a crow goes around in? I just found this out. They go around in murders. Don’t ask me how they got that. Whales run in what? Gams Whales run around in gams. Okay Great! That’s wonderful. Sparrows go around in flocks. Sheep go around in flocks. Cattle go around in herds. Horses go around in herds, too, don’t they? Yeah. What does unredeemed fallen man go around in? Man, unredeemed man, goes around in something he himself invented for his security. He goes around in something called civilization, and it is innate to his being. He is man.

Hey, listen, it was no coincidence that when Divinity entered our realm, Divinity gathered about Him a group of people with whom to live, to love, to mutually care for one another, and to fellowship; and the fellowship was around Him, and His fellowship was with the Father. Now, a bird goes in a flock, a dog goes in a pack, a Whale goes in a gam, geese go in a gaggle, sheep go in a flock, and man goes around in civilization, and the redeemed do not go around in a flock; they do not go around in a pack; and they do not and ought not—and it is unnatural to your species—to run around in a civilization.

You also have an organic habitat. Hear me: The spiritual community of the believer is the natural, organic dwelling, living place—the civilization of the redeemed. You and I belong in the ekklesia, and to deny us that is to deny us part of our biological nature and our innate urge. When we walk into her, something happens. We sense it. Consider it, would you please? A brother said last night, “You go in there and you feel like you’ve known these people your whole lives.” That is an instinct to you and you alone. You have an instinct, a biological craving, a genetic compulsion to be in the place where God is housed. That is what should come to mind when we say church: flock, gaggle, herd, civilization, ekklesia—the place where men and women live with God, touch Him, know Him, and fellowship with Him.

Something’s coming. We don’t know exactly what it is, but I tell you, whatever it is that’s coming…has already been. It was in the Godhead. It’s coming again. In fact, it’s still there. The only difference is—we’re going to get it through a door. We’re going through a door and become part of it. It is the eternal nature of God. Forgive me for saying this, but it is the nature of God to be in the church. His fellowship is the Godhead, and He simply expanded that. That’s all He did—and that is the church. Something’s coming for you and for me, but it’s already been. You can go back that way and find it as easily as you can in that direction. And if you go that way, you’ll find it there too. It is our habitat. It is coming, but it also is, for it is a colony now of the other realm.

When I was a young man—and I don’t remember what caused this to happen—but there was a reason that I, a country boy from a little town called Cleveland, Texas, went to a banquet, a real sophisticated banquet in Houston, Texas. They had waiters, and everybody was—it was this, it was that. Here were all these utensils—you didn’t know what half of them were. And we all sat down. I’m sure some preacher prayed over it—bless his poor heart. And then the waiters started coming in, and they brought us the strangest thing you’ve ever seen. Here was this big plate, and on it was a little bone. One miserable little bone. They set that thing down in front of us, and I tried to play it cool. I tried to pretend that it was perfectly natural. And then someone explained to me what it was—and I will tell you in case you don’t know. It was a little bone with just a little beef on it. And each of us took it, chewed what little was on or off of it, and put the bone back down. The waiters came and got it.

This got our gastric juices flowing properly. This told our stomach, “What’s coming is beef, and it tastes such and such like this. Our tummies got ready, not for vegetables or grains but for beef. And it was a foretaste of what was to come, and we were being stirred up inside for what was coming. Do you understand what I’m saying now? Do you got it?

Yeah—that’s what she is, saints. She’s beautiful. She’s holy. She’s wonderful. I want to live my whole life in her. And if I can’t find her, I’ll look for her. If I look for her, I’ll find her. If I find her, I’ll live in her. And if I have to move, I’ll move. If I can’t find her, if God be gracious, I’ll raise her up. I know that only the Lord can do that, but I mean, just take me, I will say it: “I’ll raise her up. I want to be in her walls.” She is the foretaste of what’s coming. She is that colony of that glorious thing, and everything that’s coming is in her right now, in miniature. The fellowship with the Son, the fellowship with the Father is right there. The joy, the worship, the praise, the care, if you please—the full redemption—are all touched, tasted, known, as a foretaste.

She is my natural habitat. One day, I will know her in her unvarnished fullness, but until that day, I will know her as a foretaste of what has been, and what is to come. She is the place where I naturally am at home, and I’m not at home anywhere else. And she is where you belong.  Campus Crusade and InterVarsity, and Youth with a Mission are no substitute for her, and you could never have sold those things to a first-century Christian. She is your obsession in the morning; she is your afternoon; she is your evening. She’s not a meeting. She’s not a gathering. She’s not a teaching; she’s not a place where you teach. She is every waking hour of your day and night. She is the people you are with. She is part of your suffering. You are part of her suffering. Those who are within her walls are your genetic brothers and sisters.

Do you understand what I mean by your genetic brothers and sisters? I mean by that that you have a human genetic gene. You’ve got divine genes, saints. Do you not know that you have become partakers of the divine nature? She is part of your genetic genes. She, and also those you live with, they are your brothers genetically. And your sisters. The interchange of love is the interchange of divine love, not human love. The caring is a caring out of the compulsion that compelled Jesus Christ to love her and die for her. It is not a human compassion; it is a divine thing. Brothers and sisters, the church is a corporate experience of the divine here on this famished earth. She’s where you belong. And once you get there, where you ought to stay, she’s your rightful inheritance.

We’re going to pursue this a little further tonight. You got anything to say? Then why are you sitting here chasing after crumbs? Why are you sitting as an isolated soul? Come on home. Find her. Every one of us has got to deal with what that means; I realize that. I would not influence you in any way, but I want you to very simply be impressed with what is your rightful inheritance. And the Lord, one of these days, is going to expand her boundaries. He is.