Just as physical exercise builds up your outer body, Spiritual exercise strengthens your inner being to keep discouragement at bay. What does that look like? Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah shares practical pointers from God's Word. for developing an exercise plan for your spiritual strength.
To introduce the conclusion of his special message, finding life through death, here's David. You know, the Bible reminds us of the realities of life. The realities of life are simple. That which you see is not as important as that which you don't see. I just finished writing a book on the soul, and I was reminded that we are not bodies with a soul, we are souls with a body.
In other words, the immaterial part of us is the most important part of us. And that's why You can be perishing on the outside, but flourishing on the inside. You can be dying outwardly and living immortally inwardly. The Bible has got this truth all wrapped up for us, and we're talking about it as it's illustrated for us in 2 Corinthians 4. We'll get back to that in just a moment.
But, friends, I'm running out of time to tell you about this incredible book by my friend Rob Morgan. Uh we will soon forget the 250th anniversary. of our nation, but we must never forget uh the foundation upon uh which it began This nation is a nation under God. It's not a Christian nation. That would mean we'd have to be a nation full of Christians.
That is not true. But it's a Christian nation in the sense that most of its principles were founded on the Word of God. Rob has put together this incredible book called 100 Bible Verses That Made America, defining moments that shaped our enduring foundation of faith. This book is available to you for a gift of any size during this month of July. But you're running out of time, friends.
Just a couple of days left. Get your letter in the mail, send your gift, ask for your copy. of 100 Bible verses that made America.
Now let's go to the Word of God together. The creative difference that Christ brings to our struggle. is his own presence. In the midst of the storm. Amen?
That's why we're different. That's why, when you see a Christian who's walking with the Lord going through difficult things. It's different. Are they concerned? Yes.
Filled with sadness and sorrow often, but filled with despair. Hardly ever. Because you see, we already have this thing figured out. If I don't make it through cancer, I graduate to heaven. I mean I'm not wanting to go there right now, but if I end up going there, that's not a bad second choice, is it?
You see, Christianity just puts a whole new perspective. on the struggle we're talking about.
Now some of you say, well, Paul was just a resilient man. I'm not like that, Pastor, but you misunderstand it if you think that. You see, it wasn't that Paul just reached down in his soul and sucked it up and became the man. It was never his strength in the first place. It was God using Paul's weakness for the occasion of God's power.
He remained an earthen pot and a cracked pot at that. And his crumbling flesh allowed the power of God to shine brightly through his life.
So when people would talk about Paul, They would end up talking about God. I mean, how do you explain Paul? I told you what he was. He was a 5'9, bald-headed. Hunched over Jew.
Totally unattractive in appearance, and probably not a very good speaker from what we learned in 2 Corinthians. You look at him and say, that's Paul? No, that's Paul. And that's God. God working through his Brokenness, his humanity.
because of this dichotomy. of humanity. Filled. With the power of God. Then we come to the principle of living through dying in verses 10 and 11.
Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So then, death is working in us, but life in you. If you'll notice, and I've underlined this in my Bible. There are many mentions of the name Jesus in these next verses. How many of you know that Jesus is the human name? For the second person of the Trinity.
Christ is his Messiah name. Jesus is his human name. And Paul refers to Jesus. He says, always bearing about in my body the dying of Jesus. What is he talking about?
Well, first of all, there are two words for death in the language of the New Testament. I don't want to get technical, but this is important. The first word is the word thanatos, which means Death to die. Were you to say something like this? John Doe died.
That's the word Thanatos. talks about the event. But the other word is the word necrosis, which means dying or in the process of dying or going into the route to death. And that's the word Paul uses. He says, always bearing about in my body the dying of the Lord Jesus.
What was the dying of the Lord Jesus like? Did you see the passion of the Christ? It wasn't just what happened on the cross, was it? No, in fact, that was a very small part of the film. It was all of the beatings and the scourgings and the discouragement and the disloyalty and all the things that were a part of the dying of the Lord Jesus until He died.
And Paul says If you look at my life. It's like looking at the dying of the Lord Jesus. Every day I bear in my body The dying of the Lord Jesus. In other words, Paul is saying, what Jesus went through on his way to the cross is the way I've had to live my life. One time he talks about the glories of the sufferings of Christ.
Over in the book of Galatians, he tells us that he bears in his body the marks of the crucifixion. the marks of the crucified Christ. Paul is not telling us about how to live with the struggle as an outsider who's never experienced this. Paul is talking to us from a vantage point most of us will never get close to. And he is saying.
I understand the power in my life. I have experienced the dying of the Lord Jesus in my life every day. And here's what he discovered. That just as out of the death of Christ, Life came. Out of his dying, life was being manifested to those to whom he ministered.
And he is saying to us, when we're going through what we consider these kinds of dying experiences, they look like they have an awful ending. If we look at it from our perspective, but if we take the perspective of Almighty God, He's up to something. Just as through the dying of the Lord Jesus and his ultimate resurrection, we have been. brought to faith. It's often through those difficult experiences we face in our life.
That people see us under that pressure. And they're drawn to the Savior. That we serve. Did you know? If you're having a good life, If everything's cool.
You got no issues. You live in a nice house, have a good car, your job is stable, your kids aren't doing freaky things. And your neighbors look at you. Hey, what are they going to say? That's a good family.
Have you ever heard that? Just a good family. They wouldn't know if you're a Christian or not. But then maybe a divorce comes, or one of your children gets into some trouble, or. Issues come up or you lose your job.
Or you get accused wrongfully of something.
Now you're in the limelight.
Now they watch you and now they want to see okay Does this Christ, who they say lives within them, make any difference in the midst? of all the stress and the struggles that the rest of us have. That's where Your dying becomes living. That's where people begin to see the life of Christ in you. That's where Jesus Christ is strong.
in the midst of your weakness. We don't want that to come. We don't get to vote on it. You know that, don't you? But when it comes It is the Christ within us.
who brings reality to the world around us.
Well Paul isn't going to quit. Before He gives us some motivational thoughts, and I want to just give these to you. First of all, he's going to talk about the process of living through dying. Here's the question. I got to live like this, folks.
I'm human. I'm carrying in me this divine treasure of the gospel. I'm trying to be faithful to God, but I'm struggling because I'm just human. And I'm trying to be filled with the Holy Spirit, which is the only way you can live this life. How do I get to the place?
Where I can be victorious in this kind of a life? How can I begin to live so that I don't lose heart? Paul's going to help us with that. Notice verse 16. Therefore, he says, we do not lose heart in the midst of the struggle.
Even though Our outward man is perishing. Yet, the inward man is being renewed day by day. The reason Paul does not lose heart and the process he recommends to us here is vital to our being able to stay out of the realm of discouragement in our life. How do you keep from caving into the human part of you when you want to? Be submissive to what's going on inside.
Well, here he says. The outward man is perishing. Can I get a witness? Amen. I mean, I try to work on the outward man as much as I can, and you should do the same thing, the outward woman as well.
But we are fighting a losing battle. We just try to hold out for as long as we can. Amen? I go to the gym, and every week somebody comes up and says, Hey, did you hear that the older you get, you have to work twice as hard to maintain your current level of fitness? Go away.
I mean, it's hard enough to get out of bed and go to the gym without somebody telling you that. But it's true, isn't it? It's true.
Now, folks, I got some bad news for you. I can't help you with the outward perishing man except tell you to eat right, get some sleep, and go to the gym. That's all I can tell you. But if you do that, it'll prolong it for a while. But it's not going to change the ultimate.
Sad story. But I have good news for you. I can help you. with the inward man. The man that's going to live long after your outward man.
Yeah. Who is this outward man? The outward man is that earthen vessel, your mortal body, your mortal flesh. This is who you are without Christ.
Now, let me just tell you something. This is the thing I want you all to hear. If you don't have Jesus, if you're not a Christian, what you've got is the outward person. You got a great big old empty hole inside where God belongs and where He wants to be.
So if you want to read your ending, you can do it quickly. You're going to do what everybody does. You're going to try to prolong the outward man as long as you can, but if you don't have Jesus, when that's over, The prospect for anything good after that are very, very dim. In fact, they're zero. But if you're a Christian Even though the outward man is perishing, according to Paul, the inward man is being renewed day by day.
The outward man is deconstructing, but the inward man is renewing and reconstructing and being built up. And how is it renewed? Paul tells us in the book of Romans: by the renewing of your mind. By your commitment to the word of God. He talks about that over in 2 Corinthians, and he says, We all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image.
How many of you know that the inward man doesn't arrive perfected? The inward man arrives with a lot of work that God is going to do to increase the power of the inward man. And there's discipline involved, and I know that's not a fun word. But the inward man is being renewed. I read a statement by Bono, who is the lead singer for YouTube, and he talks about how God has worked in his life.
And listen to the creative way he describes this process. He says, Your nature is a hard thing to change, it takes time. I have heard of people having life-changing, miraculous turnarounds, people set free from addiction after a single prayer, relationships saved where both parties let go and let God. But it wasn't like that for me. For all that I was lost, I am found, it is probably more accurate to say I was really lost and I'm really little less lost than I used to be.
He's not talking about his salvation here. And then a little less, and then a little less again. That to me is the spiritual life. The slow reworking and rebooting of a computer at regular intervals, reading the small print of the service manual. It has slowly rebuilt me into a better person, but it's taken years and it's not over yet.
End of quote. What is Almighty God doing in your life and in mine? We can't control what's happening to our bodies. except for the positive things we do to nurture them. But we do have something we can do to build the inward man.
And what a beautiful thing it is for a pastor to watch godly people whose outward man has begun to fail, but their inward man has become so strong you hardly see their human frailty because the light of the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ is shining so brightly in their personality. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not our bodies. Our bodies are just the houses where we live. And we spend all of our time working on the outward house, and hardly any time working on who we are. And therefore, when the human body begins to perish, we don't have anything left we can count on.
And Paul is saying that the way you live through dying is that while the outward man is dying, the inward man is living, and you nurture that inward man, and we'll talk about that in just a moment.
Now, just quickly, he gives us four perspectives about this, and I can just read these, and that's it. In verses 17 and 18, he says, Listen to me. You don't know about this life. Let me tell you how it all specs out. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporary, and the things which are not seen are eternal. There are four contrasts here, and I'm just going to show them to you. You can study them later. First of all, there's a contrast between affliction and glory. He says, down here you might have some affliction, but you don't live for down here.
You live for up there. When you get up there, it's a glory. Hallelujah. There's a difference between light and weight. Paul says, What you got down here is really a light weight.
When you get up there to the glory, man, it's a heavy thing. There's a contrast of temporary and eternal. He says, What you give yourself down here to is temporary, but ultimately you're going to be with God. That's eternal. And there's a contrast of the seen and the unseen.
If you live for the world that you can see, you will live for the wrong world, for the unseen world of your spiritual being is the reality of life. And you have to live in that realm.
So at the end of this, he gives us this perspective. And he helps us again to understand why we wouldn't have some struggles along the way in this kind of a life. When we accepted Christ, we added a dimension to ourselves that creates. An intense struggle within. And so here's what you do.
Turn first of all. to 1 Timothy 4. Why would God put his children into the center of such a struggle? What is he up to? Why is he doing this?
I mean, this isn't easy. This is hard. How can I go on living a life like this?
Well, in his first letter to young Timothy, Paul gives some clues as to how we deal with this paradox in our own lives. At the end of verse 7, he writes, exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable in all things, having promise of the life that now is and that which is to come. Paul says, if you're going to grow the inward man, you have to exercise gymnasio, gymnasium. You have to exercise yourself.
To godliness. Just as you go into the fitness center to work on the outward man, you have to find a place where you can work on the inward man. You have to exercise yourself to godliness. He says that bodily exercise profits little. That's not another verse you should read when you're trying to get up in the morning and go to the gym.
Some of you have taken that as your life verse, I can tell. But what he's saying is not don't go and exercise. But he's saying you can exercise and be one of the most Fit people on this earth, but ultimately. It's going to end. And so, if you're going to spend your time, why not spend your time on that which will never end?
Your inward man is going to live forever. If you spend all of your life Working on the outward man. And please don't be discouraged if you're doing that. We need all the encouragement we can. It's important.
The greatest ministry you will have on this earth will be in your body. And if you wear your body out, then where are you going to live?
So, don't give up on your body. But while you're working on your body, understand that it's insignificant in comparison to the importance of working on the inward man. For if you work on the inward man, it will profit you now, says Paul, and also in the life to come. You say, What should I do?
Well, if you go down through this passage, you can study this when you get home. Paul, at the end of this section in 1 Timothy, gives us a lot of little paragraphs of exhortation and instruction, and I'm just going to single out three. How do you exercise through the focused study of the Word of God? Verse 13, till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine. May I say to you, ladies and gentlemen, in your culture and in mine, reading is falling out of use.
We don't read very much. We spend too much time watching television with our computers, but we don't read. Let me tell you something: reading is a great input into your life. You ought to always be trying to find a book you can read that's going to strengthen you on the inward man. Once in a while, you can read a novel, that's not a problem, but get something that's going to build you up.
Read something of substance. Exhortation is about preaching and doctrine.
So if you're going to grow the inward man, get serious about it, get focused on study. The only way your inward man is going to grow is through the food that you put into him. Through the eye gate and through the heart gate. That old poem is just so right. Two natures beat within my breast.
The one is foul, the one is blessed. The one I love, the one I hate, the one I feed will dominate. Isn't that true?
So, faithful service is the second thing. This is interesting. Verse 14, Paul's writing to Timothy, and he says, Timothy, don't neglect the gift that is in you, which is given to you by prophecy, with the laying on of hands. The next thing you can do to build the inward man is get involved in serving. Serve in vacation Bible school, serve in Sunday school, serve as a small group leader, serve in the choir, serve in the parking lot, serve as an usher, but serve, do something for God after all He's done for you.
How can you sit there and not want to serve Him? You have a gift. Everybody has a gift. And Paul told Timothy, Timothy, don't neglect your gift. But use it.
I don't know any growing Christian who's not serving. I just don't know any. There might be some out there, but I don't know how you grow because if you don't serve, you're like the Dead Sea. Everything coming in and nothing going out. And then the last one is fervent submission.
Listen to how he wraps this up. Meditate on these things, give yourself entirely to them. that your progress may be evident to all. Here's a great advertisement for small groups. You get in a small group where you're interacting with others.
And little by little, you start to grow. You'll notice it in them, they'll notice it in you. You encourage them, you'll get encouraged by them, and your growth and your transformation takes on a total new track. When you began to grow in Christ, it's not something you can hide. It's not something people won't see.
Paul says, You ought to be growing in such a way that people can see the progress in your life. Bill, the Inward Man Friends. This is why we struggle. And this is why Paul says, don't lose heart. If you know these things that we talked about today, you don't need to get discouraged.
When you're having a bad day physically, Just say, well, the old part of me is not working as well as it used to, but man, I've been growing so much in the Lord. I've got such a new walk with God. I'll go to the doctor. We'll do the best we can with that. But man, I'm so happy about what God has done in my life.
In fact, Let me just tell you one last thing before we quit. The only way people are going to see your inward man. is through the brokenness. of your outward man. Isn't that true?
Do you remember when Gideon went to fight? And God told him to put a light in a pitcher. He said, carry those pitchers up there to the Midianites. And when Gideon gives the command, break the pitchers. And the light will be seen.
And of course, the light just scared them to death, and they killed each other off. But here's the principle. As long as the light was in the picture and the picture wasn't broken, The light couldn't be seen.
Some of you are going through some brokenness right now, and you're just resisting it, and you're saying, God, why are you letting this happen to me? I don't like this. Have you ever thought? That God wants the light of your life inwardly to shine out through the brokenness of your body.
So that people can see the reality of Jesus Christ in you. That's how they're going to see Him, not through your protected life. But through the brokenness of your life. through the brokenness of the outward man. The inward man shines.
And Jesus is the creative difference. My friend, if you don't know that Jesus today, let me tell you, you've got a pretty bleak future in front of you. The same thing that happens to all of us is going to happen to you, whether you like it or not. You can't forestall it, you can't change it. But you can make the creative difference that Christ makes by beginning to walk with Him.
First of all, you got to know Him. If you're not a Christian, you need to accept Him as your Savior. He will forgive your sin and He will start that inward process that will go on until eternity. I recommend him to you. I wouldn't want to go through life like it is today if I didn't know Jesus and if I didn't know his power and strength was in my life.
He's enough. for whatever you're facing. But you have to know him. Amen. I invite you to him.
I have been doing this for over 50 years, inviting people to Jesus. Tell him to come and find in him what they've been looking for. He says his yoke is easy. Come to him. His burden is light.
He loves you, and He loves you enough to have given Himself up for you on the cross. He wants to be your Savior. But you have to ask him. Will you do that today? Will you just bow your head wherever you are and say, Lord Jesus, I'm tired of my life being as it is, apart from God?
I'm ready to walk with God. Lord Jesus, come and live within my heart and forgive me of my sin. And He will do it. He's never denied anyone who's ever come to Him. You won't be the first.
He loves you. He wants you to be with Him. He wants to be with you. He's the Son of the living God. He's the Savior of the world.
and he's available to you today. Don't forget to be with us tomorrow as we begin these two days of discussing freedom from slavery in the Bible. You join us then, will you? We'll see you next time. Today's message originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor Dr.
David Jeremiah. Drop us a note and let us know how God is using this ministry in your life. Right to Turning Point, PO Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. visiting our website at davidjeremiah.org slash radio or calling 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of Robert J.
Morgan's book, 100 Bible Verses That Made America. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also download the free Turning Point mobile app to instantly access our content. Search the App Store for the keywords Turning Point Ministries. Visit davidjeremiah.org slash radio for details.
This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow for another special message from Dr. David Jeremiah here on Turning Point.
