In a previous message we saw three vital points regarding the matter of service. The first is that in the church all the serving ones must be built up together as a spiritual house, the priesthood (1 Pet. 2:5).
All the Old Testament priests served the Lord in a corporate way. Not one served the Lord in an individual, independent way. They were all coordinated, and they all cooperated one with another. They were built up together as one body. By that Old Testament type we know that the New Testament saints have to be built up together as a spiritual house, and that this spiritual house is a body of priests, a priesthood.
The priesthood is a building up of all the priests, all the serving ones, as one body. Among them there is a priesthood, a priestly body, a corporation, a coordination of a group of believers built up together, serving the Lord. To serve the Lord we must first be built up together.
Second, we must be the holy priesthood, the separated ones, the saints, the believers, the serving ones, separated from the system of the world unto God, unto the service of the Lord. We must be separated so that we can be holy.
Then we must be the royal priesthood. We have seen the difference between the holy priesthood and the royal priesthood. The holy priesthood is a group of serving ones who have been separated from the satanic system of the world unto the service of God. The royal priesthood is a group of priests, a group of serving ones, who have spent time in the presence of the Lord, who have been anointed and committed with the heavenly authority. They are the Lord’s ruling channel with heavenly authority. When they come out of the presence of God to the people, they come with heavenly authority as royal priests.
On one hand, the priests are holy; on the other hand, they are royal. They are those separated unto God, and they are those committed with heavenly authority to serve the Lord. Because they are separated from the world and entrusted with heavenly authority, they are qualified and equipped to serve the Lord. These three points we have seen already.
Now we come to a crucial point; that is, we have to learn how to serve in the spirit. This is the fourth point in the church service. 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 must 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 must be 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 have 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 must live in the spirit, and we must learn to serve in the spirit.
Suppose you plan to choose a hymn for a meeting. There are two ways to choose a hymn—the way in the letter, and the way in the spirit. Suppose on the Lord’s Day morning we are having a morning service in the way of the letter, and we have one to take charge of the service. We have invited another one to come to give us a sermon. Before the service you may find out what topic that one will use for his sermon. From this you consider what hymns we should sing, perhaps two or three, and you write all the hymn numbers on the board for everyone to see when they come. This is a way in the letter.
You may think that you would never do anything in such a way in our meetings. But at least in principle you may have this kind of practice in the meetings. For the prayer meeting, you may look in the index of the hymnal and select a good hymn related to prayer just according to the letter. A way in the letter is a way of death.
Then what is the other way to choose a hymn? There is a way that is not according to your mind, your mentality, but according to the inner feeling of your spirit. You have to exercise to sense the inner feeling of the spirit. If there is no inner feeling for a certain hymn, you should not select it. When you have a proper hymn, you will sense it by the inmost feeling of your spirit.