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.
And will you please turn to Hebrews 5? We will read verses 13 and 14.
For every one that partaketh of milk is without experience of the word of righteousness; for he is a babe.
But solid food is for fullgrown men, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.
And in the same book, Hebrews 12, verse 11:
All chastening seemeth for the present to be not joyous but grievous;
yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we do want to thank Thee for giving us this opportunity to gather together unto Thy name. And we do believe that Thou art in our midst.
We understand that we are standing on holy ground, and we will remove our shoes, standing before Thee as Thy bond slaves and opening our hearts to hear what Thou hast to say to us.
Speak, Lord; Thy servants hear. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
I do thank the Lord for giving me the opportunity to visit you, dear brothers and sisters.
In my recent years, as I was visiting God’s people in various places, there is one thing that deeply troubled me. It seems as if God’s people everywhere are growing in knowledge—in the knowledge of the Scripture—and yet there is very little growth in spiritual life.
I call it spiritual obesity, because our heads are big, but our feet are small.
We need to remember: spirituality is not a matter of knowledge. Spirituality is a matter of life. So unless our spiritual life grows, before God there is little growth.
So I have the burden to share with brothers and sisters in different places what I call the gymnasium of Christ.
We are familiar with the school of Christ. We have a number of books written on the school of Christ. Thank God, we are called into the school of Christ.
But, dear brothers and sisters, it seems to me that we misunderstand what the school of Christ is, because we interpret it according to our modern sense.
When you go to school, you sit there listening, trying to absorb all that the teacher has said, and that is it. In other words, you find there is much exercise mentally, but very little exercise spiritually.
So instead of calling it the school of Christ, I think it is much better if we call it the gymnasium of Christ.
Because when our Lord Jesus called His disciples to Him, actually it was not really like a modern school. Our Lord Jesus was training His own in the most practical ways. It is more like a gymnasium.
Now, of course, we know that the word gymnasium came from the Greeks. The word itself means “exercise naked.”
Why? The ancient Greeks put much emphasis on a perfect body. In order that their children would grow up with a perfect body, they sent them to the gymnasium.
In the gymnasium, there would be instructors. The instructors studied the body of the boy, seeking out all the weaknesses—whether there was coordination and balance among the members of the body.
After they studied their bodies, they would instruct them and train them through different exercises. Through these exercises, gradually the boy would develop a coordinated, well-balanced, healthy, beautiful body. That was the Greek ideal.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, the apostle Paul, in his letter to Timothy, said, “Bodily exercise is profitable.”
I wonder if young people have bodily exercise today. I was told that young people spend, say, eight hours before their computer, sitting there—no exercise. That is why we have obesity in this country.
As believers, our young people should have physical exercise. It is important. God wants us to have a healthy body, that with a healthy body He may use us for His service.
I regret that, when I was young, we felt that we should neglect our body in order to be spiritual. We were zealous. We spent ourselves, our body, beyond our ability. We felt that was loving God, but that was not right.
The Scripture tells us bodily exercise is profitable. But in comparison with another exercise, the profit is very little. Why is it little? Because it is mostly limited to your physical body.
Now, of course, it does affect our mind. If you have a good body, your mind works better. That is true. But basically, it is concerned with your body, and only in this life.
If you live to be one hundred, then it is profitable for one hundred years. If you live less than one hundred, it is profitable for that lesser time. So bodily exercise is profitable, though its profit is limited.
But there is an exercise: exercise unto godliness. And godliness simply means to be like God—to take up the character of Christ, to be transformed and conformed to the image of Christ.
Now that is spiritual growth, and that is spiritual exercise.
Unfortunately, among God’s people, they do not seem to know what spiritual exercise is and how profitable it is. The apostle Paul tells us that exercise unto godliness is profitable for everything.
It has the promise of life for this age and for the age to come. In other words, spiritual exercise is so profitable that it covers our whole being. It is good for our spirit, it is good for our soul, and it is good for our body.
It is good not only in this life, in this age; it is good for the age to come. It is concerned with the promise of eternal life. If we have spiritual exercise, we will receive the profit of eternal life, both now and forever.
So you can see how important spiritual exercise is. The apostle Paul makes it very emphatic. He said, “This is true, and it is to be accepted.” For this reason, he labored; he even suffered for it. Why? Because he had hope in the living God.
So, dear brothers and sisters, my burden is spiritual exercise. We need spiritual exercise. It is not just sitting there passively, receiving instruction and knowing a lot.
In practical living, in our life, there must be that exercise which makes us grow and mature.
Now, it is true: exercise is different from mere activity. Exercise is a disciplined thing.
In other words, when you exercise, you do not just become active. All your actions are governed by a purpose, under instruction, as it were. Because of this, you find the development is complete.
So, dear brothers and sisters, I invite all of you, both old and young, to join with me in the gymnasium of Christ.
I hope you are not just sitting there listening to me. That is school. It does not help. It can be harmful, because it makes you feel that you know everything.
But if you go into a gymnasium, you will be stripped naked. You will sweat. You have to put in effort beyond yourself, under instruction. By that, you will grow in spiritual life. By that, you will be transformed and conformed to the image of Christ.
So I hope, brothers and sisters, that you do not come merely sitting there passively. I want every one of you to join with me in the exercise, in the gymnasium.
Now, I have to confess: when I was in high school, we had no gymnasium. Our physical exercise was Chinese boxing.
So when I first went to college, they had gymnastic lessons. Every student had to spend two years in gymnastics. I knew nothing about gymnastics.
When I went into a gymnasium, I was shocked. I could not do it. I could not even do push-ups; I had never done them before.
I had never done climbing the rope and touching the roof. I had never jumped a somersault over a height. I had never done that.
But by practice, by exercises, gradually I was able to pass.
So, dear brothers and sisters, be ready to perspire. Be ready to stretch yourself. Be ready to be stripped naked before God, and be ready to be under instruction.
Our spirit needs exercise.
Now, it is very true: when God created man, He created man with spirit, soul, and body. He used the red earth to make the body.
Then He breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living soul.
Now, in the Chinese translation, it says man became a living soul with a spirit. I do not know whether in the original the word spirit is there, but I think it is very real, because it is true.
So far as man is concerned, man is a living soul. Our soul is where our personality rests. Our soul represents ourselves.
But in God’s order, when He breathed the breath of life into man, His breath in man became the spirit of man. Why? Because God is Spirit. We cannot communicate with God if we do not have a spirit.
You know, when the cosmonaut first went into outer space, he went back and said, “I looked around; I could not see God. Therefore, there is no God.” Nonsense. How can you see God with your naked eyes? He is Spirit. You have to know Him in your spirit.
So God gave man a spirit that we may be able to communicate with Him. Under His direction, our soul will take it up and command our body to act it out. Now, that is God’s way.
But unfortunately, this is not true with people today. Why? Because when man sinned, his spirit was dead unto God.
God said to Adam, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But there is one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.”
Adam and Eve ate that forbidden fruit. Physically, they lived hundreds of years. Soulishly, they had families and begot sons and daughters. But the moment they ate the forbidden fruit, their spirit was dead to God.
Now, by that, it does not mean it did not exist. Dead simply means it has lost its proper communication with its proper environment. The proper environment of our spirit is God.
When we lose our communication with God, the spirit is dead. So with ordinary people, we are just flesh; we are just soul and body.
I often remember when I was young, we had a missionary lady living with us. She led my father to the Lord; we called her Grandma. She often had that kind of phrase, “Oh, my soul and body.” Now, where is the spirit?
So with people of the world, there is no spiritual life to talk about. But with us believers, this is different.
When you believe in the Lord Jesus, what happens?
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
—John 3:6
In other words, the Holy Spirit begets us. He quickens our dead spirit into life. He cleanses our conscience with the blood of our Lord Jesus.
We who believe in the Lord Jesus have a new spirit. In that spirit, the life of Christ comes in, and the Holy Spirit Himself dwells in our spirit.
Now this is salvation. When you are saved, what happens? Your soul does not change. Your body does not change.
Now, of course, I often say that when a person is saved, something is different in his body. Why? Because he used to have a long face; now he has a round face. But he is still mortal. That body is still a mortal body; it has not changed to immortality yet.
The same thing is true with our soul. Repentance in the Scripture means a change of mind. Somehow the Holy Spirit touches your mind and enables you to change your course for a while. Instead of heading toward hell, you turn toward God. That is the work of the Holy Spirit.
But it is superficial. Strictly speaking, your soul has not changed a bit, and your body has not changed a bit. What has really changed is your spirit. It is living now. You are in communication with God.
Now, may I ask this question? Why is it that, when He saves you, He gives you a new spirit?
Where does Christ Jesus dwell in you? Does He dwell in your body? Does He dwell in your soul? No, He dwells in your spirit.
Put it another way: He not only gives you a new spirit; He gives a new life to your spirit. So in our spirit, Christ is our life. He is the life of our spirit.
But why did He give you the Holy Spirit to dwell in your spirit? Because the Holy Spirit is responsible to see that the life of Christ grows in you, that you will be transformed and conformed to His image.
So, put it another way: when you are saved, everything for the exercise of your spirit is there. God has provided everything for spiritual exercise. Nothing is lacking.
Put simply, this is the way that He wants you, me, and all of us who are saved to walk for the rest of our life.
We knew how to live; we had been living before we were saved. If you were saved when you were fifteen, then you had already known how to live for fifteen years. If you were saved when you were thirty, then for thirty years you had been living.
But now you are a believer, a Christian. You are supposed to live a Christian life—a Christian life that you have never lived before.
You knew how to live a carnal life, a selfish life, to live for yourself. But you do not know how to live for Christ. You do not know how to be a Christian, to live a Christian life.
Remember: the moment you are saved, you should begin to live a different life from what you lived before. All the provisions are there, and that is how God will lead us to live a Christian life.
Now let me put it practically. Everything that we practiced before—before you were saved—may have been outward.
Maybe you were brought up in a Christian family, just as I was. Maybe mentally you believed in God. Maybe you even prayed to God.
But now you are saved. Do you sense there is a great difference between your prayer before you were saved and now, after you are saved?
I have a co-worker—I believe some of you knew him here. When he was married, the first time he went with his wife to his father-in-law’s house, it was the custom in China that, after you are married, you call your father-in-law “Daddy” or “Father.”
So he went to his father-in-law’s house and tried to call his father-in-law “Father,” but he felt very uneasy. It did not sound like “Father,” because it was not his father; he was his father-in-law.
But when he called his own father, it was so natural.
Now, do you find this real in your Christian life? Before you were saved, you may have prayed and said, “Oh, Heavenly Father.” Well, it sounded like calling a father-in-law.
But the moment you are saved, what happens? The Bible tells us the Holy Spirit witnesses with your spirit, crying out, “Abba, Father.” He is your Father—real.
Now that is spiritual exercise. It does not come from your mind. It does not come from your feeling. It does not come from your will. It does not come from your body. It comes from your spirit. Your spirit begins to exercise.
God is showing you the way to spiritual life. God wants you to develop by exercising in this way, and the more you exercise, the closer you are to God.
This inner way of life is the Christian way of living. But unfortunately, Christianity has lost this art.
We are being drawn outward. Instead of learning how to exercise our spirit before God, we listen to what men say: “You do this. You do not do that.” And that is Christianity.
We have been led astray. We have been led outward. By keeping some outward ceremonies, forms, and laws, then you are considered a good Christian.
To live a Christian life, you go to church on Sunday. To live a Christian life, you pray. To live a Christian life, you read the Bible. Well, you dutifully do all these things.
But when you are reading the Bible, do you open your heart to the Lord and listen to what the Spirit will interpret from the Word to you?
When you are praying, do you open your heart, be silent, wait upon Him, commune with Him, draw into the presence of God, and then pour out your heart? Are you doing that, or are you just doing it as a routine?
You may be doing all these things, but it does not help a bit. The important thing is that you have to exercise your spirit.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, it is true: our spirit is not physical. You cannot see it. How are you going to exercise it?
Can you see electricity? You cannot. But do you believe in electricity? I suppose we all do.
How do you know there is electricity? You know it by its functions. You know heat, power, and light; by these three functions, you know electricity does exist.
In the same way, we cannot see spirit. It is immaterial. But not because it is not material does it mean that it is not real.
As a matter of fact, spiritual things are more real than physical things, because physical things are temporary and changeable. Spiritual things are eternal.
How do I know I have a spirit? I know I have a spirit because of its functions. As you search the Scripture, you will find that the functions of your spirit are mainly three in number:
In our spirit, there is the function of conscience.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, before you believed in the Lord Jesus, the last link between God and man was conscience. Your spirit was dead, but a little bit of conscience was still there. It was in a coma. Only when you were in crisis did it wake up for a little while.
People say, “I live by my conscience.” That is not dependable. A robber can say, “I live by my conscience,” because his conscience is in a coma.
But when people who are agnostic and do not believe in God are in trouble, they cry out, “Heaven, help us!” The conscience comes back for a little while, and then it goes back to sleep.
But that is not true with Christians. With Christians, in our new spirit, our conscience has been cleansed by the blood of our Lord Jesus. So we have a clear conscience before God.
Our conscience is in full function before God, and God speaks to our conscience. This is the way He wants to lead us to righteousness.
Brothers and sisters, I believe all of us have this experience. Suppose, before you were saved, you liked to boast. You liked to exaggerate. The more exaggeration, the better.
But after you are saved, you still have that habit. So when you begin to boast or to exaggerate, is there something different now? Can you enjoy it?
Somehow, there is Someone within you, with a still small voice, saying, “Isn’t that untrue?” It bothers you.
And if you do not stop, what happens? Your conscience troubles you. When you go to the Lord to pray, you cannot pray. Something hinders your prayer.
You will have to confess your sin, plead the blood of the Lord Jesus, have your conscience cleared, and then your prayer is free and open.
Now, do you have such experience? When you are talking, suddenly Someone within you says, “No, that is enough.”
If you continue to do that afterwards, you feel bad instead of good. Now, that is the way the Lord is leading you to walk the Christian life.
If you neglect the voice of your conscience—for the standard of your conscience is God Himself—you have a standard now. If you neglect the still small voice of your conscience, your Christian life is hindered. You are not able to grow spiritually.
Brothers and sisters, this is very simple, very basic, but very true. Are you walking before God with a clear conscience?
Look at the apostle Paul. In Acts 24:16, he testified before the governor Felix:
Herein I also exercise myself to have a conscience void of offence toward God and men.
You know, this is very important to us Christians. We as believers have to exercise ourselves to maintain a good conscience before God and men. That is the inner way of Christian life.
Paul also says in 1 Timothy 1 that we must fight the good fight of faith, maintaining faith and a good conscience. Because if we lose a good conscience, our faith will suffer shipwreck. Our faith will leak out.
With a bad conscience, your prayer will not be answered, because your faith leaks out. In order to fight a good fight of faith, we need to maintain a good conscience before God.
So, dear brothers and sisters, how can you maintain a good conscience before God and man? Exercise it.
When the Holy Spirit, as your Instructor, is instructing you, here is where you need some exercise. You need to stretch yourself. You need to be stripped naked. You need to sweat a little bit. Are you willing to do that?
If you are, then thank God: your conscience will become keener and keener and keener. This is Christian living. That is the inner way of life.
Now, the same thing is true with intuition. What is intuition? Intuition is direct knowledge.
The way we ordinarily gain knowledge is indirect. We get knowledge from outside—by observation, by instruction, by gathering data from outside and bringing it into our mind. Then our mind tries to analyze it, group it together, and logically give a reason for it. It is all indirect.
But thank God, after we believe in the Lord Jesus, our spirit has the function of direct knowledge. In other words, it is directly from God, not from outside.
That is the new covenant. When you read Hebrews 8:11, what do you find there?
And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen,
and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
for all shall know Me,
from the least to the greatest of them.
Under the new covenant, you do not need anyone to tell you, “Know the Lord,” because you know Him in yourself, from the least one to the greatest one.
Now, that is the new covenant, sealed by the blood of our Lord Jesus and given to us. We are living under this new covenant.
You do not need anyone to tell you, “Know the Lord.” The word know there is an objective knowing. As I know you, you do not know, so you need to be told, “Now this is it; this is not that.” It is from outside.
But you do not need that in order to know the Lord, because you know Him in yourself, in your spirit. There is a faculty of intuition.
The Holy Spirit is able to speak directly the will of God to your spirit, and you know it inwardly and immediately. This is from the least one to the greatest one.
In other words, the moment you are saved, that intuitive power begins to work. God will tell you what it is. You may not be able to explain it, because it needs some mental understanding, but deep down within, you know it.
I remember when I was in New York, one brother was newly saved. He went to Boston, and there he heard a preacher teaching on something.
Now, he was newly saved. He had no Scriptural knowledge. But while he was listening, he felt in the innermost of his being that something was not right.
He could not tell what was not right, but he said something was not right. So he came back and told me about it. Thank God, what he sensed in his spirit was right.
You find this in 1 John 2. Even a little child of God has the Holy Spirit, the anointing, within him.
In 1 John 2:27, it says:
And as for you, the anointing which ye received of Him abideth in you,
and ye need not that any one teach you;
but as His anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie,
and even as it taught you, ye abide in Him.
The anointing within you will teach you in all things—small things and great things. Whatever He teaches is true. If you obey the teaching of the anointing, you abide in Christ.
How do you know you are abiding in Christ? The anointing within you teaches you whether you are in Christ or you are not in Christ.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
—1 John 1:7
Dear brothers and sisters, thank God. This spirit, this new spirit He has given us, is operative. The Holy Spirit is working with the intuitive power of our spirit, telling us what is the will of God and what is not the will of God.
By that, we can live a holy life—a life separated unto God.
So, brothers and sisters, I wonder how much of your intuitive power is working.
If you follow the light within you, you have fellowship with God, and the Bible says the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from your sins.
In other words, God is light. God Himself is light. He who lives in you is light.
If I may use an illustration, He is one hundred candlepower—perfect. When you are just saved, you have only one candlepower. The degrees are different, but the nature is the same.
Because the nature is the same, you can have fellowship with God. You know, that is the way our Lord Jesus fellowshipped with His disciples. Oftentimes they could not understand, but our Lord condescended Himself to fellowship with His disciples.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we need to walk in the light that we have today. By that I mean there is a light that you have today, and you can walk in it.
He will cleanse you from your sins. Any darkness that is still there will be exposed, and He will cleanse it.
So you get two candlepower. Then walk in two candlepower, and you have fellowship with Him. Then you have ten candlepower, and you walk in ten candlepower with Him.
Now suppose you have ten candlepower and walk in two candlepower. What happens? No communication.
So the standard is living. This is why we cannot criticize other people. You cannot apply your standard to other people. God deals with everyone differently.
Thank God, if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship. How do you know you are walking in the light? Fellowship. You have fellowship with God.
The moment you do not walk in the inner light, that fellowship is interrupted. This is the inner way of life, and this is the way God wants us to live. This is the only way to live the Christian life.
The same thing is true with communion. We already have communion with God, crying, “Abba, Father.”
But every time you go to the Lord, you do not go only with your body, nor just with your soul. You have to go with your spirit.
I remember when I was in the Philippines. Once I was visiting Tacloban, and I saw a cathedral there, so I went in.
Before the altar, I saw a few white kneeling statues. As I walked closer, I noticed they were not statues. They were nuns—a few nuns kneeling there.
There was no sound, no movement. My first impression was, “How pious.”
But my second impression was, “Is this real?”
God cannot be worshiped only by the body. We may try to use bodily gestures to worship God, but He is not worshiped that way unless the bodily gesture is the result of your spiritual movement. Then it is real.
The same thing is true with our mind. We can pray a beautiful prayer. The Book of Common Prayer, if you can memorize it, contains beautiful prayers.
But if you just use your mind to pray, it does not reach.
I do not say you cannot pray a beautiful prayer. I say that if it comes from the spirit, that is fine. Some people are more eloquent; other people are less so. But what God is looking for is the spirit.
Is your spirit in communion with God? Are you pouring out your heart to God? Only that is real.
Brothers and sisters, you see, it is so simple, it is so basic. It is the way our Lord Jesus would lead us in our spiritual pursuit.
Unless we exercise our spirit, our spirit is not exercised. Instead of growing, it will be shrinking.
So that is why I feel there is such spiritual obesity among God’s people. We need to go to the gymnasium of Christ.
Do not be afraid to sweat. Do not be afraid to be stripped naked. Do not be afraid to stretch yourself.
Your spirit will get stronger, healthier, and sanctified by spiritual exercise. So may the Lord lead us in His way.
Dear Lord, we commit these scattered words into Your hand. If You can use them, use them for Your glory. If there is anything unclean, cleanse it with Your precious blood. We ask in Your name.