That turns us to Ecclesiastes, chapter 11.
Ecclesiastes 11:5:
Just as you do not know the path of the wind,
and how bones are formed in the womb of a pregnant woman,
so you do not know the activity of God, who makes all things.
Here we have something that we do not know—a great mystery. Let me repeat: “Just as you do not know the path of the wind, and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman.”
Let us turn to John 3:8. Again, here we have something that we do not know:
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it,
but do not know where it comes from and where it is going;
so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.
Dear Lord, it is Your grace that we may be here tonight. We would like to sit like Mary at Your feet, and we would like to hear Your word.
So, Lord, speak to our hearts and open Your word, that we may live under an open heaven tonight. Dear Lord, we pray that Your presence will be very real to us tonight. We commit this whole time into Your hands. In the name of our Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.
It is my part to share our experience tonight. Now, what is experience? What do we mean by experience?
It is better to return to the words we have just read. In Ecclesiastes 11, we have this sentence: “You do not know the path of the wind.” In either Greek or Hebrew, “wind” and “spirit” are actually the same word.
Here we have something that we do not know. It is a great mystery, because this is the mystery of life. We are reminded of the path of the wind, and then immediately of how bones are formed in the womb of a pregnant woman.
We do not know the path of the wind, nor do we know the path of life. What is our experience? When life began to operate in our mother’s womb, that life grew from time to time. After ten months, a baby was born. That movement of life becomes our experience.
The Chinese way of calculating age is different from that of the Western world. When you say that you are twenty years old, everybody understands that you calculate from the moment of your birth. But a Chinese person may say that he is already twenty-one, because he counts his age from the moment he received life in his mother’s womb.
This is something earthly—our natural and biological life. Yet, with this in mind, return to John 3:8. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. The wind can also be translated as “spirit.”
My brothers and sisters, what is the meaning of new birth? What is the meaning of being born again? To be born again simply means to be born of the Spirit.
Just as bones are formed in the womb of a pregnant woman, so our spiritual life grows. There must be a path of life. It is a mystery, but by the mercy of the Lord and through the word of God, we try to trace that path of life. Then we may be able to understand our experience.
By experience, we mean spiritual experience, Christian experience, and our spiritual experiences with the Lord. We would like to share concerning the course of life: the trail of life, the growing process of life, the path of life, the development of life, the progress of life, and the maturing of life.
Before we enter into this subject, we need a simple phrase from the word of God to open the door to Christian experience. Is it possible to find one phrase that summarizes the whole matter?
If we go through the New Testament, we discover one important thought: union with Christ.
This key to Christian experience is actually the key to the whole New Testament. If you ask, “What is the whole New Testament about?” then, from one angle, you may say that the whole New Testament is about union with Christ.
The four Gospels speak of our union with Christ by taking His history as our history. Acts and the Epistles speak of our union with Christ by taking His experience as our experience. Revelation speaks of our union with Christ by taking His future as our future.
We have no future apart from Him; we take His future as our future. We have no history apart from Him; we take His history as our history. We do not have experience apart from Him; we take His experience as our experience.
Perhaps you think that union with Christ is too abstract. Some may even think immediately of mysticism. But, my brothers and sisters, this is indeed a very important thought in the whole New Testament.
Let me use the life of Paul as an illustration. The life of Paul is very fascinating. He was a great Christian, a great teacher, a great thinker, a great traveler, a great writer, a great missionary, and a great evangelist.
He desired to bring the Roman Empire to the feet of Christ. Augustine and Calvin, Pelagius and Arminius, Origen and Clement—all drank from the fountain of Paul.
But if we only pay attention to Paul’s outward activities and greatness, we will get lost. The more we admire Paul, the more frustrated we may become. How can the life of Paul become an illustration for our experience?
We must look at Paul’s life from one particular angle. Is it possible to go through the Epistles and find one phrase that describes his experience?
In 2 Corinthians 12:2, we discover one phrase: “a man in Christ.” Paul said, “I knew a man in Christ.”
If we consider him a great thinker, we may say, “We are not that great.” If we consider him a great talent or a great writer, we may say, “We are not adequate.” We cannot identify with him in those matters.
But when he describes himself as a man in Christ, we find something with which we can identify. This experience can become our experience.
Therefore, we will consider the book of Acts and Paul’s thirteen Epistles, with our eyes focused on one thing only: the development of Paul’s inner life. Through the development of his inner life, we try to trace the course of spiritual life.
We can live the same life, and we can have the same experience. We want to go through the life of Paul and discover the pattern of Christian life.
Let me give you a brief sketch. From Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus to the end of his life, there were roughly thirty-three years. These can be divided, almost equally, into three periods of approximately eleven years each.
We do not want to be technical tonight, so do not hold me to the exact numbers. We are seeking the pattern of life.
After Paul was converted and met his risen Lord, he spent almost three years in Arabia and nearly eight years in Tarsus. Then Barnabas went searching for Paul and eventually found him.
Afterward, Paul spent about a year in Antioch. From Antioch he went on three famous missionary journeys, traveling from city to city and laboring to bring the Roman Empire to the feet of Christ.
Then came the final period. Paul went to Jerusalem, was arrested, and was brought to Rome in chains. Later he was released, and then imprisoned again until the end of his life.
The first eleven years were a hidden life. We do not know very much from the Bible about what happened in that period.
When we see a great and prosperous tree, we tend to forget that the tree is great because its roots are deep. We admire what is visible, but we forget that behind the visible part there is an invisible part.
G. Campbell Morgan told of driving through the lanes of England with D. L. Moody. They discussed the question, “What is character?” Moody answered, “Character is what a man is in the dark.”
That is how Paul began his Christian life. The river of life in Paul was, as it were, held back like water behind a dam. The living water was accumulated.
After Barnabas found Paul, it was as though the dam was lifted. The living water broke through, and the heavenly power in Paul became manifest. He traveled throughout the Roman world and wanted to win the world for Christ.
The second stage of his life was very fruitful and very useful in the hand of God. Yet, at the peak of his usefulness, his life became restricted. He was imprisoned twice. Thus, the final stage was a constrained and suffering life.
Paul’s own words may describe these three stages:
The emphasis in the first stage is a man in Christ. In the second stage, the emphasis is Christ in me. In the final stage, the emphasis is that to live is Christ.
Our Lord used similar language in John 15:
Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, He taketh it away:
and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it,
that it may bear more fruit.
I am the vine, ye are the branches:
he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit.
Accordingly, we may say that the first stage is characterized by fruit, the second by more fruit, and the final stage by much fruit.
Our Lord also said that the earth produces fruit by itself: first the blade, then the head, then the full grain in the head. Thus, we may speak of the blade, the head, and the mature grain.
In 1 John 2:13-14, we find children, young men, and fathers. So we may describe these stages as childhood, young manhood, and fatherhood in spiritual life.
Church history also speaks of three stages: purification, illumination, and union. Others have called them revival, the way of the cross, and warfare or ascent. Still others have described them as childhood, adolescence, and maturity.
In the first stage, the main hindrance to the growth of life is the world. In the second stage, the hindrance is the flesh. In the mature stage, the main hindrance is the self.
But if we stop there, we understand nothing. We must ask: Why did Paul live such a life? Why was there first a hidden life, then a public life, and then a restricted life? Is there a pattern to this course of life?
We must find the answer in the word of God. Paul’s life was lived after the Lord’s ascension and recorded in Acts and the Epistles. But we will never understand Christian experience or the life of Paul unless we return to the four Gospels.
The life of Christ is the explanation. The life of Paul is an illustration, but Christ’s life is the explanation. We can summarize our experience in one phrase: union with Christ.
Tonight, I will focus especially on the Gospel of Luke. The four Gospels present Christ from four different angles. In Luke, Christ is presented as the perfect Man.
Luke was a physician, and he was also an artist. His Gospel was especially suited to the Greeks, who longed for the complete and perfect man. Luke presents Christ as the complete Man according to the eternal will of God.
The Gospel of Luke is comprehensive. It records the life of our Lord from His birth to His ascension, and it shows the development of that wonderful life. Luke presents a life unlike any other life.
Luke is a master in word-painting. In Luke 2:25-35, we see the child Jesus in the arms of aged Simeon. What a contrast: the new life of Christ in the midst of the old and dying Adamic life represented by Simeon.
Paul said, “Not I, but Christ.” Perhaps he never realized how old the old man was until he discovered how new the Man within him was. Our life is represented by Simeon, the old man; but in the child Jesus we see the new life.
In Luke, we find three great actions from heaven that serve as dividing lines in the earthly life of our Lord.
At His baptism, there was a voice from heaven:
Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased.
At the transfiguration, there was another voice:
This is My Son, My chosen One: hear ye Him.
Finally, in Luke 24:51, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.
Thus, His earthly life may be divided into three periods:
The first thirty years were years of silence, a hidden life. Isaiah says:
He grew up before Him as a tender plant.
Our Lord began His life as a baby. This speaks of a dependent life. The sign given to the shepherds was that they would find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.
The Lord of heaven and earth began as a baby. In Luke, He is described as the fruit of the womb, then as a baby, then as a child, then as a son, and finally as a man about thirty years of age.
A baby is wholly dependent. A newborn child cannot live independently; he must depend upon others and cry for help. This is the nature of the tree of life: a dependent life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil speaks of an independent life.
Our Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth, came into the world in apparent weakness. From the very beginning, He depended upon His Father and received all His strength from His Father.
When He grew up, He was known as a carpenter. Yet He said in John 5:19:
The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing:
for what things soever He doeth,
these the Son also doeth in like manner.
He who created the forests and the trees was limited in human life. If He made a chair, a table, or a yoke, He did so in dependence upon the Father. In learning from Joseph, He was truly imitating His heavenly Father.
Paul said, “Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ.” In the first stage of our Lord’s life, we see the life of an imitator.
Hebrews 5:8 says:
Though He was a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.
He suffered because He accepted limitation. He who created the trees and forests accepted the limitations of human life. This was the life He lived during those first thirty years.
At the end of that hidden period, a voice came from heaven. This was heaven’s satisfaction with His life. He had lived before the Father like a tender shoot. Before He appeared publicly, He spent thirty years in hiddenness.
Unless we learn to live before God in secret, in dependence and imitation, we will not come to heaven’s satisfaction. The voice from heaven declared, “Thou art My beloved Son.”
After thirty years, the living water that had been accumulated in the life of our Lord began to flow out. He went about from city to city and village to village, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God.
This helps us understand Paul’s experience. After his years of hidden life, Paul also entered a public life. He went from city to city in his missionary journeys, because he could say, “Not I, but Christ liveth in me.”
Christ went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. He cured many of diseases, afflictions, and evil spirits, and granted sight to many who were blind.
The people He encountered were demon-possessed, sinful, leprous, paralyzed, blind, disabled, sick, and dying. Why? Because in their midst stood the perfect Man, the healthy and complete One.
We often do not realize our condition until we are beside something better. I remember my school days in New York. I would walk through a park where there were many hippies, and I did not realize that my hair was long because, compared with theirs, it seemed all right.
Then one day, while praying with some brothers, I noticed my dirty shoes next to another brother’s shining shoes. Only then did I realize how dirty my shoes were.
In the same way, we do not realize how sick, blind, leprous, or incomplete we are until we see the most healthy and beautiful One among ten thousand—our Lord.
At the end of this stage, again there came the approval of heaven: “This is My beloved Son.” Heaven was satisfied with His public life.
Then came the final period, beginning from the Mount of Transfiguration and leading to Mount Calvary. At the transfiguration, our Lord had reached maturity. For His own sake, He could have returned to the Father.
But for your sake and mine, He went down through the valley and walked the way of the cross. This final period, lasting approximately six months, is a very important part of Luke’s Gospel.
It began around the Feast of Tabernacles and ended at the Passover. At the Mount of Transfiguration, Christ was like a ripe grape: beautiful, mature, and perfect.
A grape may be placed in the winepress. It is crushed, and its juice flows out for others to enjoy. During winter, the vine remains in the field and endures the cold. Yet it does not complain; in the following year, it bears grapes again.
Our Lord, like the grape, could have ascended to heaven from the Mount of Transfiguration. Yet He chose the way of the cross in order to pour out His life.
The suffering of the cross was for the outpouring of life. It was like the suffering of a mother who, having reached maturity, passes life on to a child through suffering.
This is the way of the cross. It was the final period of our Lord’s earthly life, culminating in His death on the cross. He not only walked that way Himself; He also invited His disciples to walk the same way.
We may now better appreciate the first miracle of our Lord: the changing of water into wine. Many define a miracle as something contrary to nature or contrary to natural law. But our Lord is the Creator of the laws of nature. He never violates them.
Every miracle is supernatural, but it is not against nature. The explanation of the miracle at Cana is found in John 15, where our Lord says:
I am the true vine.
The word “true” means the reality. Christ is the true vine, the reality of which every vine in creation is only a picture. The story of the vine is based upon the story of Christ.
In nature, water is transformed into wine through a process. The vine absorbs water from the earth and air; eventually, grapes are produced, and through the winepress the juice becomes wine. It takes months.
At Cana, our Lord did not violate nature. He simply accomplished instantly what takes months in nature. Why? Because He is the true vine.
When He said to His mother, “Mine hour is not yet come,” He was speaking of the time when He would go through the true winepress—the cross.
In John 12, Greeks came and said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” The world had come to its end; there was no more wine. Then the Lord said that the hour had come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
His glorification meant that He would go through the winepress. Through the cross, He died to accomplish salvation, and He poured out and distributed His life.
When we summarize the life of Christ, we see three periods:
When we look at the life of our Lord, we begin to understand Paul’s life and our own. The explanation for the development of life is union with Christ.
Paul had no life of his own. He could live only one life: the life of Christ. That is why he said, “Not I, but Christ liveth in me.”
There is something very encouraging here. The pattern of our Lord’s life is different from our natural life. Our natural life comes into this world horizontally and goes out horizontally. But the life recorded in Luke comes into the world horizontally and goes out vertically.
Christ ascended into heaven. He grew up into the presence of the Father. Many have tried to climb to heaven by spiritual exercises, but one life successfully reached there: the life of Christ.
This is the pattern of life, and this is our Christian experience.
James Stewart said:
The heart of Paul’s spiritual world is union with Christ.
This, more than any other conception—more than justification,
more than sanctification, more even than reconciliation—
is the key which unlocks the secrets of his soul.
May the Lord minister this to us. This is also the key to unlock the secret of your soul and my soul.
Dear Lord, we thank You for these words. We pray that the Holy Spirit may continue to work in our lives and speak to our hearts. Do not let us go on until we meet You face to face. In the name of our Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.