Will you please turn to 1 Timothy 4? We will read from verses 8 through 10.
Exercise thyself unto godliness:
for bodily exercise is profitable for a little;
but godliness is profitable for all things,
having promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come.
Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation.
For to this end we labor and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe.
I would like you to underline verse 8: “profitable for all things”; and then, “having promise of life”—the life which is eternal life; and third, “the life which now is”—that is, now.
Please turn to Philippians 1:21, the first part:
For to me to live is Christ.
And will you please turn to Galatians 2:20?
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me:
and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee again for the privilege of gathering together before Thy table. We thank Thee for inviting us. We thank Thee for reminding us how Thou dost love us, and love us to the uttermost.
O dear Lord, may Thy love constrain us, that we may really lay ourselves on the altar and allow Thee to live in and through us, that the Father’s will may be done.
We commit this time into Thy hand, knowing that unless Thou dost open Thy Word to us, we will not be able to enter into the reality of what Thy Word is. So we just come and humble ourselves before Thee. We pray that Thou wilt illumine us, Thou wilt change us, transform us, that Thy will may be done in us as it is in heaven.
And we give Thee all the glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I hope you are not tired of hearing the words spiritual exercise. But the more I meditate on it, the more I feel the importance of it.
“Exercise thyself unto godliness.” If we want to be like God—and that is the purpose of God for us—the only way is to exercise unto godliness. Because if we do not exercise, godliness will not be our portion.
And it is said that exercise unto godliness is profitable for everything. Now, this everything is everything. Everything in our lives is touched by such exercise.
In exercising our spirit, we have the promise of eternal life. In other words, how can we release eternal life in us, the life of Christ in us? It is through spiritual exercise. And it is for the present day—that is, now.
So you see the importance of spiritual exercise. To me, I feel it is the key to our spiritual life. If we do not have spiritual exercise, we do not have spiritual life.
Because life—spiritual life, the life of Christ in us—is imprisoned within us. It needs to be released and to live. So that is the reason I feel that we need to consider how spiritual exercise affects our daily life.
You know, our daily life is composed of four areas:
In these four areas, we live daily. And we want to see how spiritual exercise is the key to living in all these areas as Christians.
Now this morning, we would like to focus on spiritual exercise affecting our personal life.
We all know that after we are saved, you do not need anybody to tell you: after you are saved, you have the sense within you that now you are children of God. You cannot live any longer in the way that you lived before. Now you should live as God’s children, as Christians.
Even our Lord Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:47-48 that He expects us to be extraordinary. In other words, He has saved us, He has given us His life, and now He expects us to live extraordinarily—that is, differently from what we were before and differently from the world.
He said that we should be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect.
And then, if you turn to 1 Peter 2:9, you will find that we are now a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession. For what purpose? To declare, to set forth, the excellencies of Him who has delivered us out of darkness into light.
So I think it goes without saying that after we have believed in the Lord Jesus, we are saved; we know inwardly that from now on we live differently.
We are expected to be extraordinary, not just ordinary. We are expected to be perfect, as God is perfect in His love. And we are here with a purpose: to set forth the excellencies of God, of Him who has delivered us out of darkness into His wonderful light.
So I believe that everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus knows right away, “From now on, I am to be different. I will live differently. I cannot live as I lived before.”
So now, what do we do? How can we live differently? How can we be those who set forth the excellencies of God?
I think there are two different ways. One is the human way, the natural way, the wrong way. And that is to say, we try to live religiously.
Formerly, we were irreligious, and now we must be religious. So what do you mean by being religious? Well, on Sunday, you go to church. Daily, you are expected to read your Bible. And also, you are supposed to pray every day.
There are certain things that you should not do. There are certain places that you should not go. And fortunately, we are being told all these things. If we keep these things religiously, well, we think that now we live differently; now we are extraordinary.
Why are you doing that? Do you not feel that deep within your heart there is something more?
Do you feel that you try to be righteous, you try to do the will of God, but you find you do not have the strength to do it?
So you find the experience of the apostle Paul in Romans 7: “I will to do the will of God, but I cannot. I do not want to do the things that are sinful, but I do them.” Why?
I think it is very clear. It shows that when we are trying to live a religious life, by what life do we live? Even though we have the life of Christ in us, we do not live by that life. We are still using our natural life to live a religious life.
Even in this matter of doing the will of God, we are trying our best to do it, but we will find that we are not able to do it. And sometimes we are puzzled by it, and our conscience bothers us.
And if we keep on doing that, perhaps for some people, gradually their conscience becomes numb. So they feel very happy: “As long as I can live as a religious person, now that is all Christianity is.”
Now, if that is the case, what is the difference between Christianity and all other religions? We even find people in other religions who are more ethical than we are, and we become a stumbling block to these people.
So what is living differently? What is living extraordinarily? How can we set forth the excellencies of God?
The only way—God’s way for us—is very simple. He does not expect us to live differently by ourselves.
If your life is the old life, how can you expect that life to live heavenly? It is earthly. It is natural. It is fleshly.
The Lord does not expect any one of us to live as He wants us to live by ourselves. He knows it is impossible. But we all try. Even the apostle Paul tried, and he tried very hard.
He failed, and failed, and failed, until finally he gave up. He said, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?”
Now, have you come to this point yet? If you have not come to this point, it shows that you are trying to live a Christian life by your self-life. That is it.
Whether it is the good self or the bad self, it does not matter. It is still self. And the Lord said, “There is no good thing in the flesh.”
We know it, but it seems as if we do not realize it in our life—not until we realize it and come to the point of saying that it is impossible to live a Christian life, a personal Christian life, by our old self-life. Impossible.
And it is only at that point that you find the apostle Paul saying, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ.” That is to say, his eyes were opened to see that there is only one way that we can live as Christians: it is not by ourselves, but by Christ.
Now, I want to challenge everyone, including myself: Are you living a Christian life today by the effort of your own self?
Are you cheating yourself? Or have you come to the point to see what God has already seen: that it is impossible with your own self?
But God has a way. And if you look at the apostle Paul, you know that when he was Saul of Tarsus, you can find a young man who was so religious, so moral, so zealous, so consecrated, so given to God.
While other young people were looking for the things of this world, he was seeking for things above. He became a Pharisee.
Now today we have a very bad connotation of a Pharisee. But actually, a Pharisee was of the strictest sect among Judaism.
There were not many Pharisees at any time, because these Pharisees gave themselves to the study of the Scriptures. They tried to keep every letter of the Word. They were the interpreters of the Scripture at that time.
And of course, when people are doing that, most people are hypocritical. But this young man was a true Pharisee. He did everything he could to follow the directions, the instructions of the law and the commandments.
And outwardly, he seemed to be able to do all these things. But inwardly, it was a different story.
He was so zealous for the tradition of the fathers that he considered Jesus an impostor of Judaism, who should be wiped out. So he was very zealous in persecuting the followers of Jesus.
He did things that an ethical, moral gentleman would never do. But somehow his conscience bothered him. Yet he tried to bribe his conscience, to suppress his conscience, by doubling his effort in persecuting the Christians. He was kicking against the goads.
He was trying to live a life that God requires, but by his own self.
I wonder if it is true with us Christians today. Probably most Christians today live like Saul of Tarsus in his old days. We try to be Christians and live differently outwardly, keeping a few laws and commandments, knowing inwardly that we have not succeeded; but we bribe ourselves into sleep.
God’s verdict upon our old self-life is death.
God has no idea of improving our old self-life, making it more ethical, more religious. All these things are just outward—nothing real. They will be cast into the fire.
God’s verdict upon our self-life is death.
And this is what Paul learned. You find that after he received that heavenly vision on the road to Damascus, his life began to change.
You find that he testified, even in his later life. He wrote a letter from prison, from a Roman prison, to the Philippian believers, and there he revealed the secret of his Christian life. Very simple: he learned a lesson. He said, “For to me to live is Christ.”
Outwardly, he was the same person, with the same features. But inwardly, the source was different. He did not live his life again by his own soul-life. Now he lived his life by the life of Christ. So he said, “For to me to live is Christ.”
Now, brothers and sisters, you who believe in the Lord Jesus, you have Christ in you, do you not? The Bible says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” That is the mystery of the gospel.
We all have Christ in us. He dwells in our new spirit, and the Holy Spirit is there to see to it that Christ’s life is exercised, used, grown, and matured. God has already made every provision for us, for our daily life.
But, dear brothers and sisters, by which life are you living today?
How can this Saul, the Pharisee, become Paul the apostle? How can this soul-life be replaced by Christ’s life in his daily living?
Well, in Galatians 2:20, he says, “I am crucified with Christ.” Brothers and sisters, this is the gospel for believers.
The gospel for unbelievers is: you do not need to die, because Christ has died for you. That is the gospel to the world.
But there is another side: the gospel to believers. You do not need to live, because Christ lives for you.
I wonder, if you really have a heart for the Lord, probably you have lived your Christian life and become weary of it. It becomes a big burden.
Now, that is a good Christian. If you are not a good Christian, you do not care. So long as you live religiously, it is okay. You are cheating yourself.
But if you are real, then I believe you are not satisfied with yourself. You have tried your best, but you fail again and again. The fighting is fierce. Even when you have a small victory sometimes, you have a big defeat. Now, that is our experience.
But thank God, when our Lord Jesus went to the cross, He not only bore our sins in His body, but He took us in Him.
So when He died, the old man died with Him. This is God’s way. God does not deal with each and every one of us individually. God deals with the head of the race.
So when Christ died, the Adamic race was terminated.
And what Christ has done on the cross is something that we have to believe. Just as we believe that when Christ died on the cross, He took our sins away.
Now, how do you know? He was crucified two thousand years ago. You were not born yet. You had not committed anything yet. And yet you believe that Christ has borne your sins in His body. When you believe it, your sins are forgiven, because what Christ has done on the cross is eternal.
Its effect is as effective today as it was two thousand years ago. Now, the same thing is true.
If Christ has taken the old man with Him to the cross, then your old man was dead.
It is because we do not believe it that it does not work. Just like before we were saved: we did not believe that our sins were already borne by Christ on the cross, so we tried every way to wipe away our sins.
We tried to accumulate merit to balance the sins that we had committed. Foolish—but we all did it. And the same thing is true with us Christians.
We need to believe that we were crucified with Christ on the cross.
Now, if you are crucified with Christ on the cross, then it is no longer I—the “I” is crossed out. It is Christ who lives in me.
And now I live in the flesh—that is, I still live in this body. Outwardly, it is still I; but inwardly, it is not I. It is Christ. And it is living by faith.
Brothers and sisters, oftentimes we say, “Well, this person lives by faith because he does not have any job, and he depends on God for his daily living.” He is living by faith.
Now, that is not true, because every one of us lives by faith. We believe that we were crucified with Christ. No longer do I live; it is Christ who lives in us. So we live by faith.
And this faith, strictly speaking, is not your faith or my faith; it is the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
In other words, the Lord is faithful. Whatever He has done, He will see to it that it works. So it is by faith, by our faith in the Lord Jesus, that we know that today we live—not I, but Christ.
It is a matter of faith. It is a matter of the faith of the Lord Jesus. Now, if you do not believe it, then you do not have faith.
Just like if an unbeliever does not believe that our Lord Jesus has taken his sins away, then his sins are still with him. And the same thing is true with us Christians.
If you do not believe what the Lord has done for you, then you are still living, not Christ. And you are trying to live a Christ-life, which is impossible.
So, brothers and sisters, this is the gospel, the glad news. Let us believe that it is no longer I; it is Christ who lives in us.
Let Christ be released from you, and then you will find that in your daily life you will live and please God. So again I want to say: By whose life are you living today?
The important thing is how to release the Christ-life in you. How do you release it? Because the Christ-life in you is surrounded, imprisoned as it were, by your soul-life. So how can it be released?
The only way is through spiritual exercise.
Our spirit needs to be exercised. That is to say, the Holy Spirit, who dwells in our spirit—this is His job. This is why the Holy Spirit works in you.
His job is to see to it that the life of Christ in you is released, strengthened, and replaces your soul-life. Now, that is the work of the Holy Spirit.
But when the Holy Spirit is working within you, He wants your response. He wants your cooperation.
In other words, when the Holy Spirit works upon your conscience, He expects you to respond positively. Even though your human reasoning may be against it, you say, “What is wrong with it? Everybody is doing it.”
But the Holy Spirit says, “No.” And what do you do? You submit yourself to the Holy Spirit. As you do that, your self-life is put to death, and the Christ-life is released.
Sometimes the Lord gives you light. As you find in 1 John, God is light. If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all our sins.
When we are walking on this earth in our daily life, sometimes you find there is a light within you. It is the anointing, the Holy Spirit in you. He is trying to teach you, not only in big things but also in small, small things in your daily life.
Everybody may think that it is okay, but the Holy Spirit says, “No.” The world’s standard is different; God’s standard is different. And He has given you light. Walk in light, as God is in the light, and you have fellowship with one another.
And sometimes you find God touching you when you are in communion with God. The more you draw near to God, the more you will be like Him.
So, brothers and sisters, are you exercising your spirit?
The Holy Spirit never fails. The Bible says He will never leave you nor forsake you. He is in you. We may grieve Him, we may not listen to Him, neglect Him, resist Him, but He never leaves us.
He is very insistent. He wants to see that Christ is being released. And the only way is through the cross—that is, your self-life has to die. It is a daily thing.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we want to go to the very basic and just ask ourselves one simple question: Who is living in me today—I or Christ?
Now, how are you going to do it? I would like to offer a few simple suggestions.
You know, in the Bible, we have many places where we are told how important it is for Christians, in our daily life, to see how we spend the beginning of our day.
We all start in the morning, right? Now, how do you start your morning? Because actually, your morning will decide your day.
There is a Chinese proverb: “The beginning of the year is spring; the beginning of the day is the morning.”
How do you start this morning? Do you start this morning with God, or do you start this morning with yourself? That will make a great difference.
If you read Psalms, there are many places, but I would like to mention two. One is Psalm 5. In Psalm 5:3, that is the psalm of David:
O Lord, in the morning shalt Thou hear my voice;
in the morning will I order my prayer unto Thee, and will keep watch.
And then also Psalm 63:1:
O God, Thou art my God; earnestly will I seek Thee:
my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee,
in a dry and weary land, where no water is.
To me, I feel it is very important that you set your day in the right way in the morning.
If you begin the morning with God, then it will be His life that governs your day. But if you begin your day without God—in other words, without drawing near to Him—and you go out into the world by yourself, no wonder you live by yourself. That makes all the difference.
It is true that modern life is not conducive to spiritual life, because you find people today sleep very late. It becomes almost a universal habit.
Now, if you sleep very late, you cannot be expected to rise early. You will linger in your bed as long as you can, and then you dash out into the world.
Now, if you are living in that way, no wonder that it is you who live, and not God, not Christ.
The secret is here: if you can rise early—by early, I mean there is nothing technical about it; everyone is different—but before you do anything, the first thing is to draw near to God.
The Bible says, “Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.” James 4:8.
Very simple. You do it not as a duty, as a religious act. You do it for communion’s sake.
You want to present yourself before God. You want to have a time with Him. You want to open your heart to Him. You want to give yourself to Him for today. You want to hear from Him.
So I always suggest: it does not really need lots of time. You know, we can read maybe three chapters a day in the Old Testament and one chapter a day in the New Testament to cover the whole Bible once a year. You can do it at another time. That is for reading, for knowing what is in the Word of God. But for communion, it is a different story.
So I always feel that, you know, George Müller—he was a German. He got saved, went to England, studied theology, and tried to be a missionary to the Jews. But the Lord met him.
And by faith only, he took care of thousands of orphans. And the secret of his life is here.
Every morning, he spent some time—actually, a little time. He would just go to the Lord, open the Word of God, and read just one verse from those books that are more conducive to meditation.
He would just read one verse, and then meditate before God about that verse. While he was meditating, sometimes he felt he had to confess and repent before God, so he repented before God.
Sometimes, as he read, he felt so lifted up by the mercy of God, and he began to thank and praise God. In other words, he opened his heart to the Lord and had a talk with the Lord.
And he allowed the Lord to talk to him. Maybe just ten minutes, fifteen minutes, but he came out from the presence of the Lord. Simple.
And while you are spending your days, you do not need to be consciously supernatural. Just be spiritually natural. That is it.
You come out of the presence of God, and His presence is with you as you go into the world and touch different things.
When you are doing these things, strangely, when there is something which in the sight of God is not righteous—in the sight of the world it may be okay, but in the sight of God it is unrighteous—your conscience will tell you.
And when your conscience tells you, obey.
Now, if you do not obey right away, how will you feel? You feel a darkness come upon you. You see, it is as if there is a distance between you and God.
What do you do? Wait until the evening, gather up all these failures, and tell God? No.
Ask the Lord to forgive you right away. In other words, keep a clear account with the Lord through the day.
If the Lord shows you anything from the Word of God, do it. If you are not too sure, wait and seek Him. But never have a rebellious spirit, nor ignore it, nor neglect it. Keep in touch with the Lord.
You do not need to analyze whether it is you who live or the Lord who lives. It is the Lord. Simple. It is living by faith.
And as you are doing these things, you will find your life will really be changed.
It is not as hard and difficult as you think. It is easy and light, because the Lord said:
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Brothers and sisters, that is the way we live our personal life. Simple. Easy? Yes. Will you not try it?
So may the Lord have mercy upon us. The principle is this: you live your daily life not by yourself, but by Christ. That is the principle.
And that principle has to be applied. When you are applying it, it is not something that you struggle over. No. It is very simple and childlike.
You know, that is the reason why our Lord Jesus said that if you are wise and prudent, it will be hidden from you; but if you are childlike, it will be revealed to you. May the Lord help us. Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we do praise and thank Thee because Thou hast made every provision for us to live daily as Thy children.
O Lord, teach us how to be childlike and really depend on Thee to live, instead of struggling with ourselves.
May Thou increase daily, and may we decrease, for the glory of God. In Thy precious name.