It is all right. I will keep on going.
I will be using the same verse that I used last night: Matthew 16:18. This is what our Lord Jesus said:
“And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, we come to Thee in a worshipping spirit. We worship Thee because Thou art our Lord. Thou art everything to us.
We pray that by Thy Spirit Thou wilt grant us wisdom and understanding, that Thy Spirit would lead us into Thy truth. Lord, we pray that Thy truth may be our reality and experience instead of just some mental knowledge. Do deliver us from just mental knowledge.
Lord, we desire to know Thee in a living way. We pray that, as Thou hast said, Thou wilt build the church on Thyself, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. We believe in Thy word.
We commit this time into Thy hands, and we pray that Thou Thyself would come into our midst and speak to us by Thy Spirit. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
As we mentioned last night, what we will share together during this time is centered on this one word: build. The Lord said, “Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
We mentioned last night that the first mention of the word build is found in Genesis 2:22. The Lord God took the rib which He had taken from Adam and built it into a woman, then brought her unto him.
When you think of the word build, you know that it is not a casual word. It is a technical word. It indicates something with purpose, something with design, something for which preparation is needed, and something that must go through a process until, finally, it is built and can be presented. It can then serve the definite purpose for which it was built.
What we would like to consider together are these five stages. Last night, we mentioned first of all that, in the building of the church, there is a definite purpose behind it. It is not something conceived by human beings. It is not a product of history.
The building of the church is a preconceived thought of God, even before the foundation of the world. God purposed in His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus, and it is out of that purpose that the church is to be built.
Therefore, it is not something insignificant, something that we can ignore in our spiritual life and spiritual pursuit. As a matter of fact, you will find that this is something of utmost importance in the mind of God, because He wants to satisfy His beloved Son. Nothing can satisfy His beloved Son apart from the church that God intends to build for His Son.
I hope that, first of all, we will all be impressed with the thought that the church is not something we can simply lay aside. It is at the center of God’s thought, and it should occupy a central place in our spiritual pursuit.
Second, we mentioned that in order to build something, you need a pattern. Thank God, we find that He always builds according to a pattern. He never does anything merely at the moment, without any design or plan, without a blueprint.
Even in the building of the tabernacle, you find that He gave the pattern on the mount to Moses. He warned Moses again and again that everything had to be done exactly according to the pattern on the mount.
Moses was faithful in God’s house. In what sense? In the sense that, in spite of his great learning in architecture, he refused to change, alter, or try to improve the pattern that God had given him. He followed everything closely according to the pattern.
The same is true of the temple. We find that God, by His own hand, gave David the pattern, and that pattern was to be closely followed.
So the question is this: in the matter of the building of the church, does God have a pattern? Unfortunately, many people think there is no pattern for the church. They think it is left to the ingenuity of men, or simply left to history.
That is why, in church history, you find all kinds of changes, forms, and fashions, as if God had simply left the matter to man. But how can God leave such an important building—the one building in which He is engaged—without any pattern, and let men do whatever they think best? It is impossible.
We also mentioned last night that some people try to find a pattern in Old Testament times. You find this everywhere in Christianity: things are patterned after the Old Testament. Yet the Old Testament types are shadows. We are playing with shadows instead of dealing with reality.
Some people seem to do better and try to find a pattern in the New Testament. But, unfortunately, they try to find it in a technical and mechanical way instead of seeing that the church is a living organism. The pattern must be living, spiritual, and heavenly.
Where is the pattern of the church? It is very simple and very clear in the word of God: the pattern is Christ Himself.
To build the church, we have to build it according to Christ. That is why, in 1 Corinthians 12:12, it says:
“For 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.”
When we first read this verse, we may think there must be a mistake in translation. What is described is the church: one body with many members. We might expect it to say, “So also is the church.” But thank God, He makes no mistake. In the original, it says, “So also is the Christ.”
In other words, the church is Christ Himself in corporate expression. Christ Himself is the pattern of the church. When the church is built, all you see is Christ. You do not see man, even though men are involved.
We think of the church as the called-out ones gathered together. Thank God, we are the called-out ones, and we gather together. But when the called-out ones are scattered all around, that does not make a church.
When the called-out ones are gathered together, does that mean that you have the church? No. The Bible says that when two or three are gathered together unto His name, it is not merely a gathering of called-out ones. They must gather in the name of the Lord, which means under the headship and authority of Christ.
If we do not gather under the headship and authority of Christ, we still do not have the church. Why is this so? It is because the church is the Christ. Aside from Christ Himself, there is nothing else in it.
We are in it, and in a sense we are not in it. Why? Because, even though we are in it, we are eliminated by the cross. Our old man, our flesh, our old nature—anything that belongs to us in the old realm—has all been crossed out by the cross of our Lord Jesus. What is left is nothing but Christ Himself.
I often try to use a kind of formula. The first time I used this formula was when I was ministering with Brother Austin-Sparks. If you knew Brother Sparks, you knew that formula was taboo to him, because he felt that everything was spiritual. How can you reduce something spiritual to a formula?
So when I used it, I had to apologize to him and say, “I am using it only temporarily in order to illustrate something more clearly.” What is the church? The church is the called-out ones gathered together.
Suppose, in the very beginning of church history, you had only three called-out ones. Let us use the best three: Peter, John, and James. Suppose these three were all the called-out ones in the beginning, and they were gathered together. Does that make a church?
Peter, John, and James by themselves do not make the church. We may say:
The Christ in Peter, plus the Christ in John, plus the Christ in James, equals the church.
But then you find Peter always wanting to be the leader. John and James wanted to be leaders too. You remember how they tried to outmaneuver the other disciples by asking their mother to help them. Their mother was the aunt of our Lord Jesus, so her word had some weight.
At the last minute, they came unexpectedly before the other disciples and said, “Let my two sons sit, one on Your right hand and one on Your left.” They had arranged it all. Of course, the ten were indignant because they had been outmaneuvered.
If you put Peter, John, and James together, even though they had the life of Christ in them, you will find many problems and much trouble—not because of the Christ in them, but because of what was outside Christ: their natural life.
So what really makes the church is this:
The Christ in Peter minus Peter, plus the Christ in John minus John, plus the Christ in James minus James, equals the church—the Christ.
The church is patterned after Christ and Christ alone. Everything has to be according to Christ. It cannot be according to the world, according to the law, according to the flesh, or according to the natural man. Everything has to be according to Christ. Christ Himself is the pattern.
I hope that we are very clear on this point. Then we realize that the church is so holy and so sacred. When we put forth our natural hand, we destroy the very nature of the church. When we put in our own opinion, the church immediately suffers. Anything that is not according to Christ destroys the very nature of the church.
This afternoon, we would like to continue with the other three points. After you have the purpose, and then the pattern—the blueprint drawn—then you begin to prepare for the building. The builder or construction company begins to collect materials according to the blueprint, so that there will be the right materials for the building.
At the very beginning, when God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him,” that was the purpose. The pattern was Adam himself, because all the animals and all the birds of the air were eliminated. Adam could not find anything that truly answered to him. This proved that the pattern was Adam himself.
Then God began to collect the material for building the woman. He did not collect it from somewhere else; He collected it from Adam. You find the same principle throughout the types.
When God wanted to build the tabernacle, what happened? In Exodus 35, God said to Moses, “Ask the people to bring Me an offering. Whoever is of a willing heart, let him bring an offering.”
Now, we know that the heave offering was a love offering. But remember: when the children of Israel were in Egypt, they were slaves. As slaves, they owned nothing—not even their own lives.
Yet when God told Moses to deliver the children of Israel, even in Exodus 3, God had already told him that Pharaoh would not let the people go, but that God would do wonders to deliver them. When God delivered them out of Egypt, He told the women to ask of their Egyptian neighbors for gold, silver, and clothing. When they left Egypt, they spoiled the Egyptians.
Formerly, they had nothing; they were slaves. But in the redemption of the Lord, God redeemed not only the men and women, but also the children. He redeemed entire families. Not only that, He redeemed what rightfully belonged to them. These things were their wages for all those years of serving the Egyptians without payment, and God is righteous.
Their own lives, as well as all the gold, silver, clothing, and everything they possessed, were redeemed by God Himself. Out of what God had redeemed, God said, “Give Me a love offering.”
In other words, it all belonged to God. These things did not primarily belong to the Hebrews; they belonged to God. Yet, through His redemptive work, God gave them these things and said, “Give Me a love offering. Whoever is moved in heart, let him do it.”
Unfortunately, the enemy knew about this. When Moses went up the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments, the children of Israel came to Aaron and said, “We do not know what has become of Moses. He went up to the mountain and did not come back. Make us a god to lead us.”
Aaron told them to bring their gold earrings. He melted them and fashioned them into a golden calf. Then the children of Israel said, “This is our god, the god that brought us out of Egypt.” They began to eat, drink, and rejoice.
God said to Moses, “Go down. The children of Israel have sinned.” Moses came down and saw the situation. You remember how he smashed the two tables of stone, because the law had already been broken. He ground the golden calf into powder, threw it into the water, and made the children of Israel drink it—to drink their own sin.
Some gold had already been lost: gold that was supposed to have been offered to God. The enemy had come in and tried to take away what rightfully belonged to God. But thank God, what He gave was so abundant that God gave them a second chance.
Again, in Exodus 35, God gave the children of Israel a second chance. He said, “Whoever is of a willing heart, let him bring an offering: gold, silver, bronze, blue, purple, scarlet, fine linen, acacia wood, precious stones, oil, and spices.”
The materials for the tabernacle came from God Himself. He gave them to His people, yet the people had to give them back out of love. God would not force them to give, but out of love they gave their offerings as materials for the building of the tabernacle.
The same principle is found in the building of the temple. Although David was not allowed to build the temple, he was given the pattern. A person who does not love the Lord with all his heart might say, “Well, I have done my best. There is nothing left for me to do, and God will not require anything more of me.”
But not David. Even though he was not allowed to build the temple in his lifetime, he prepared abundant materials for its building. If you read 1 Chronicles 22:14 onward, David said, “In my affliction I have prepared gold and silver and these things in abundance.”
What did that affliction mean? Perhaps it referred to the days when he had to fight many wars. Out of the spoil of war, he set things apart and gave them as an offering unto God.
When you come to 1 Chronicles 28, you find David saying that he gathered materials according to all his power—all that he was able to do. Then he said, “Because of my affection for the house of my God, I give of my own special treasure.” He gave gold, silver, and everything most precious.
It was a love offering out of his affliction, according to all his power, and out of his affection for the house of God. David encouraged the people to give willingly, and thank God, they gave willingly. In 1 Chronicles 29, David praised God because God had made His people willing to give for the building of the house of God.
Brothers and sisters, these are types. But now we come to the reality: the building of the church. Where do we get the material for the building of the church?
When God first created man, He had in His mind the material for the future building of the house of God. But unfortunately, man sinned. Since then, God began to work to prepare and find the material.
He called Abraham. Out of Abraham came a nation, and to that nation Christ was to be born. Then our Lord Jesus came into this world.
If you read the Gospel according to John, you find that our Lord came as a Bridegroom. He came to find His bride, but she was nowhere to be found. Therefore, He had to call people out. He called His disciples and prepared them to be the material for the future building of the house of God—the church.
During His ministry, the Lord mentioned the word church only twice, and this was toward the end of His ministry. He came with that purpose, yet He was not able to share what was on His heart even with His disciples until He had the cross in view—until Calvary was in view.
Then He began to open His heart to His disciples and said, “I will build My church upon this rock.” But where was the material? He said, “Thou art Peter.”
You are a stone, a small stone. I am the rock, the massive rock. You are a stone out of the rock, and you are to be built upon Me. That is what I will be doing.
The Lord did not say, “Thou art Simon, and upon this rock I will build My church.” No, He said, “Thou art Peter.”
Peter understood this clearly. In 1 Peter 2:4-5, Peter himself wrote:
“Unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious,
ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood,
to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
When we come to the Lord, the Living Stone—rejected by men but chosen and precious to God—we all become living stones. Out of the original Rock, we become living stones and are built up as a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
So, brothers and sisters, what are the materials for the building of the church? The materials are those who have the life of Christ. Formerly, we were merely dust—dead dust. But when we come to the Lord, we become living stones. Regeneration has taken place within us. A new life, a divine life, the very life of our Lord Jesus—the very life of God—has been given to us.
We become living stones. The Lord said, “I will use these living stones, these Peters, and I will build them upon Myself. The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” The material is none other than that which is out of Christ.
But there is another element. These living stones must lovingly and voluntarily offer themselves back to Him. Even though we are living stones, if we do not offer ourselves voluntarily, lovingly, and willingly to Him, He cannot build us as He desires.
That is why, in Romans 12:1-2, we read:
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual service.And be not fashioned according to this world:
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
What is the perfect will of God? If you read on to verse 5, you find one body. That is the will of God. Even though we are living stones, if we do not offer ourselves—our redeemed bodies—to God, there can be no practical building.
Why does Paul use the word bodies? Because he is speaking of the practical realm. It is with our bodies that we do things. God does not want merely our gold or silver. He wants us. He wants us to present ourselves as a living sacrifice.
Just like the children of Israel, we must come with a willing heart, moved by the Spirit, and give a love offering out of what God has given to us. If a person is not willing, he can keep it for himself, but he will waste what God entrusted to him.
Why is the church not built? There are so many redeemed and saved people, but why do we not see the building? The reason is that we retain everything for ourselves. We do not voluntarily and willingly give ourselves to the Lord.
The enemy knows very well that what God has done in our lives is intended for God and for the building of the church. So he tries to tempt us and lead us away, to use what God has given us for other purposes.
Just like the children of Israel, who used the gold to build a golden calf, we waste what God has given us. Brothers and sisters, do you realize how much we have wasted of what God has given us—what was intended for the building of the church?
We waste it upon ourselves. We waste it in the world. We waste it for purposes other than the purpose of God.
Only those who present their bodies as a living sacrifice, withholding nothing from God, can give God a love offering. Our love offering is ourselves. We give ourselves to Him. Only then will God take us in and begin to build us.
It is a tragedy that it takes so long to build the church. It is because God’s people do not come willingly and offer themselves as living, loving offerings—as living sacrifices. That is all God desires.
I especially hope that the younger brothers and sisters, as soon as they are redeemed, will offer themselves completely to the Lord. Because of your first love, it is easier then. The longer you delay, the harder it becomes. You begin to accumulate so much that you find it difficult to separate from those things.
I encourage young brothers and sisters: from the very start of your Christian life, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice. Then God will take you and begin to build you into the church—the glorious church, the living church of God.
That is the material: we are the material. But we must offer ourselves willingly to Him before He can use us.
Then, number four: after you have collected all the materials, you go through a process. That is to say, you use these materials and build them into a house.
In the case of Adam, God took a rib and used that rib to build a woman. That was the process. In our case, the process is much more complicated. Why? Because we have sinned. We are not what God originally created us to be. We have fallen.
How can God get the material for the building of the house? Our Lord Jesus came into this world and lived a perfect life. But His perfect life could not save us; in fact, His perfect life would condemn us. Yet His perfect life qualified Him to be our Redeemer and our substitute.
When our Lord Jesus was crucified, we come to John 19. After He was crucified, He said, “It is finished.” The work was done, and He gave up His spirit to the Father.
Then the soldiers came to make sure that Jesus had truly died. One soldier thrust a spear into His side, and out came blood and water.
The apostle John was there. He said, “He that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true.” He made it very emphatic. Sometimes we wonder why John did this. There must be significance behind it.
Our Lord had to go through death—not like Adam, who merely went to sleep. Our Lord had to go into death. Indeed, during the last three hours, He tasted eternal death for us. It was painful because sin was involved.
Out of His side came blood and water: blood for the redemption and atonement of our sins; water, His life poured out for us. With this blood and water came the material for the building of the church.
Brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus paid a tremendous price for us. It is the Christ in you and the Christ in me that is the material for the building of the house of God.
In the building of the tabernacle, God not only gathered the materials. After the children of Israel repented and were forgiven, they were so touched by the love of God that they came and gave, every day and every morning. Those who were willing came and came, until they finally had to be stopped because there was too much.
Then, in Exodus 35, you find that God not only asked the people to give. He also called Bezalel and Oholiab. He filled these two men with His Spirit and gave them wisdom and understanding so that they might be able to do all the work.
In the following chapter, you find that those who had wisdom and understanding came and worked together. They worked on the materials and turned them into a tabernacle. It took them less than a year to complete it.
In the case of Solomon building the temple, Solomon was the symbol of wisdom. In other words, it takes wisdom to turn material into a finished product. Knowledge is not enough; you need wisdom. Wisdom is knowing how to apply and make use of the knowledge you have.
It is wisdom that builds a house. Solomon, the symbol of wisdom, was used by God to build the temple, and it took him seven years to build it.
Now, brothers and sisters, in the building of the church, who is the wisdom? The Lord said, “I will build My church.” In other words, the Lord Himself alone has the wisdom to build the church.
We think of the church as nothing, as if anyone can build a church and plant a church. We have this term church planters. We just go out and plant, as if we had all the wisdom needed to build a church and turn the materials into a finished product. We do not.
Only the One who is greater than Solomon has this wisdom. He is wisdom itself, and He alone can build the church. He also gives His Spirit to those whom He fills with wisdom and understanding, and such people can work under Him to turn the materials into a finished product.
We are living stones, but unfortunately many other elements are bound together with us. We have the life of Christ, but the old Adamic life is still there. We have the new nature, but the old nature is still there. We are a mixture.
God has to purify us and sanctify us by the washing of water with the word. He has to do much work in our lives—not only to take away all the trash and rubbish, all that is of the flesh, all that is of the world, all that is of sin, and even some satanic things within us.
He has to purify us. Not only that, He has to make these living stones into precious stones—not merely living, but precious. To make a stone precious, you need pressure: great pressure, almost unbearable pressure. You need heat, intensive heat. You need darkness—thick darkness—to turn stones into precious stones.
Brothers and sisters, does that speak to us? Why is it that when we offer ourselves to the Lord, our lives seem to become more difficult? If you keep everything to yourself, it may seem that you can live a rather smooth and easy life. But once you give yourself fully to the Lord, things begin to happen: pressure, heat, darkness, and many things you do not understand.
You may say, “If God loves me, why does He allow this to happen to me?” The Holy Spirit is disciplining us. He is arranging our environment. He is putting certain people with us in order to deal with us. He is arranging our circumstances and what happens to us in order to turn us into precious stones.
The Holy Spirit is doing much work in our lives. He does not make us precious stones merely to exhibit us in a museum. He wants these precious stones to be built together.
That requires further work. He has to chisel, cut, and smooth us. He has to do much work in our lives so that we can fit together with one another.
Our strong points are often the difficult points in being knit together. It is not our weakness; it is our strength. The Spirit of God has to deal with us by the cross.
When we are weak, there we are strong. We are being knit together, united together, fitted one with another. There is much work that the Holy Spirit must do in our lives.
It took less than a year to build the tabernacle. It took seven years to build the temple. But how many years does it take to build the church? Two thousand years have gone by, and the building is still not finished.
But God is working. He is working. He is building up. In His wisdom, He turns these raw materials into finished products.
Brothers and sisters, this is what God is doing today. If we understand this, we will not be offended by the Lord. Otherwise, it is so easy to be offended.
Finally, of course, the finished product is to be presented. God took Eve to Adam. As soon as Adam saw Eve, he knew right away:
“This is now bone of my bones,
and flesh of my flesh:
she shall be called Woman.”
The two were united into one. When Moses finished the tabernacle according to the pattern on the mount, and they set it up, a cloud filled the tabernacle. The glory of the Lord descended upon it, and even the priests could not remain in the tabernacle. They had to come out. The people simply worshipped.
The same thing happened with the temple. When the temple was finished, and Solomon offered the burnt offering, fire came down from heaven, and the cloud filled the temple. The priests had to retreat, and everyone worshipped.
How much more glorious it will be when the day comes that is in the mind of God. As you find in Ephesians 5, Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. He sanctifies it by the washing of water with the word, making it holy.
He will present it to Himself as a glorious church, without spot, wrinkle, or any such thing—a church that is holy and without blemish, presented to Him as His bride.
When you come to the end of the Bible, to the book of Revelation, you find the holy city, New Jerusalem, prepared and adorned as a bride for the Bridegroom. It descends full of glory.
You see Christ in His corporate expression completed. There is nothing we can do but worship.
Brothers and sisters, thank God. This is the work of God. Our Lord Jesus said, “My Father worketh even until now, and I work.” This is the work of God.
We believe that what God has begun, He will finish. Humanly speaking, the more you look at the condition today, the more your heart may sink. But by faith, we know that the Lord is working. He has not finished working. He is always working, working, working.
We believe that the day is coming when the glorious church will be manifested. May God give us faith and also give us obedience. Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, we want to thank Thee for Thy precious and glorious thought: that Thou dost desire to give Thy beloved Son something that will completely answer to His heart. We praise and thank Thee that it is Thy will that man should be that.
Dear Lord, we thank Thee for giving Thy life to us. We thank Thee for all the cost that Thou wast willing to pay for us. We pray that we may be a people touched by Thy love and willing to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, allowing Thee to work with us and in us by Thy Spirit until the glorious church can be presented to Thy beloved Son.
O Lord, speed it up. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
We thank You that Jesus is the Yes to every promise. Lord, may He be in us. May we be purified, that we may be the holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices, a spiritual temple for You.
Thank You for Your promises.
Because our time together is short, I would like to ask you a question. I could ask you privately, but I will ask it publicly, and you can tell me whether it would be helpful to speak about it.
Over the years, many of us have become familiar with what you said today through the writings of Watchman Nee and through your own history. There is a particular problem, I think, that I have seen in other people’s lives and that has affected my own life. It has to do with our personalities and temperaments—who we are as individuals.
When you speak of John plus Christ, with John removed and Christ remaining, what happens to our personality? Is there still a place for choice? That is my question. We can speak privately, but if it would be good to speak about it publicly, I would leave that to you.
Yes. When you say, “John plus Christ,” and John is removed, what is left of us? We are speaking about personality and temperament. I think we need to see the difference between temperament and personality.
When God created us, He created every one of us differently. Physically speaking, no two persons are exactly alike. God loves variety. I personally believe that this is also how God creates our soul. The shape of our soul is our temperament.
God made us with different temperaments. Some temperaments are more outgoing; some are more reserved. Some are quicker, and some are slower. Everyone has a different temperament.
As far as temperament is concerned, it is like our physical body: it is neutral. Whatever God creates is beautiful. People with a quick temperament are beautiful, and people with a slow temperament are beautiful. The question is: who is using that temperament? That is the problem.
If the old man is using the temperament, no good comes out of it. If you are quick, you are too quick. If you are slow, you are too slow. If you are too outgoing, like Peter, you get into trouble. If you are too meditative, you get into trouble too.
Temperament itself is the shape of our soul. That is what you are. In fact, it is more real than our body. What you really are is your soul, and the shape of your soul is where your individuality is found. Our temperament expresses our individuality.
God loves us as individuals. God does not want us to be like a lump of meat. He has a body, and every member is different. That is the beauty of it.
We often try to imitate other people. We say, “Oh, if only I had that person’s temperament.” No. God says, “Stay where you are. That is why I made you the way you are.” If you allow His life to control your temperament, it becomes very useful.
Peter is useful. When he used his own temperament, he caused problems. But when God used him after Pentecost, what a difference! John could not necessarily do what Peter did: standing before great multitudes and giving a message through which three thousand were saved. John was too quiet and reserved for that. Only Peter could do that because he had the temperament for it.
Yet John had his own temperament. That is why you find him mending the nets. He was quietly there, doing his work. Do not worry about your temperament. You are not able to change it completely. It can be moderated because it is under control, but you cannot change your basic temperament.
Thank God, He often puts two different temperaments together in marriage. That is one of the wonders of marriage. If you put two of exactly the same temperament together, that could be disastrous. There is much of the cross involved, of course, but that is where husband and wife learn to complement one another.
So there is no problem with temperament or individuality. The problem is what we call personality.
Personality is the sum total of our character. Through the years, with the old life, we build up various character traits. The combination of those traits becomes our personality. That is what appears to other people as what we are.
After we are saved, I personally believe that our personality has to change. God deals with our personality; that is, He deals with our old nature, our old habits, and our old way of life. These form the background of our personality.
Personality is your person; it is what expresses you. In Adam, that is what we are. Therefore, personality has to change. With the new nature—the life of Christ in us—we are truly partakers of His divine nature.
As partakers of this new nature, we are gradually transformed, and new character traits are built. This is Christian character.
Christian character is not ethics. It is not something that man tries to improve by himself. Some people think that by improving themselves and their character they become better persons. No. Christian character is Christ.
The Holy Spirit begins to work in us. He uses the cross to cross out old habits, old thinking, old ways of life, the old mind, and all these things. He allows us to follow the new nature within us.
As you follow the new nature, it becomes a habit—a new habit, a new character. The combination of these new character traits becomes your new personality.
Even in eternity, the twelve foundation stones representing the apostles are all different precious stones. There are different combinations. Peter is still Peter, and John is still John. The individuality remains, but the personality is Christ.
There is nothing of the old Simon left there. It is all the new Peter. That is what the Lord is working toward.
Sometimes we feel that the problem with the church today is personality. In a sense, that is true. The old personality is always a problem because it is a leftover from the old creation. That is why we need the renewing of the mind.
Gradually, we need to build up new habits and new character. Let the character of Christ characterize us: the fruit of the Spirit.
Even with the fruit of the Spirit, there are different combinations in different people. That makes different precious stones, and that is the beauty of it. But as far as personality is concerned, one day what expresses our personality will be Christ.
Often, when we have problems, we say, “It is a personality problem.” Of course, nobody can deal with a personality problem except God. That is the specialty of the Holy Spirit.