In these messages we will consider the proper Christian service. This is a big subject that covers many matters. We will be concerned not merely with messages, teachings, doctrine, and knowledge. Rather, we will deal with practice and experience.
The service actually includes all Christian activities. We do not use the word service in the same way that Christianity does. Service also includes how to have the meetings. In Christian service and activity the first and most important thing is to meet, to have meetings. Without meeting it is impossible to have the Christian service or any kind of Christian activity. In other words, all Christian service and activities depend on meeting. Therefore, the first thing we must learn is how to meet.
The genuine Christian meeting is not a meeting like that in today’s Christianity. Meetings in Christianity today are according to the system of the clergy and the laity. I hope that we would not have clergy and laity in our dictionary. We have to drop these two words. We have no such distinction. We are all priests; we believe in the universal priesthood. For us to come together means that all the members, not only a few responsible brothers, need to share the responsibility of the meeting. In the meetings, strictly speaking, there are no responsible brothers. All are simply brothers. When we come together, we come on the same standing with the same status. When we meet, we share the responsibility in the meetings.
In these messages we will also consider how to reach people, how to have an outreach, that is, how to preach the gospel to the unbelievers. We must learn how to bring Christ to the unbelievers and also how to contact believers. We also need to learn how to help people in life. This needs much practice. It involves knowing how to minister life to people and how to help them go on in the spiritual life.
First, we must see the basic principle for our service, work, and activities. When we speak about service, work, and activities, we need to remember well what the Lord taught us in John 4. Verses 23 and 24 say, “But an hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.” In these verses, the word spirit is not capitalized. This is very important. Many people know this verse, but most understand that spirit here is the Holy Spirit. The thought in today’s Christianity is that we worship in the Holy Spirit. This is not wrong, but what is more basically important is that in the New Testament time we must learn how to worship God in our human spirit. This has been neglected very much in Christianity. It is rather hard to find a message that tells us that we have to worship and serve God in our human spirit.
In addition, many may think that truthfulness as mentioned in John 4 is teaching or doctrine. Others say that truthfulness here means sincerity, that we must worship God with sincerity. Neither of these is accurate. Truthfulness here does not refer to mere doctrine or sincerity. Because God is Spirit, it is easy, logically speaking, to understand that we must worship God in spirit. But it is more difficult to understand why we must worship Him in truthfulness.
Why must we worship God, who is Spirit, in truthfulness? In order to understand a portion of Scripture, we first need its context. The context of these two verses gives us the background. This is the word which the Lord Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman. That woman raised the problem of worship, saying, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, yet you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men must worship” (v. 20). The background of the word spoken here is the worship in the Old Testament. Therefore, we must see what the worship in the Old Testament was.