The believers serve God not only in their spirit; they serve Him also by the Spirit of God (Phil. 3:3). All the New Testament believers are priests to God (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6). Hence, our ministry to the Lord, in whatever aspect, is a priestly ministry. As priests, we must serve God and worship Him in our spirit and by His Spirit. Whenever we get into our spirit, we also get into the Spirit of God. Likewise, when we worship God by the Spirit of God, we also worship Him in our spirit.
The only acceptable service and worship that we can render to God is not by the flesh but by the Spirit of God. The Spirit is the means for the believers to serve and worship God. Judaic worship and service involve the flesh and the various regulations related to it, such as dietary laws, keeping the Sabbath, and circumcision, all of which cannot be acceptable to God. Whereas the Judaizers serve by ordinances of the law related to the flesh, we as New Testament believers serve and worship God in our spirit by the Spirit of God.
Also, the believers serve and worship God in spirit and truthfulness (John 4:23-24). According to typology the worship of God should be in the place chosen by God to set His habitation (Deut. 12:5, 11, 13-14, 18) and with the offerings (Lev. 1—6). The place chosen by God for His habitation typifies the human spirit, where God’s habitation is today (Eph. 2:22). The offerings typify Christ. Christ is the fulfillment and reality of all the offerings with which God’s people in the Old Testament worshipped Him.
Therefore, a crucial matter we need to see is that genuine worship, the worship God the Father is seeking, is not in a certain place but in the human spirit. In the Old Testament Mount Zion, the place of God’s habitation and the place of His name, is a type of the human spirit. According to the New Testament, God’s habitation is not on any mountain nor in the heavens; God’s habitation is in our spirit. If we go anywhere else to worship God, it indicates that we have given up God’s name. There is only one place where we can be preserved in God’s name—our spirit. When we come to our spirit, we keep God’s name, and we are preserved in His name.
The genuine worship of God the Father is also in truthfulness, reality. In the Old Testament the children of Israel were required to worship God on Mount Zion with the offerings. The offerings typify Christ as reality. Christ is the fulfillment and the reality of all the offerings with which God’s people worshipped Him. Christ is the genuine sin offering, trespass offering, burnt offering, meal offering, and peace offering. Today we worship God in our spirit with Christ as the reality of all the offerings. This is the genuine worship of the Father as well as the worship that He desires.
Finally, in serving and worshipping God, the believers should have no confidence in the flesh (Phil. 3:3). We may think that to trust in the flesh simply means to trust in the fallen human nature. But the flesh actually comprises all that we are and have in our natural being. When Paul was a Judaizer, he trusted in his natural birth and qualifications, such as being circumcised on the eighth day, being of the race of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, and being a Hebrew born of Hebrews. According to law, he was a Pharisee; according to zeal, he persecuted the church; and according to the righteousness in the law, he was blameless (vv. 4-6). All these things were aspects of Paul’s flesh. Hence, we should not trust in such things. Everything that Paul did according to the law and according to zeal was the flesh and was of the flesh; even his righteousness according to the law was flesh. This is because such things are natural and are neither of Christ nor of the Spirit of God. This indicates that the flesh includes not only evil things but also the honorable, lovable, and superior aspects of our natural being.
The Judaizers trusted in their flesh, trusting in what they were by their natural birth. But Paul says strongly that we who believe in Christ serve by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. In order to render genuine service and worship to God, everything that we do must be by the Spirit of God, in Christ, and with no trust in the flesh. Although we are not Judaizers, in principle we may actually be the same as the Judaizers. Even though we have been regenerated, we may continue to live in our fallen nature, boast in what we do in the flesh, and have confidence in our natural qualifications. Therefore, we need the Lord’s light to shine on us concerning our nature, our deeds, and our confidence in the flesh. If we are enlightened by the Lord, we will see that we still live too much in the flesh, we will confess how unclean our nature is, and we will condemn everything that we do by our fallen nature. Then we will no longer trust in our natural qualifications, ability, or intelligence. After we are enlightened in this way, we will truly serve and worship God in our spirit and by the Spirit.
In the progressing stage of God’s full salvation, the believers experience the dispensing of the Divine Trinity not only by entering into the kingdom of God, by living in the church—the Body of Christ, by putting on the new man, and by wrestling against the devil and his spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies. The believers experience this dispensing also in their service and worship of God.
We cannot truly worship God, that is, render worship that satisfies God, that is accepted by Him as a real pleasure to Him, without God dispensing His divine essence into us. Through this divine dispensing we can worship God in a way that satisfies Him. We need to be reminded repeatedly that we serve and worship God through the dispensing of the processed Triune God. Serving God is actually the same as worshipping God. The God whom we serve and worship is the living and true God. Therefore, God must be living to us and in us in every aspect of our daily life. When God is living to us in our experience, He is also true.
When we come to serve God or worship God, we need to have a pure conscience, a conscience purified from dead works or from any kind of offense. The living God, whom we desire to serve, comes to our spirit always by touching our conscience. The blood of the Lord cleanses our sins and purifies our conscience so that we may serve and worship God. We serve and worship God in our spirit in the gospel of His Son. New Testament service and worship are carried out in the preaching of the gospel by our being in our spirit. This gospel is the all-inclusive Christ, the Son of God. Therefore, the crucial point in serving God in our spirit in the gospel of His Son is that we minister Christ to others in the gospel by exercising our spirit. We serve God not only in our spirit but also by the Spirit of God. The only acceptable service and worship that we can render to God is not by the flesh but by the Spirit of God. We serve and worship God in spirit and truth. The worship that God the Father is seeking is not in a certain place but in the human spirit. Christ is the genuine sin offering, trespass offering, burnt offering, meal offering, and peace offering. Today we worship God in our spirit with Christ as the reality of all the offerings. Finally, in serving and worshipping God we should have no confidence in our flesh. As believers in Christ, we should not trust in anything that we have by our natural birth, for everything of our natural birth is part of the flesh. In order to render genuine service and worship to God, everything we do must be by the Spirit of God, in Christ, and with no confidence in the flesh.