Will you please turn to Ephesians, the letter to the Ephesians, chapter 4? We will read from verse 1 through verse 16.
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called,
with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all, Who is over all, and through all, and in all.
But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Wherefore He saith, When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth?
He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.
And He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ:
till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
that we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;
but speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, Who is the head, even Christ;
from Whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.
Will you please turn to Colossians, chapter 3? We will read from verse 5 through verse 17.
Put to death therefore your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry;
for which things’ sake cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience:
wherein ye also once walked, when ye lived in these things.
But now do ye also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth:
lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings,
and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him:
where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on therefore, as God’s elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering;
forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye:
and above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to the which also ye were called in one body; and be ye thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God.
And whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
Dear Lord, we are standing on holy ground. Thou art in our midst, and we just want to bow before Thee. Open our hearts to Thee, Lord. What hast Thou to say to us? Teach us, that we may learn and follow. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Now this morning we would like to consider together this matter of spiritual exercise and church life.
To the people of the world, they may have religious life, because we find many people in this world are quite religious. But they cannot have church life, or body life. Only those who are the Lord’s, only those who are born again into the family of God, can enjoy church life, which is also body life.
As soon as we are saved, we are born again. But this being born again is not only personal and individual. This being born again is also being born into the family of God.
So we need to remember that being born again is not just for ourselves. Thank God for that. He that is born of the Spirit is spirit. Our spirit is renewed. But at the same time, when we are born again, we are born into the family of God.
Therefore, you find in Ephesians 2 that we are of the household of God. Thank God, since the time we believed in the Lord Jesus, we have a tremendously huge family.
And it is not just by adoption; it is by being born. It is really a tremendous privilege to think of that: that we belong to the family of God. God is our Father, Christ is our elder Brother, and we are brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Because of that, the moment we are saved, we begin our church life. I think intuitively we know within our hearts that we are not alone, that we are not supposed to be independent of one another.
We realize that we are born to a big family. It is the family of God, a heavenly family, a spiritual family. Oftentimes we feel the bond among brothers and sisters in the Lord is really stronger than the bond of our natural blood.
There is a closeness: same life, same God and Father, same Lord Jesus. There is a bond within us that cannot be broken.
Is it not true? As long as you are saved, you go out and meet another Christian who is the Lord’s; immediately within you, you sense the bond. It is something born within us.
You find that because of this, the word church, as our Lord Jesus said in Matthew 16:18, “I will build My church upon this rock; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
The word church, ekklesia, strictly speaking, is not a correct translation in English of the real meaning of ekklesia. If you translate it according to the real meaning of the Greek word, it should be assembly, because ekklesia means those who are called out and gathered together.
In other words, we are called out of this world, and all who are called gather together. That is what the church is. So-called church life, basically, is assembling life. We need to get together. We need to assemble. We need to exhort and encourage one another in the Lord. That is ekklesia.
You find in Matthew 18:20:
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.
That is exactly what the word church means: two or three gathered together. But not just gathered together, because you can have two or three gathered together on a social basis. This is being gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus.
That is to say, when the two or three put themselves under the headship of Christ, acknowledging Him as the Head, and are thus gathered, then the Lord is in the midst of them. This is assembling together.
You find in the book of Acts that as soon as the one hundred and twenty were baptized in the Holy Spirit into one body, on that day three thousand were added to them.
Immediately, in Acts 2:42, it says:
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.
You find how, in the early days, those who believed in the Lord Jesus assembled every day. Why? Because they came from other parts of the world to attend the Passover, and when they were saved, they did not return home. They just stayed there, so they had plenty of time.
That is why every day they gathered together in the name of the Lord. They gathered together in Solomon’s porch, because that was big enough for them. They broke bread from house to house. At every meal they broke bread, thanking the Lord and remembering the Lord. That was the way they lived in the early days.
Of course, they could not do it in that fashion all the time, because persecution came and they had to be dispersed. But wherever they went, they brought the gospel with them, and there they met together. In the early church, assembling together was their life.
To put it another way, it seems as if church life—gathering together in the name of the Lord—replaced their former social life. That became their real life together.
You find also in the case of Paul: as soon as he was saved, he gathered together with the disciples in Damascus. He went in and went out with them, testifying to the Lord.
Afterwards, three years later, he went to Jerusalem. You find in the same chapter that he sought to have fellowship with the brothers and sisters there. They were afraid of him because of his past history. He persecuted them before he was saved, so they were afraid of him. But finally, Barnabas took him to Peter.
It was the habit of the early believers to seek to gather together, to encourage one another in the Lord. It became their very life, part of their very life.
A family stays together. But you find it is more than just members of one family. Even if you are members of one family, you have the same blood within you, and yet you are each individuals. Your coming together is true, but there is something even closer than that.
We know the church is the body of Christ. We are not only members of the family of God; we are members of one body, and Christ is the Head of the body.
There is only one Head. There is only one body. You cannot have one head with many bodies, or one body with many heads. It is one Head, one body. As members of one body, you find it is closer than members of the same family.
Our members—our physical body—are so close that they cannot be separated. So, as members of one body of Christ, we are one. We cannot be divided. There is such a closeness that cannot be separated.
This is church life. Church life, outwardly, is assembling together. Church life, inwardly, is the fellowship of the body. All the members of the body are in constant, continuous fellowship.
Every member of our physical body is in close connection with the head. If you cut off the head, then the body is dead. We are all connected to the head through the blood system and through the nervous system.
In the same way, every member of the body is so related to one another that we flow one to another, and we help one another to complete a work. If I see something before me and want to get it, my feet have to be healthy and my hands have to be healthy. Every member of the body is coordinating, working together as one under the head. So you can see how close we are to one another.
Sometimes we may think church life is just being assembled together. In other words, when we are assembled together, we have church life; if we do not assemble together, then we do not have church life. In one sense, it is true, but it is something deeper than that.
Assembling together is a must among God’s people. I have seen people who love the Lord very much, and yet when they became isolated, all by themselves, gradually their faith suffered.
We cannot stay by ourselves. We need not only the Lord; we need one another.
I remember when Brother Nee went to England. He went to see George Cutting. The name may not be familiar to you, but George Cutting was the one who wrote that little pamphlet called Safety, Certainty, and Enjoyment.
At one time, when I was young, that little pamphlet booklet was next to the Bible in distribution. It saved many, many people.
When Brother Nee was in England, he went to see George Cutting. He was old; his mind sometimes went off, and he was dozing most of the time. So our brother went to see him and sat by his bed, waiting for him to wake up.
When he woke up, he said to our brother, “He cannot do without me, and I cannot do without Him.” Then he went to sleep again.
What he meant was, “I cannot do without Christ, but Christ cannot do without me.” Now, have you ever thought of that?
Of course, we cannot do without Christ. But think of that: Christ cannot do without you. He is the Head; you are a member of His body. If that member is cut off, then there will be something terribly missing.
That is very true. Our relationship with the Lord is such that I cannot do without Christ, but thank God, He cannot do without me.
When our brother came back to China, he went a little further and said he wanted to apply it on the horizontal basis: “You cannot do without me, and I cannot do without you.”
Not only is our relationship with the Lord such, but even our relationship with one another is on the same basis. No brother or sister can do without other brothers and sisters. We need one another.
Because of that, how important it is to have an assembling life.
We remember Hebrews 10:25. We are exhorted:
Not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh.
In other words, we find that even among God’s people there are some who seem to have the custom—the habit—of not assembling together. They despise this matter of assembling together.
“I can be as spiritual by myself as when I am assembling with the brothers and sisters.” Or, may I put it this way: “I can be free from problems by myself. If I meet with brothers and sisters, I get problems.”
Probably a number of people think it that way. For that reason, they begin to miss the assembling of the saints. They begin even to neglect and despise the assembling of the saints, as if it is unimportant. It becomes a habit.
When it becomes a habit, then your conscience will not bother you anymore. When you first do it, your conscience will tell you, “This is not the right thing to do.” But if you continue to do it, it becomes a habit, and your conscience will be silenced.
It is a dangerous thing. Do not forsake the assembling of the saints, as is the custom of some.
Another reason is because the day is drawing nigh. Our Lord is coming soon, and you do not know when He is coming. You need to be prepared, encouraged, and protected.
I remember the story of Evan Roberts. He was the person used by God in the Welsh revival of 1904 to 1905. He was a young man, a miner, but he loved the Lord, and he never missed any meeting.
The reason was, he said, “If I should miss a meeting, and should the Lord pour His Spirit at the meeting, then I will be lost.” So he gave up his work as a miner and attended every meeting of the church.
No wonder the Lord knew his heart and used him mightily in that Welsh revival of 1904 to 1905. Even in 1970, when I was invited to New Zealand by that group of believers, they were the result of the Welsh revival.
So, brothers and sisters, do not neglect or forsake the assembling of the saints. It is an absolute necessity. We need it. We need not only the encouragement; we need the warning, we need the discipline, and we need to learn all these lessons, that we may be perfected by the grace of God.
But this is only the outward side. There is the inward side, and the inward side is the body life, the fellowship of Christ.
Now, what is fellowship? The very word fellowship means sharing together—sharing what we all have.
As the Son has fellowship with the Father, and the Father has fellowship with the Son, They share with each other everything. All that the Father has, He has given to the Son; and all that the Son has, He submits to the Father.
Now, by the grace of God, this divine fellowship has been extended to us. We have been called into the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. What a fellowship it is! We are called into the divine fellowship.
That is to say, we are to share not only with God and His Son, our Lord Jesus; we are to share with one another what He has given to us. That is fellowship.
This fellowship is not limited to being assembled together. This fellowship is so wide and broad that throughout our Christian life, we are in fellowship with one another.
It seems to me that as you read the Scripture, the Scripture emphasizes fellowship among God’s people instead of friendship.
In the world, friendship is a big thing because we are social beings. Friendship is a blessing, as it were, naturally to mankind.
But after we believe in the Lord Jesus, as I search the Scripture, I find one thing: the Bible does not emphasize friendship; it emphasizes fellowship. Now, what is the difference?
Friendship in the worldly sense—how do you strike up a friendship? Who will you consider as your friend? Usually, you become friends because it seems as if you have the same temperament, the same likes and dislikes, the same interests, and perhaps the same background.
That seems to create a kind of closeness, a friendship. You find comfort and strength in such friendship. That is very natural.
But friendship, as known by us today, actually is based upon ourselves—based upon our natural life. In our natural life, that is what our temperament is; in our natural environment, that is how we have been brought up. All these things seem to affect our friendship.
But fellowship is on a higher basis. Fellowship is not based upon the sameness or closeness of our natural life. Fellowship is heavenly and spiritual: the same life in Christ Jesus. That is where the difference is.
It seems as if, as soon as we believe in the Lord Jesus, the Lord begins, as it were, to raise us higher—from friendship to fellowship.
Let me use an example. When you are first saved, of course you have friends, close friends. I did. But after you are saved, do you go through such an experience?
After you are saved, it seems as if the Lord is leading you to build up another kind of friendship. That is to say, He begins to move you towards those who are of the same faith.
You begin to be closer to those of the same faith. You can share with one another without restraint. You can comfort one another, strengthen one another, and open up to one another. Usually, after you believe in the Lord Jesus, it is as if the Lord is changing your friends.
I did. It happened to me. But that does not mean that we should terminate our former friends. No. Those who are unbelievers were our friends before, and that kind of friendship will be there.
But friendship is not increasing; it will slowly die away. That is what happened. Close friends of mine—we still continued to be friends, but we ceased to build up our friendship, and it gradually diminished.
I believe it is sovereign; it is from the Lord. He is trying to deliver us from befriending the world and to bring us into spiritual fellowship in Christ.
We need fellowship. We need one another. We need to pray for one another. We need to bear the burden with one another. We need to stand together with one another. We need even to warn one another in the Lord. That is what fellowship gives us.
It seems as if the Bible says that through fellowship we have the joy of the Lord. If we do not have the joy of the Lord, it shows that something is missing in our fellowship.
Church life should replace our social life—not to the extent of completely dropping social life, but in principle. You find that it is the will of God that we should be moved higher.
We have to live on higher ground, and we have to live by the life of Christ and not by our natural life. If we continue to live our natural life, sooner or later we are no match for the world, because to befriend the world is to be in enmity with God. That is quite a word of God.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we need to strengthen our assembling life, and we need to cultivate our fellowship in Christ Jesus.
When you are saved, immediately you are conscious of your heavenly Father. Therefore, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit witnesses together with us that we cry out to God. We are conscious that we have a heavenly Father.
But at the same time, we are conscious that we have brothers and sisters. When you meet another believer, immediately you sense a bond between that one and yourself. This body consciousness needs to be cultivated.
Now, how can our body consciousness be cultivated? In Romans 12:1:
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.
In Romans 12:1, we find that we are exhorted to present our bodies a living sacrifice. These bodies are in the plural number. Why? Because you have your body, I have my body, and every one of us has his or her own body.
But the body here actually represents the whole being, because from Romans 12 onward it speaks of our daily living, and you live by your body. So actually, it includes the whole being.
When you offer your bodies a living sacrifice, something happens in your mind. The Holy Spirit begins to renew your mind. You begin to see things differently. You begin to evaluate things differently.
What is the difference? You come to verse 5: “We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another.”
In other words, body consciousness is nurtured, increased, and cultivated by consecration. The more you consecrate yourself to the Lord, the more your mind will be opened to see the importance of the body of Christ.
You see the wonder of being a member in the body of Christ. You are more thankful for that, and you are more responsible in that. Consecration is a daily matter. Consecration is an increasing experience.
The more you consecrate yourself to the Lord, the more your consciousness of the Head and of the body will become real to you.
As to assembling together, you know, assembling together actually is a habit. After we are saved, there are many old habits we have to drop. Take off your old man and put on the new man.
But there are new habits that we need to form, and one of the new habits to be formed is assembling together. The more you assemble together, the more you feel the need of assembling.
The more you begin to neglect assembling together, the more you become habituated to not assembling together. It is a habit that needs to be formed.
To form a habit, you need to exercise your spirit continually and constantly. Oftentimes you feel tired. You want to stay home and say, “Why should I go to the meeting? If I go on Sunday, is it not enough? Why should I go to the prayer time?”
You do not know what you are missing. You feel tired, and that is true. But if you can, by the grace of God, overcome it, you will find your spirit strengthened and you will grow in the Lord.
It is something in which we need to exercise our spirit, so that we may be able really to enter into all the fullness of this church life and this body life.
Do not ever have the habit of forsaking the assembling of the saints. Do not ever lose that body consciousness. Whenever you are doing anything, remember: you are not alone. Not only is the Lord there, but the body is there.
Whatever you do affects the body. This is something we need to cultivate as we go on in the Lord.
Now, there are a few principles for church life.
The first principle in church life is the headship of Christ. In Colossians 2:19, if you read it in a positive way—that is to say, take away the word not—it says:
Holding fast the Head, from Whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, increaseth with the increase of God.
How can we live a body life, a church life? Number one: hold fast the Head. Every one of us needs to hold fast the Head. By that, it means you have to remove yourself as your head and let Christ be your Head.
This needs spiritual exercise. Naturally speaking, we all want to be head. That is natural.
Even among the disciples of our Lord Jesus, you remember how they often argued among themselves about who was the greatest. Even at the last minute, John and James got their mother to try to get the right and left side of our Lord Jesus. That is natural.
But thank God, we do not live by our natural life. We live by a supernatural life, by Christ.
In spiritual exercise, you begin to realize that you are willing to hand over your head and let Christ be your Head. Only when we all hold fast the Head do we naturally join together and work together, because it is the Head that directs.
The whole Bible tells us this. Ephesians 1:22-23 says that God has made Christ Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him Who filleth all in all.
Number two: in order to live that body life, that church life, we need diligently to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
We are called to be the body of Christ, and because of this we need to keep diligently the unity of the Spirit. Ephesians 4 shows us that the unity of the Spirit is in the sevenfold oneness.
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling.
Here you have three ones: one body, one Spirit, and one hope. It is in the one Spirit that we are baptized into one body. What is the calling of the body? When the body is matured, it becomes the bride of Christ. That is the calling.
That is the work of the Holy Spirit. He is preparing us to be the body—a grown body—so that when Christ comes, He can take us as His bride. There are these three ones in the Spirit.
Then again He says, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” We have only one Lord: Jesus is Lord. One faith: we believe that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. That is the fundamental faith.
One baptism: when we are baptized, we are not baptized to Paul, nor to Peter, nor to anybody else. We are baptized into Christ.
Then again, you find one God and Father of all, Who is over all, and through all, and in all. We all have one Father. So you have the sevenfold oneness in the Triune God.
Our unity of the Spirit is our oneness in God, and that is held by every believer. It is something precious that we need to keep diligently.
We find in history, and we find in our life, how God’s people are divided—divided because of different teaching, divided because of different experience. We need to rise above these things and keep diligently the unity of the Spirit, continuing in fellowship with one another.
As we continue on in fellowship, what will be the result? Ephesians 4:13 says:
Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man.
Brothers and sisters, there is no chance of arriving at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God if we do not diligently keep the unity of the Spirit.
But if we continue in fellowship with one another, what will be the result? Gradually, we come to the same understanding. Our understanding of the Word of God will gradually become one, and our experience of the Son of God, as we share with one another, will become one. That is the way to arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
Number three: for body life and church life, we need to know another principle, and that principle is the universal priesthood of believers.
In 1 Peter 2:5 and 9, we find that we are a holy priesthood. Every believer is a priest. We may not have the name, but we have the reality.
As priests, we live for God. As priests, we serve God. Everyone is given grace, and everyone is given a gift. Grace is equal; gifts are different. But we all receive gifts, and we all share the grace of God.
This is something we need to share with one another. What grace God has given to you is not just meant for you, to make you spiritual. The grace God has given you is for the whole body.
Whatever gift God may have given you, it is for the whole body. We are all priests; that is, we all exercise our priesthood and take our responsibility in the church.
Serve in whatever capacity or ability the Lord has given you. Not only serve; also receive. If we are doing that, the body will grow, and we will not be as babes, easily swayed by every wind of teaching.
Number four: to cultivate our body life, the most important thing is love. In Colossians 3:14, we find:
And above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.
Without love, we cannot live that church life or that body life. That is the reason you find 1 Corinthians 13. Chapter 13 is a love chapter, but that love chapter is the love of the body.
The first ingredient is “suffereth long.” That is to say, the love that is of God in the body of Christ—the number one quality—is to suffer long, to be willing to suffer, and to be kind.
So, dear brothers and sisters, love is the bond of perfectness. We do not have that love. Our love is limited, our love is conditional, and our love is natural. Sooner or later, our love will fail us.
But God’s love is everlasting. It rises above all resistance, everything, and enables us really to love one another, forgiving one another, forgetting one another’s faults, and pressing on together.
So, dear brothers and sisters, church life, our body life, ought to be an important part of our daily life. It can only be attained through spiritual exercise.
If we do not exercise our spirit, we will not be able really to enter into the fullness of that body life. So may the Lord help us, showing us that there is something far better than we ever expected.
Let us ask the Lord.
Dear Lord, how we praise and thank Thee for Thy wonderful provision. We thank Thee for bringing us into Thy body, into Thy family.
O Lord, teach us how we may live as children of God. May we live as living members of the body.
O dear Lord, do open our understanding to see the greatness, the necessity, the importance, and the glory of this church life, this body life, into which Thou hast brought us.
We pray, Lord, that by Thy grace we may all be partakers of this life. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.