Will you please turn to Romans? Romans Chapter 12. We will read from verses 1 through 5, and then verses 9 through 21.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service.
And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
For I say, through the grace which has been given to me, to every one that is among you, not to have high thoughts above what he should think, but to think so as to be wise, as God has dealt to each a measure of faith.
For as in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same office, thus we, being many, are one body in Christ, and each one members one of the other.
Let love be unfeigned, abhorring evil, clinging to good.
As to brotherly love, kindly affectioned towards one another; as to honor, each taking the lead in paying it to the other.
As to diligent zealousness, not slothful; in spirit fervent, serving the Lord.
As regards hope, rejoicing; as regards tribulation, enduring; as regards prayer, persevering; distributing to the necessities of the saints; given to hospitality.
Bless them that persecute you; bless, and curse not.
Rejoice with those that rejoice; weep with those that weep.
Have the same respect one for another, not minding high things, but going along with the lowly. Be not wise in your own eyes.
Recompensing to no one evil for evil; providing things honest before all men. If possible, as far as depends on you, living in peace with all men.
Not avenging yourselves, beloved, but give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance belongs to Me; I will recompense, saith the Lord.”
If therefore thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink. For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.
Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Shall we pray?
Dear heavenly Father, we do praise and thank Thee that, in the name of Thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, we may assemble together here tonight. We know that Thy promise is true. We know that Thou art here with us, and we are all before Thee.
Lord, we ask that Thy Spirit will quicken Thy Word to our hearts. Give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation unto the true knowledge of God. We do commit this time into Thy hands and trust Thy Holy Spirit to do Thy work. In the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
We do thank the Lord for gathering us together this time, and we would like to concentrate our time on this matter of corporate body—or, to put it another way, body life and body function.
I suppose we have to go to the very fundamentals. It may be elementary to some of you, but I think we have to go back and lay the foundation of this corporate life and functioning.
As you know, the life that we received when we believed in the Lord Jesus is one life. The life in you and the life in me is the same life. It is the life of God. It is even our Lord Jesus.
So we have the one life, and in having that one life, there is a oneness there, and there is a corporateness there.
When we believe in the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit actually does two things to us. Number one, we are born from above. “He that is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The Holy Spirit comes and begets us.
Or, to put it another way, when we believe in the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit puts Christ in us. And I believe we all know that. When this happens, we know. Actually, we do not need anybody to tell us, because we know that the Holy Spirit has brought the life of Christ into us. We are the children of God.
But do we know that at the same time the Holy Spirit does another work in us? And that is: in Him, we were baptized into one body.
He not only begat us and put Christ into us, but at the very same time, we were baptized in one Spirit into one body. Now, I wonder how many of us realize that.
We all realize that when we believe in the Lord Jesus, Christ has come into us through the Holy Spirit. Something is being done within us. But do we know that at the same time the Holy Spirit does another work in us? In Him, we are being baptized into one body.
I think it can be very easily proved. Is it not that when you believe in the Lord Jesus, immediately there is a life relationship between you and God? The Holy Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you are a child of God, and you cry, “Abba, Father.” A relationship is established.
Before that, you may believe in God, but God is billions of miles away. You know He is there somewhere, but there is no relationship. But the moment you believe in the Lord Jesus, strangely and wonderfully, a relationship begins because you have His life in you.
You begin to fellowship with Him, commune with Him, and when you pray, you know He is there listening to you. You begin to hear Him too. When you read the Word of God, He speaks to you. It becomes a book opened to you.
But at the same time, when you believe in the Lord Jesus and you go out, and you happen to meet a stranger, and you find out that stranger also believes in the Lord Jesus, you know what happens? Immediately, you find there is a bond between you two, as if you have known him for a lifetime.
Now, where does this come from? If you do not belong to the one body, where does this come from? It shows that when we believe in the Lord Jesus, we not only have one life; because we share one life, we are one body.
Not only is a relationship with the Lord established, but a relationship with all who are the Lord’s is established.
Now, unfortunately, many people do not realize that. They realize that they have the life of Christ in them, but they do not realize that at the same time they are members one of another in the one body.
And for that reason, when we are pursuing the Lord, it tends to become a purely personal, individual matter. We fail to see that there is not only that personal, individual aspect, but as a matter of fact, that aspect is really for the corporate body.
Unless we realize that we belong to one body, we will never be able to enter into the fullness of Christ.
What is the will of God concerning us? What is God’s purpose in saving us? Does He save us just that we may not go to hell and may go to heaven? Or does He save us just that we may become spiritual monuments?
God does not want to display us as spiritual monuments. No. If you read the Word of God, you find that the will of God, the purpose of God in saving us and in calling us, is that we may become the body of Christ.
God is looking for a corporate body. Why? Because His Son is so rich. Paul used the term, “the unsearchable riches of Christ,” and how true it is, because all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him.
Now, who can comprehend the fullness of the Godhead—in other words, what God really is? All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, and this is the Head. That Head requires a body: a body that can contain all His riches and also a body that can manifest His glory.
Can you imagine that a single individual is able to contain all the riches of Christ? Can you imagine a single believer can manifest all the glory of the Head? It is impossible.
That is the reason why you find God’s purpose with us is corporate; it is never individual, because He is too great. Each one of us has a limited capacity, and He wants to fill us to the limit. But even though He fills us to the limit, because that is what His grace desires to do, you find it is still very, very limited.
For the glory of His Son, He will not be satisfied. He can only be satisfied when He has a body composed of many members, and each member experiences something of Christ. Then, when you put all together, it can contain the riches of the Head and manifest the glory of the Head.
So when you look at the purpose of God, you know that God’s purpose is corporate; it is never individual.
Now, when you come to this matter of our calling, brothers and sisters, when we talk about calling, right away we think God calls us to go to a foreign country to be a foreign missionary, or God calls us to be a home missionary, or a doctor, or a housewife.
Now, we think that this is our calling. It is true in a sense, but actually we have a corporate calling, and that corporate calling is the overall calling.
If you read the letter to the Ephesians, you will find that we are called, and we should walk worthy of our calling. But what is our calling? There is a calling that we share together.
Whether you feel called to be a foreign missionary, a home missionary, a doctor, a nurse, or a housewife, all these are included in that one corporate calling. Only in that one corporate calling can you fulfill your individual calling.
And that one corporate calling—what is it? The letter to the Ephesians tells us that we are called to be the body of Christ, the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
What is the hope of our calling? The hope of our calling is that one day the body is matured and can become the bride of the Lamb. That is our hope. For this reason, we need to walk worthy of our calling.
So, dear brothers and sisters, whether you look at it from the viewpoint of what God has done in our life, from the direction of God’s purpose concerning us, or from the calling that we receive, you will find it is the same thing: to be a corporate body, the body of Christ.
When our Lord Jesus was on earth, He took a human body. In that body, He spoke, He did many things, and in that body He accomplished the work of redemption for which He was sent.
But after He was raised from the dead and ascended on high, you find that He took upon Himself another body, a corporate body. In that corporate body, He has been working ever since for about two thousand years.
The book of Acts says, in Luke’s former treatise—that is, the Gospel according to Luke—he recorded how Jesus began to do and to speak. But in the book of Acts, it is a continuation: He continues to do and to speak.
In Luke, it was in a personal, physical body; but in Acts, it is in a corporate, spiritual body.
So, brothers and sisters, we need to realize that we are not just individual believers. It is true that we come to the Lord individually, one by one. Your parents cannot come to the Lord for you. They can help you, but you yourself have to come to the Lord and receive Him as your Savior, as your Lord.
That is true. But after we come to the Lord, immediately you find the Lord has put us in one body. It is called the body of Christ, and Christ Himself is the Head.
So it is very, very important that from the very beginning of our Christian life, we need to see two things: one is to see Christ as the Head; the other is to see that we belong to the one body.
I think the best thing to do is to illustrate it. You go back to the book of Acts. There you find one hundred and twenty believers. They are actually the cream of the disciples, or the believers, of our Lord Jesus.
At one time, you remember, five hundred brethren saw the Lord. We do not really know where, but most likely it was in Galilee, because the Lord went to Galilee to meet with them. Most likely there were five hundred at that time.
These five hundred were not the whole number, but most likely were disciples of the Lord among many others. Yet only five hundred went to Galilee to meet with the Lord after His resurrection.
But when the Lord told them they should go back to Jerusalem and wait there until they received power from on high, and then go out as His witnesses from Jerusalem to all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the world, only one hundred and twenty went back.
So they actually were the cream of the disciples of our Lord Jesus at that time. They were the best.
For ten days they were together. With one accord, they prayed. Now, that was something. But even so, they were only a congregation of one hundred and twenty members—in other words, one hundred and twenty individual believers coming together for ten days.
But something happened on the day of Pentecost. You know, brothers and sisters, when we read Acts Chapter 2, what really arrests your attention?
Many people are arrested by the sound and the sight in Acts Chapter 2. They think that Pentecost is the time when there is a hard blowing, as if somebody is breathing very hard—a wind that sweeps through the room. Actually, in the original, it is a hard breathing. Someone is breathing. There is a sound.
And then there is the sight. You find tongues like fire descending upon the head of every one of the one hundred and twenty, and they begin to speak in tongues. Now, people think that is Pentecost.
But, brothers and sisters, if you read the Word very carefully, you will find that the sound and the sight are secondary. They are circumstantial. They are not primary. They are not the real meaning of Pentecost.
Because the sound and the sight may change, and they do change. But the meaning of Pentecost remains the same.
Now, in order to know the meaning of Pentecost, on the one hand, you listen to Peter. Peter explained it. People came in, heard what was happening, and many people asked, “What is it? What has happened?” Some mocked and said, “They are filled with wine.”
So Peter stood up with the eleven and explained to the people what the whole thing meant. What did he explain? If you read Acts Chapter 2, you find this is the way he concludes, in Acts 2:33:
Having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear.
Then he comes to Acts 2:36:
Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly, that God hath made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified.
In other words, he explained what Pentecost really means. You have just seen and heard that the Holy Spirit has come. What does it mean? It shows you that God has made the One whom you have crucified both Lord and Christ.
In other words, Pentecost shows us that Jesus is the Lord. He is the Christ. That is what the baptism in the Holy Spirit does: it shows that Jesus is Lord.
Then you go to the Epistles, because the Epistles explain and interpret God’s actions. The book of Acts records what God has done, and the Epistles explain it.
So you go to 1 Corinthians Chapter 12. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, it says:
For even as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is the Christ.
For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit.
So it explains here: what is the meaning of the baptism in the Holy Spirit? What is the meaning of Pentecost? In one Spirit, you have been baptized into one body.
The primary and essential meaning of Pentecost is, on the one hand, to show us the Head; on the other hand, to show us the body. In one Spirit, you were baptized into one body. But, of course, that body has a Head: it is Christ, the Lord.
So this is actually the meaning of Pentecost. This is actually what the baptism in the Holy Spirit has done for us.
How do you prove it? You find that after the day of Pentecost, not only were the one hundred and twenty baptized into one body. Formerly, they were a congregation of one hundred and twenty individual disciples—the best.
But now they became one body of one hundred and twenty members. There is a difference of heaven and earth. A congregation of one hundred and twenty members coming together is an external thing, but a body of one hundred and twenty members is an internal thing.
A congregation of one hundred and twenty members may be separated, but a body of one hundred and twenty members can never be separated, never be divided, because one is organic and the other is organizational. So there is a vast difference.
You find not only the one hundred and twenty were baptized into one body, but how about the three thousand on that same day? Did not Peter tell them, “Repent, and be baptized. Receive the promise”—that promise given to those near and those far away?
In other words, you find the three thousand on that very same day received the promise of the Holy Spirit. They became members of the same body. So in one day, from one hundred and twenty members of the one body, that one body grew to three thousand one hundred and twenty.
And you can prove it, because there was nothing organizational. No one came and organized them. But the Bible says in Acts 2:42:
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.
They all continued voluntarily, willingly, in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, which is the teaching and fellowship of Christ. In the breaking of bread—why? The breaking of bread expressed that they are one: one bread, one body.
And in prayers. The prayer there is not that you pray your prayer and I pray my prayer, but you find that they prayed corporately together, as one.
Who made this possible? You do not find any outward force trying to put them into one body. But you find that the body is there, and naturally—supernaturally naturally—you find all these things just begin, because this is body life.
They were all together. Nobody said, “This is mine.” God had delivered them from that individualism. Immediately, you find they became one, related one to another, rejoicing in the Lord.
When one member suffered, all suffered. Peter and John were taken and threatened, and when they came back and told the company, the brothers and sisters prayed with one accord.
Nobody had to help them. It was natural. It came from life. It came from within. This is what you find in the book of Acts.
Now, brothers and sisters, why is it that today many of God’s people see the Christian life only as a personal, individual thing and do not see that there is a corporate side?
In other words, you see many Christians pursuing spirituality without knowing why they want to be spiritual. We should be spiritual, but why? It is for the body’s sake. It is not for your own sake; it is for the whole body. But people do not see it.
We may hear about it, but we do not really enter into this body life. Now, why is it? Where is the key to the reality of the body and the body life that we should live?
So we have to go back to Romans, to Romans Chapter 12. Paul says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions—or the mercies—of God.”
Paul wrote this letter to the Romans, and from Chapters 1 through 11, you find that he shows us the compassions of God, all the mercies of God toward us—what God has done in Christ for us.
From the depths of sin, He delivered us mightily and lifted us up. He not only forgave our sins and gave us a new life, but He gave us the power to overcome sin.
Now we are dead with Christ, risen with Christ, ascended with Christ; and He gave us the Holy Spirit that we may walk after the Spirit. Out of the multitudes of people, He chose us in Christ Jesus—not because we are better than anybody else, but it is all His mercy.
After God has done all this for us, Paul says, “Now what? Do you receive all this just for yourself? Does God give you all these things just that you may become something, someone?” Not at all.
He says, “I beseech you, by the mercies of God, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.” This is your intelligent service, or, as some versions say, your spiritual worship.
Present your bodies a living sacrifice. Now, this is what we call the basic thing, because your Christian experience, frankly speaking, does not begin until you present your bodies a living sacrifice.
We receive all the mercies of God. Now what? Do you use all the mercies of God for your own benefit? You are still self-centered. You are only interested in what should become of you, and you never think of what will become of God’s interest.
Or is it that because you find the mercies of God, you are constrained by His love and find that you cannot live for yourself again—not even for your spiritual self? You have to give your body to the Lord as a living sacrifice.
Why the body? Because it becomes very practical now. There is nothing theoretical about it. The body actually includes your whole being, but why does it use “body”? Because we are coming down to the practical side.
It is your body, because you live in that body, you speak in that body, and you act in that body. So this body, which has been redeemed, bought, and cleansed—can you continue to live in this body for yourself? Can you continue to be the master of your own body?
Or will you find, constrained by the love of Christ, that you have to present this body to the Lord and say, “Lord, it is Yours. You may do what You want to do with it.” That is consecration.
In the Old Testament, when people were touched by the love of God, they would bring a lamb or a bullock and offer it as a dead sacrifice, to be burned to ashes as a sweet-smelling savor to God, as the food of God.
But now, not a lamb or a bullock—it is you. You will offer yourself to live for God, and let His fire of love burn you and consume you, so that you may be food to God. In other words, you satisfy God’s heart.
This is holy, acceptable to God, and this is your service, your worship. You do not start to serve Him if you have not presented your body a living sacrifice. You do not start to worship Him if you do not present your body a living sacrifice.
You have your body; I have my body. So “bodies” here is plural: “Present your bodies.” But it is one living sacrifice.
When you do that, something happens. In Romans 12:2, it says, “Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
You know, brothers and sisters, we need to have our mind renewed. We have a new life and a new heart, but unfortunately we still carry an old mind.
By that I mean, even after you are saved, it is as if your mind is renewed because you think differently now. But unfortunately, it is not a drastic change. Repentance is a change of mind, but it is not always a drastic change.
In other words, it easily goes back to the old path because of our habits. We begin to drift back and see things in the old way. You begin to love the world just like before, to be conformed to the world, and you begin to be afraid of the will of God.
But strangely, when you present your bodies a living sacrifice, the Holy Spirit does a further work in your life: He renews your mind. You cannot renew your mind. No one can.
But you can present your body, and the Holy Spirit can renew your mind. The moment you present your body a living sacrifice, that very moment you find your mind is renewed. You begin to see things very differently.
Your evaluation of things becomes different. What you considered very precious, you now look at as refuse. What you considered something to despise becomes treasure to you. You read Philippians Chapter 3, and you find that happened before—a renewing of the mind.
In that renewing of the mind, you begin to prove—that is, you begin to find out, to test out—what is the perfect, good, and acceptable will of God.
The will of God is singular, not the wills of God, but the will of God. Without a renewing of the mind, you will never prove the will of God. You do not even have the desire to find it out, and you will not be able to pass the test.
But once your mind is renewed, then you begin to desire to find out and to try out the perfect, acceptable, good will of God.
Now, what is that will? You read on, and you come to verses 4 and 5:
For as in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same office, thus we, being many, are one body in Christ, and each one members one of the other.
That is the will you discover. In verse 1, “bodies” is plural: your body and my body. But in verses 4 and 5, “body” is singular. It is the body of Christ.
How do you discover the body of Christ in a practical sense? You discover the body of Christ in a practical sense only after you have presented your bodies a living sacrifice, your mind is renewed, and God opens your eyes to see that the will of God is to have one body and that you are a member in that body.
Is that not wonderful? Instead of you yourself living in your body, now you find it is Christ who lives His life out of all of us as His body.
You are delivered from yourself. You enter into the corporate fullness of Christ. You are delivered from individualism, and then you enter into an interrelatedness.
It does not mean that you are no longer an individual. You are a member. Each member is an individual of the body. There is an individuality there, and that individuality will remain to eternity.
You will always be you. God will not wipe out your identity and make all of us a lump of meat instead of a body. Everyone being the same would just be a lump of meat.
Your individuality will remain to eternity because God loves variety. He made you that way. But individualism is gone. He has to deal with our individualism, but individuality will continue on to eternity.
Yet that individuality is unity in variety, not uniformity. It is unity in diversity. All the members are different, but even though we are all different and we are many members, thank God, we are one body.
So that is the secret of entering into body life. Brothers and sisters, the body of Christ is a reality. It is not a theory. It is not just a teaching. It is a life that can be lived.
But how are you going to enter into that life? Now, you are in the body whether you know it or not, whether you want it or not. In one Spirit, you are baptized into one body. You cannot help it; you are in that body.
But you may not live that body life. That is the difference. It does not mean that because you do not live the body life, you are not in the body. You are still in the body.
Once you are born into that body, you are there forever. You cannot be put out. You can be put out of an organization, but you cannot be put out of an organism. You are stuck for eternity.
But you can, or you may not, live in that body life. Now, that is possible, and that is the problem. Many are in the body; very few live that body life, as if they are not in the body.
So, dear brothers and sisters, the way to begin practicing body life is to present your bodies a living sacrifice. That will lead you into living the body life.
Now, what do you find in that body life? How do we live that body life? In the same chapter, from verse 9 through verse 21, it tells us what body life is all about.
How do you live as a member of the body? How do you live together as one body? First, as I have already said, “Let love be unfeigned.”
A body life is a life of love. That love is unfeigned, or unassumed. It is not something you can put on.
Take my physical body as an example. This body cannot live if there is not love among all the members of that body. If my hand does not love my foot, then what will happen? You cannot live. There is love there. So the life of the body is love.
Put this into the spiritual body of Christ, and you find that love is agape love. In other words, it is not our natural love.
Naturally, we have love. We love our family. We love those who are lovable. We love those who seem to have the same temperament, the same ideas, or the same background as we do. That is natural love.
Natural love has its limitations, because natural love is based upon outside influences. But the love in the body of Christ is a godly love. In other words, it is the divine love.
It is God’s love shed abroad in our hearts. It is the love of Christ that constrains us. So, brothers and sisters, how do we live that body life? Let love be unfeigned.
Let us love God with all our hearts, and from that love, with that love, we learn to love one another. That is living body life.
You see, in the book of Acts, in the early days, the Christians received this comment from the world. We learn from history that the world said of these early Christians, “See how they love one another.” That is the comment, because this is body life.
This is what the Lord was trying to tell us. In His last days with His disciples, He washed their feet, and He said:
As I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
If you love one another, then the world will see.
So, brothers and sisters, what we need is to go to the Lord and tell Him, “We have no love.” But He does. We learn to trust Him, His life, because His life is the life of love. We learn to let His life express through us.
In loving God, we learn to love our brothers and sisters. The apostle John tells us in 1 John 3:16. You know John 3:16; we all know it. But 1 John 3:16, we sometimes forget.
John 3:16 says that God loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, and whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. We all remember that. But 1 John 3:16 says:
Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Brothers and sisters, this is love unfeigned. Are we willing to lay down our lives for our brethren? Are we willing to let go of ourselves?
Sometimes we want to insist upon our opinion, our dignity, or our integrity, and so forth. But are we willing to lay ourselves down, to lay down our life for our brethren? This is love.
We are told that when John was very old, people carried him to the meeting and wanted him to speak. All he did was say, “Little children, love one another.” As if there were no other message. Why? This is body life.
So how do we live body life? Love. Let love be unfeigned. But that does not mean that because of love we become soft. Not at all: abhorring evil, cleaving to good.
Human love sometimes is indulgent. You love to the extent that you close your eyes to evil. But not agape love. There is no weakness there.
It does not mean that because you love your brother, when your brother is in evil, you tolerate it, embrace it, and act as if nothing has happened. The church in Corinth did that. They thought they were very broad-minded.
But divine love abhors evil and cleaves to good.
Number two: what is body life? “As to honor, each taking the lead in paying it to the other.” In other words, prefer the other more than yourself.
This is the same thing Paul says in Philippians: that you look at your brothers as more excellent than you are.
Now, brothers and sisters, we are all high-minded. Paul says in Romans, at the beginning, “Do not be high-minded.” What do you mean by high-minded? It simply means that you think of yourself more highly than you really are.
You are but a member of the body, but you think you are the body. Now, that is high-minded. You think you do not need your brothers and sisters because you are perfect. That is high-minded.
You have to be sober-minded. Sober-minded simply means that you recognize you are but a member of the body of Christ. You are not all-sufficient. You need your brothers and sisters. You are interrelated and interdependent.
We need the Lord, but we also need our brothers and sisters. That is being sober-minded—and not only sober-minded, but lowly-minded. In other words, you look at your brothers and sisters as better than you are.
You need their prayers. You need their help. Do not be high-minded, as if you are the one who helps others and never need their help. Even the apostle Paul always said, “Pray for me. I need your prayers.”
You know, brothers and sisters, many problems in the assembly, if you trace the source, come from something wrong with the mind. We think too highly of ourselves. We look down upon other brothers and sisters.
We think we are the one to whom everybody should listen. We never realize that we need to listen even to the smallest member of the body of Christ, because God may speak through that member.
Many problems in the church come from something wrong with the mind. Our mind needs to be renewed, and then you will prefer your brothers and sisters before yourself.
When you look at your brothers and sisters, you do not try to find Adam or Eve in them; you try to find Christ. When you look at yourself, you see all the Adam in you. That is the only way you can find your brothers and sisters more excellent than you are.
If we are of that kind of mind, brothers and sisters, we can live in harmony. There will be no strife, no struggle for position, or whatever it may be. All these things will be gone. That is the way to live our body life.
Number three: “As to diligent zealousness, not slothful; in spirit fervent, serving the Lord.” The third thing in body life is service.
In the body, you find every member is serving. They are not just receiving, but every member is serving in some way. They serve fervently.
As you serve the other members of the body, you are serving the Head. You are serving the Lord. So, dear brothers and sisters, how do we live body life? Every member of the body must serve.
We will mention all that, God willing. If Christ does not return tonight, then we will continue on that. But anyway, you find every member is serving.
The problem today is that most of the members are waiting to be served, and very few members are serving. But the Lord said, “I came to serve, not to be served, and even to give My life a ransom for many.”
Number four:
As regards hope, rejoicing; as regards tribulation, enduring; as regards prayer, persevering; distributing to the necessities of the saints; given to hospitality.
How do we live body life? We live body life by persevering.
Body life is the happiest life, but body life can be the most difficult life. If my arm could exist by itself, there is a certain freedom it would have. It does not get the fullness; it may die, but there is some freedom there.
But being joined to that body, my arm is not free. There is a restraint there. Now, brothers and sisters, we all like freedom. We do not want to be restrained.
But remember, you find the strictest restraint in the body. You cannot do what you want to do—not only because the Head would not allow you, but the body would not allow you to do that.
In the body, all the members are so close together. No wonder there can be lots of rubbing, stepping on one another, and hurting. You need perseverance, endurance, and forbearance. Otherwise, you cannot make body life.
You know, when a brother or sister cannot get his way, or begins to find that he is being restrained in a certain way, he says, “Well, why bother? I leave.”
I often say it is like staying in a mobile home. The good thing with a mobile home is that you can move away if you are not happy, pull to another parking lot, and find some other neighbors. If you do not like them, pull again.
Lots of Christians live in mobile homes. To live body life, there must be patience, endurance, and perseverance.
You know, the first quality of love in 1 Corinthians 13—and that love in 1 Corinthians 13 is love in the body—the first quality of love is that love suffers long.
That is the first quality. If you are not willing to suffer and suffer long, you cannot live body life. You should expect suffering.
When you suffer a little bit from your brothers and sisters, do you think it is strange? That is normal. Unless there is love to suffer long, you will not be able to live that body life.
We move on. The last verse says, “Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” In order to live body life, you have to learn to overcome.
You have to learn not only to forgive, but you find that the second quality of love in 1 Corinthians 13 is that love suffers long and is kind.
In other words, when people treat you evilly, you suffer. To suffer is negative. How do you respond in a positive way? You respond with kindness. In other words, overcome evil with good.
This is like putting hot coals on people’s heads. Now, what does it mean? It means that you melt him by your love.
Do not try to take vengeance yourself. The more you retaliate, the more ridiculous it becomes. What you need to do is pour your love, your kindness, upon the brother or sister who has treated you evilly. That is the way to live body life.
So, brothers and sisters, it is a wonderful life, but it is a difficult one. But thank God, you do not live that life by your natural life. No one can. Sooner or later, you will be tested out.
But thank God, you are able to live that life because the life that God has given to you—the life of Christ in you—is that kind of life.
“For me to live is Christ.” That is the way to live body life. Shall we pray?
Dear heavenly Father, we do praise and thank Thee because Thy calling is so glorious, so wonderful. We praise and thank Thee because what Thou hast done is beyond our imagination.
We thank Thee that Thou hast called Thy people to be the one body of Christ, that we may contain the riches of Christ, that we may manifest His glory, that we may be His counterpart, His partner, one with Him.
Oh Lord, it is wonderful. But Lord, we do acknowledge that by ourselves, we not only do not see it, but we cannot live it.
We thank Thee that God has made every provision for us, that Thou hast given us Thy life and Thy Spirit. Lord, we do want to present our bodies a living sacrifice and let Thy life live through us corporately, to the glory of God.
We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.