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Scripture Reading: Phil. 2:12-14; 3:10
In the past several messages, we have seen the experience and growth in life in the books of Romans, Philippians, and 2 Corinthians. My burden in giving these messages is that you would gain the crucial factors and elements concerning the experience and growth in life, not just some general knowledge.
Some of the crucial factors and elements for our experience and growth in life are mentioned in Philippians 2:12-14. We must work out our salvation by dealing with murmurings and reasonings. In verses 12 through 14, murmurings and reasonings are mentioned with the two great factors of God’s operation and our working out of God’s salvation. It seems that murmurings and reasonings are rather small and insignificant, but in our experience of life these are two very important items with which we need to deal.
Everyone murmurs and reasons. To deal with murmurings and reasonings is not very easy, because only a dead person does not murmur. To make a decision not to murmur does not work. Although it is difficult to refrain from murmurings and reasonings, we must realize that as long as we murmur and reason, we are defeated in working out our salvation in our daily life. In order to work out this salvation, we must pray, “Lord, grant me to know You and the power of Your resurrection and the fellowship of Your sufferings, being conformed to Your death.” While the Lord Jesus lived on the earth, He never murmured, because He lived a crucified life, a life that was always under the cross. The way to be delivered from murmurings and reasonings is just to die, but we cannot crucify ourselves. Brother Nee once said that no one can commit suicide by crucifixion, because crucifixion requires another person to be involved. We need to know the fellowship of His sufferings, that is, to participate in the sufferings of Christ.
In married life, if one is not careful concerning murmurings and reasonings, the issue may be separation and divorce. In a sense married life represents all kinds of corporate life. When a number of people work together, speak together, or play together, they are considered a team. A married couple or a family may also be considered a team. The church life is a team life.
The apostle Paul aspired to know three crucial factors: Christ, the power of His resurrection, and conformity to the death of Christ (3:10). Without these three factors we do not have the reality of life. Some philosophers, such as Confucius, taught a great deal about having a high standard of ethics. But without Christ, His resurrection power, and His death, all these teachings are merely vain talk. Paul’s teaching was not in vain, because his teaching was full of these three factors. These three factors — Christ, His resurrection power, and His death — must not remain only historical to us; they must become our experience and daily salvation.
Question: Sometimes as I enjoy the Lord, I receive His grace, and when situations arise, I am able to overcome them to remain in fellowship with the Lord. But at other times, when the Lord seems to be very distant, a situation comes in, I react, and it seems to take some length of time to restore my once peaceful situation. Is this normal?
Answer: The Christian life is not a philosophical life of reasonings. The Christian life is a life of the three factors I have mentioned earlier. It is a living person with His history of death and resurrection. This person with His history should be our experience today. We should forget about all kinds of philosophy. Today most Christian teachers have turned biblical teachings into something philosophical. Though I would agree that the Bible is the most philosophical book, the most thoughtful book, to make its teaching a philosophy is a big mistake. The Bible does not reveal different kinds of philosophies. It unveils a living person, who is the Spirit today as the very consummation of the processed Triune God. This One is our need.
There is a great deal of scientific knowledge concerning electricity. The need in our daily life is not this knowledge but the power of electricity. In the same way Christ with His death and resurrection should not be a philosophy to us but something living and experiential. In Philippians 3 Paul sought to know Christ as a living person, to participate in His sufferings, and to be conformed to His death. This was not a philosophy to Paul, but a living person with two living points. We must have the same desire, even the same vision, as Paul. When we see such a vision, many of our improper prayers and foolish seeking will come to an end. Our need is to be unveiled to see a vision of Christ and His death and resurrection.
I am concerned that many of the young people will merely learn things in this training as they would in a school with a textbook, without really seeing something. My real burden is to help you see something. As you read this chapter, I hope that you could see the living person of Christ, His death, and His resurrection again and again.
A hymn such as Hymns, #642 does not merely teach us. On the contrary, it unveils spiritual reality to us. Our need is not just to learn doctrines but to open ourselves to the Lord so that we can see something. We should pray, “Lord, I open myself to You. I want to see more of You as an all-inclusive person. Show me how Your all-inclusive death and resurrection includes me.” Then as we listen to the speaking concerning Christ, we will begin to see something. What we see becomes a reality within us. Then we live by what we have seen.
The death and resurrection of Christ must become a vision to us. On the cross not only was Christ crucified there, but also all the existing things in the universe were crucified with Him. He was on the cross representing the entire old creation, so when He died, we died with Him. His death was our death. Likewise, when He resurrected, we also resurrected with Him to be the people of His new creation. His resurrection was the birth, the germination, of the new creation. Christ is an all-inclusive person, so His resurrection, based upon His all-inclusive death, is also all-inclusive. My burden is to help you see this vision.
Vision comes from hearing, and hearing comes from speaking. In Christianity the subtle enemy has cut off the proper speaking of Christ and His death and resurrection. But praise the Lord that He is still speaking today. As long as He speaks and you hear, you also see a vision. Once you see something, you also enjoy the reality. The reality is mainly composed of three factors: the all-inclusive Christ as a living person, His all-inclusive death, and His all-inclusive resurrection. When we see these factors, we are brought into the realization and experience of them.
Question: Having seen something of Christ and His all-inclusive death and resurrection, why does it seem so difficult to experience these things?
Answer: The reason for this is that our vision is often very vague. We see something but not so clearly. We must realize that genuine believing is based upon what we see. When we preach the gospel, we must hold the realization that we are presenting something of reality to people. Our speaking is the presentation of reality. When our listeners hear our presentation, they see something and believe. What they see becomes their faith, their believing. The problem is that often our speaking is weak, and the hearing is also weak; therefore, the believing and seeing become very weak. The strength of what we see and believe depends upon the strength of our hearing. Whether our hearing is strong or not depends upon the strength of the speaking.
Question: Does the vision of Christ and His death and resurrection come suddenly as a one-time experience, or does it come gradually over some period of time?
Answer: Often it is difficult to determine whether what we see today is a sudden revelation or something that has come gradually through our experience. As we are walking down a certain street, we are able to see the things on that street because we are in the position to see them. One day we see one thing, and another day we see something more. In the same principle, as we attend the meetings of the church, we may not see very much at first. But as we continue to attend the meetings and hear the speaking, gradually we begin to see something month after month and year after year.
We do not often have the experience of seeing something in a sudden way. Actually, according to my experience, the sudden or instant vision is not very valuable. The most valuable vision is something that has been built up within you. If from the day you are saved, you build up a habit of always being in the meetings, big or small, year-round, this will constitute something of a vision within you, which will become something very stable within you. Through the meetings something is sown into you. The accumulation of what has been sown into you is your seeing, your vision. To gain such a vision requires time. We should not expect to see the vision of Christ, His death, and His resurrection in a sudden way. Gradually, as we go on in our experience with the Lord, we see more.
The disciples, especially Peter, are a good illustration of this. Many teachers and students of the Bible throughout church history have tried to determine when Peter was saved. On several occasions Peter had some very significant experiences with the Lord. The first experience was when he was brought to the Lord by his brother, Andrew (John 1:40-42). On this occasion the Lord changed his name from Simon to Peter, a stone. This experience, however, did not change Peter very much, because shortly thereafter he went back to fishing. Then the Lord went to the sea of Galilee and called Peter as he was casting a net into the sea (Matt. 4:18-19). The Lord attracted him, perhaps by the miracle recorded in Luke 5:4-11. At one moment he was casting a net for fish, and the next moment, having been called by the Lord Jesus, he began to follow the Lord. After perhaps three years of following the Lord, Peter and the other disciples were led by the Lord to Caesarea Philippi (Matt. 16:13). The Lord asked them, “Who do you say that I am?” (v. 15). Peter responded, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16). This was another significant experience. After these experiences Peter denied the Lord three times, even before the Lord’s face (Luke 22:54-61). And on the day of Christ’s resurrection, the angel specifically mentioned that Peter should be told about the Lord’s resurrection (Mark 16:7). Then on the evening of the day of resurrection the Lord came back to breathe Himself into the disciples (John 20:22).
Through these experiences it is difficult to determine when Peter was regenerated. It seems that Peter might have been regenerated when he made the declaration in Matthew 16:16 that Jesus is the Son of the living God. However, Peter was undoubtedly regenerated after the Lord breathed Himself into the disciples. The earlier experiences seem to have been an accumulation consummating in the experience in John 20:22.
In principle it is the same with us today. Because our experiences of the Lord accumulate over time, we may have the feeling that our experiences some years ago were not as genuine as they are today. Though our experiences seem to be very sudden, they are actually an accumulation over many years. The things we see today that seem to be rather sudden will be recognized, after a few years, as having only been steps in a process of accumulation.
Often it may seem that we have not seen or experienced very much, when we have actually seen and experienced a great deal without realizing it. On the other hand, we often think that we have seen something, when in reality we have seen and experienced very little. As a result, we are easily deceived. The best way is simply to walk on the pathway of life, day by day, without analyzing very much. Again, the disciples are good examples of this. Peter and the other disciples followed the Lord somewhat foolishly and ignorantly for three and a half years. It is doubtful that Peter was very clear concerning anything he saw during those years with the Lord. Peter seemed to be clear when he spoke concerning Christ being the Son of the living God, but later when asked whether the Lord paid the temple tax, he answered in a very inaccurate way (Matt. 17:24-27). This exposed that he had not seen very clearly that Jesus as the Son of God is not required to pay such a tax.
As the Lord was going to Jerusalem to be crucified, the disciples also argued among themselves as to which one of them would be the greatest (Mark 9:33-34). They did not care for the Lord or for what He had told them concerning His death and resurrection. It seems that after three and a half years the disciples saw very little and that the time the Lord spent with them was wasted. It even seems that the sisters, such as Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus, and the mother of James and John, saw much more than the brothers. Although this may be true, actually, all but Judas received something from the Lord in those years.
We must realize that any time we spend with the Lord is never a waste. The more time we spend with the Lord, the more we learn and the more a treasure is accumulated within our being. Therefore, we must continue to pursue the Lord according to a good routine. Such a routine includes morning watch every morning, walking by the Spirit each day, and attending the meetings regularly. In spite of all our failures, we should still keep such a routine. This kind of exercise before the Lord will never be a waste.
Question: I have a question concerning ministering to others. Many times when I am in the home meetings and the atmosphere is living, I share something with the new believers that is right in doctrine, but the flavor seems to be me. Will there be a time in our ministry to others when we sense that the Lord has a clear way through us without any flavor of ourselves?
Answer: Our feelings are just like the weather — extremely variable and untrustworthy. Concerning our ministry, we should just go and minister, not analyzing too much. We should just labor in the home meetings, small group meetings, and big meetings. Eventually, we will see the Lord’s blessing, and we will reach the goal. According to my experience, quite often I thought that I accomplished very little when I ministered in a certain place. To my feeling, it was a failure. Then a number of years later quite a few saints from that place shared with me that they were really helped by the message I had given earlier. On the other hand, when I have shared at other times, I had the feeling that I had reached the third heaven. Eventually, there was not the great result that I expected.
Although many Christians seek so-called spirituality, we must realize that we will eventually be very human. We also must realize that our flavor will be with us even when we enter into the New Jerusalem. The New Testament was written by many writers. Whenever we read Peter’s writing, we know that it is Peter, because it has the flavor of Peter. Likewise, when we read Paul’s writing, there is the flavor of Paul. Even in the New Jerusalem we will not lose our personal identity and flavor.
