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I. Life and service
II. The service being the ministering of Christ
III. The basis of our service
А. By the growth in life
B. In the Body
C. In the spirit
1. Not in oldness of letter
2. In newness of our regenerated spirit
IV. Ministering Christ in the practical service
The Apostle Paul said in Romans 1:9, "For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son, how unceasingly I make mention of you always in my prayers." Then he said in Romans 7:6, "But now we are discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held, that we should serve as slaves in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter." He begged us, "therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, which is your most reasonable service" (Rom. 12:1). He also charged us not to be slothful in zeal, but to be burning in spirit, serving the Lord as a slave" (Rom. 12:11).
In this lesson [we are dealing with the practical aspect of the Christian life, that is, the service. With us as Christians there are always two aspects. The first aspect is a matter of the Christian life, a life matter, and the second aspect is a matter of the Christian service, a service matter. As the Lord's children, on the one hand we need a proper life, a spiritual life, and on the other hand we need a proper service, a spiritual service.
In Matthew 25 the Lord Jesus gave two parables, the parable of the ten virgins, which deals with the Christian life, and the parable of the talents, which is related to our service. As far as our life is concerned, we should be as the virgins with the testimony of light in our hand as we go out of this world to meet our Bridegroom. This is our life, the life aspect. We need the oil, and we need the testimony of light. We need to go out of this world, to wait for the Lord's coming back, and to go on to meet His coming. This is the Christian life.
Immediately following this parable, the Lord gave us the parable of the talents, which is something related to our service. We need to use the talent, the gift, which the Lord has given us, to do some business and to make some profit for the Lord. With the Lord's children there are always these two aspects, the life and the service. We need to grow in life with the oil, with the light, and with the going out of this world to meet the Lord in His coming back. We also need to exercise in a proper way what the Lord has given us as a gift, as a talent.]
The service we are talking about is certainly not the so-called "Sunday morning service" to which many Christians are accustomed. Neither is it just to perform some work such as cleaning the church meeting hall, although that can be part of serving. The real service is our functioning in the church life in a way that ministers Christ. In preaching the gospel, offering a prayer, or giving a testimony in the meeting, you should have the view that you are serving Christ to others. A stewardess on an airplane serves people with refreshments. Similarly, in the church we should be ones who serve people with Christ.
[To minister Christ as life to others should be the purpose of all the things we do, whether we are cleaning, arranging, cooking, visiting, ministering the Word, singing, or praying. All the practical things in the church life are nothing but the channels, the means through which, by which, and in which we would minister Christ to others.
If others cannot sense Christ in the kitchen while you are cooking, it is doubtful that they will sense Him in the meetings in a real way. To have Christ ministered in the meetings we need to exercise ourselves in such a way in doing all the practical things that Christ will be ministered in the practical things. Every part of the service of the church must minister Christ as life.
We need to learn to serve in the spirit, and we need to learn to do all the things in the service of the church in a way that ministers Christ to others. This is our aim and purpose.]
[First we have the aspect of life, then the aspect of service. We have the life matter settled first, then, based on that fact, we have the matter of service. Without life and the adequate growth in life, we cannot have the service. The little children can do many things, but they cannot serve, because they simply do not have the adequate growth in life.]
In the foregoing lessons we have covered many aspects and practices of life that can help you to grow in life. We must all rise up to serve according to our capacity in life. We should not excuse ourselves as being too young. Every believer should have a proper life of service.
[The Christian service is a matter of life and in the Body. It is a matter in the Body and a matter of the Body. You cannot serve the Lord as an individual Christian. To serve the Lord, you need to realize that the Lord's service is something in the Body.
Every believer is a member of the Body, a part of the Body. An individual is not the Body. A member of the Body cannot function without the Body. The hand is good, quite useful, but if it is cut off from the body, it becomes not only dead, but also ugly, terrible, and even terrifying. You may love to shake my hand, but if this hand were detached from the body, it would be terrible.
Today many Christians are detached, separated from the reality of the Body. It is as if they are disembodied members. The members of the body are beautiful as long as they are attached where they belong in the body, but in any other place they are terrible. How sad it is that many Christians today are like ears that have been detached and put on the shoulders. How could they serve the Lord? How could we serve the Lord without being built up together as members of the Body? It is impossible.]
[Now we come to a crucial point; that is, we need to learn how to serve in the spirit. Romans 7:6 says, "But now we are discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter." We need to learn to serve in the spirit — not in the letter, not in the law, not in doctrine, but in the spirit.
Second Corinthians 3:6 indicates that the New Testament service is a matter of the Spirit, not of the letter: "Who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." Verse 8 continues, "How shall not rather the ministry of the Spirit be in glory?"]
[I am afraid that many believers simply do not know what it means to serve in the spirit. Before we were saved, we were dead in our spirit. On one hand, we were very active in the mind and in the emotion; yet we were dead in the spirit. But, praise the Lord, at the time we were saved, the Lord regenerated our spirit and made it alive. From that time, we need to learn to live, to walk, to act in the spirit, not in the mind or emotion, not in the soul.
We need to learn not only to walk, to live, in the spirit but also to serve in the spirit, and to serve in the newness of the spirit. My burden is to help you know something in a practical way, not in the way of doctrine or theory.
What does it mean to serve the Lord in the spirit and in the newness of the spirit? A spirit has been created within us, and we have been regenerated. Our spirit has been renewed, and the Spirit of God is now dwelling in this quickened, renewed spirit. Therefore our spirit is now a strong factor in our being. Because this spirit has been renewed and made alive, and because it has been strengthened by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, it surely is a strong factor in our being. Yet, due to the fact that we lack the proper teaching, we simply do not realize that we have such a renewed spirit with the Holy Spirit indwelling it. However, we should have some realization because of all the speaking in the ministry concerning this matter.
On one hand, we need to walk, to live, in this spirit. We are not speaking of the Holy Spirit, but of our renewed spirit in which the Holy Spirit dwells. To walk, to live, in our spirit means that we will be in the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit is now indwelling our spirit. We need to live in the spirit, and we need to learn to serve in the spirit.]
[The purpose of all we do in the church service is to minister Christ to others. Everything we do should minister life to others.
Suppose you come to the meeting hall to take care of some practical matters, to arrange the chairs, to do some cleaning work, or to take care of the kitchen. Whatever you are doing, you should take that as an opportunity to minister Christ to others. If you are cleaning, your cleaning should minister life to others. You need to minister Christ by cleaning. If you are teaching, your teaching should minister life to others. Merely to minister some knowledge to others is not enough. You need to minister Christ by teaching. It is the same with cooking. Even by cooking you should minister Christ.]
[There are many lessons to learn in ministering Christ to others by cleaning, by cooking, and by doing many different practical things. It seems that we are so spiritual, so Christ-like, when we come together for a meeting, but when we are in the kitchen it seems that we are anything but Christ-like. We need to learn the lesson to serve others and to serve God by ministering Christ to others no matter what we are doing. If you are in the spirit when you are playing the piano, by playing the piano you will minister Christ to others. As the church we are here to do nothing else but minister Christ to others. To cook a good meal for the saints, to prepare a good place for meeting, to play the piano in a skillful way — none of these things are meaningful unless they minister Christ to others. Whatever we do in the service of the Lord should minister Christ to others. We have much to learn in this matter.]
There are two aspects of being a Christian: one is of life and the other is of service. We need to have a proper spiritual service as well as the growth in life. The real service is to minister Christ in whatever we do, whether it is gospel preaching or cleaning the meeting hall. Our serving should be by the growth in life, in the Body, and in our regenerated spirit.
