I.　The life of a serving one should be a hidden life—a life hidden with Christ in God—Col. 3:3-4:

A.　In God, Christ—not our self, our soul—is our life; this life is now hidden—v. 3.

B.　God in the heavens should be the sphere of our living; with Christ we should live in God—v. 1:

1.　God, man, the heavens, and the church have been brought together and have become one—vv. 1, 3-4; 1:18.

2.　Because God has been processed, we who believe in Christ are now in God; we are also in the heavens and in the church; to be in God is to be in the heavens, and to be in the heavens is to be in the church.

3.　We are truly one with Christ and cannot be separated from Him—1 Cor. 1:30; 6:17:

a.　In God we are with Christ, in the heavens we are with Christ, and in the church we are with Christ—Col. 3:1, 3-4.

b.　Where Christ is, there we are also; with Christ, our life is hidden in God—John 14:3, 10-11, 20; 17:24.

C.　The life of God is the life of Christ, and the life of Christ has become our life— 5:26; Col. 3:4:

1.　The fact that Christ is our life is a strong indication that we are to take Him as life and live by Him and that we are to live Him in our daily life in order to experience the universally extensive Christ revealed in Colossians so that all He is will not remain objective but will become our subjective experience—1:12, 15, 19; 2:3, 9, 16-17; 3:4, 10-11; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21a.

2.　For Christ to be our life means that He is subjective to us to the utter-most—John 1:4; 14:6a; 10:10b; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:6, 10-11:

a.　It is impossible to separate a person from the life of that person, for a person's life is the person himself.

b.　To say that Christ is our life means that Christ has become us and that we have one life and living with Him—Col. 3:4; John 14:6a; Phil. 1:21a.

3.　With Christ as the believers' life there are three characteristics that distinguish it from the natural life:

a.　This life is a crucified life—Gal. 2:20.

b.　This life is a resurrected life—John 11:25.

c.　This life is a life hidden in God—Col. 3:3-4; Matt. 6:1-6, 16-18.

4.　If our natural life has not been dealt with, our service in the church will not last long, but if our life in serving is a crucified, resurrected, and hidden life, nothing will be able to defeat it—Gal. 2:20; Col. 2:12; Rom. 5:17.

5.　Whatever we do in the church should be done by a life hidden with Christ in God—Col. 3:3; S. S. 4:12, 15-16.

II.　The life of a serving one in the kingdom of the heavens should corre-spond with the mysterious, hidden nature of the divine life—Matt. 6:1-6:

A.　We should live in an emptied and humbled spirit and walk in a pure and single heart under the ruling of the kingdom; we are not allowed to do any-thing in the flesh to gain the praise of men but must do all things in spirit to please our heavenly Father—5:3, 8; 6:1-2.

B.　As much as possible, our righteous deeds should be kept secret; what we do in our spirit under the heavenly rule to please our Father must not be interfered with by our flesh in its lusting for man's glory—vv. 2-3.

C.　As serving ones in the kingdom of God, we live by the Father's life and walk according to our spirit; thus, we are required to do good things in secret—v. 4a.

D.　As children of the heavenly Father, we must live in the presence of the Father and care for His presence; whatever we do in secret for the Father's kingdom is seen in secret by the Father, and He will repay us—v. 4b.

E.　As serving ones, we must have some experience of praying in private, con-tacting our Father in secret, experiencing some secret enjoyment of Him, and receiving some secret answer from Him—vv. 5-6.

III.　The life of a serving one should be a life deeply rooted in Christ and thereby be a hidden life before God—Col. 2:7; Eph. 3:17b; Hosea 14:5-7; Jer. 17:7-8; cf. Mark 4:6, 17:

A.　Roots refer to the hidden life; they are the parts that cannot be seen, that are hidden, and that are in secret—Matt. 13:21; Mark 4:6; Luke 8:13:

1.　If we do not have a hidden life before God, we do not have any roots.

2.　Those who do not have any roots before the Lord will be dried up in their life—v. 6.

3.　Those who do not have a hidden life and who do everything before men and have nothing special before the Lord cannot stand the test of the cross— Mark 4:6, 17.

4.　Nothing can preserve us as much as a hidden life before God; it is crucial that we have such a hidden life—Col. 3:3.

5.　If we have deep roots and we bring forth riches from the depths of our inner life, other lives will be deeply affected—Matt. 13:52; 2 Cor. 12:2-4.

B.　A serving one who trusts in God is "like a tree transplanted beside water, / Which sends out its roots by a stream"—Jer. 17:8:

1.　According to God's economy, the one who trusts in God is like a tree planted by water, signifying God as the fountain of living waters—2:13a.

2.　A tree grows beside a river by absorbing all the riches of the water:

a.　This is a picture of God's economy, which is carried out by His dis-pensing.

b.　In order to receive the divine dispensing, we as the trees must absorb God as the water—cf. 1 Cor. 3:6.

c.　The riches of the supplying God dispensed into us as the trees con-stitute us with God's divinity and cause us to grow into God's measure— Col. 2:7, 19.

d.　In this way we and God become one, having the same element, essence, constitution and appearance—Rev. 4:3; 21:11.

C.　As serving ones, we all need to have deep roots in order to absorb God as the living water so that we may be constituted with His element and essence and thus be able to minister life to others—Jer. 17:7-8; 1 John 5:16.