The Heavenly Citizen

“Let your citizenship he worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Phil. i. 27, 28).

The country towards which we travel ought to be recognised by our life. It ought to be evident that we are citizens of the heavenly kingdom by the very gait with which we move about our common affairs. We ought to carry our very climate about with us, as we move in the stifling or chilling atmospheres of the world. People should breathe more freely when we draw near. Hearts and consciences should awake as though they felt the blowing of their native air. And there ought to be a freshness and buoyancy in our intercourse which shall proclaim to all men that we are enjoying the franchise and privileges of the city of God. The redeemed of the Lord must

not move about like slaves, their faces clouded with fear, as though the lash may suddenly fall upon their shoulders, or some awful abyss open at their very feet. Our entire intercourse with the world must be “worthy of the gospel of Christ”; and, as that gospel is an evangel of light and life and power and peace, our souls must reveal themselves as vitalised and illumined, and exulting in a restful glory. But how frequently the Lord’s disciples are miserable advertisements of His grace. Some years ago, in a certain nothern town, I saw a street lamp exceedingly dirty and dingy, from which there hung an inscribed index hand, pointing the way to the municipal baths! And we have seen its analogy in the Christian Church. Unclean lives proclaim the powers of the kingdom of purity and light, and the defiled garment puts the Saviour to shame. The messenger is not worthy of the message, and therefore the message itself is treated with derision and contempt. Our citizenship is not “worthy of the gospel of Christ.”

“That, whether I come and see you or he absent ...” There are many Christians who seem as though they cannot live without sensations. When the special convention is being held, their devotion and regularity are admirable; but when the special speakers have gone home again, and the multitudes have melted away, and there is just the little church or chapel left, and the average minister, and the common round of Christian labours, they become lax and lukewarm, and they frequently degenerate into cynics, and assiduously practise the perilous exercises of criticism and censure. Paul recognised the danger, and he faithfully proclaimed it. Blessed and thrice blessed is the Christian who accustoms himself to find his bread in the ways of the commonplace, who can be faithful without sensations, and who realises in humble fellowships the sweet companionship of the Lord.

“That 1 may hear of your state, that ye stand fast in one spirit.” That is the glory of the true soldier, whether he be found among many comrades, and heartened by the music of the band, or whether he be engaged in lowly sentinel duty, in the cold, silent watches of the night, — it is his glory to “stand fast,” to hold his ground. Our posts may be many and varied, but our spirit can be one. We can hold the country for Emmanuel if everybody holds his corner. The “thick of the fight” for everybody is just where everybody is placed, and just there our first trophies can be won. Do not let us loll at our post, or saunter about in sightless indolence, because some comrade has gone away, some conspicuous disciple on whom we had leaned; do not let us despise our post, or treat, it flippantly or carelessly where we could do better and braver work, and which are held by feebler men. Our part is to hold our bit of ground, to “stand fast,” and to see to it, by the help of God, that the whole kingdom is not endangered by breaches made in our position, but that when the enemy assails us he may find he is hurling himself against invincible rock.

“With one soul striving for the faith of the gospel.” Even though we may sometimes think ourselves to be fighting alone, solitary soldiers at obscure or distant outposts, we are part of a vast and solid army, one in the fires of noble affection, one in the enthusiasm of a glorious passion, one in the sacred enterprise of striving in concert with the faith. No man can absolutely blight and destroy the power of the gospel. He may maim it, he may irm poverish it, but he cannot take its life. A preacher whose soul is unclean, and who is disloyal to his Lord, cannot altogether devitalise the power of his own message. “My word shall not return unto me void.” But how amazingly is the message helped when the messenger strives in concert with it. It is as though two warriors were strenuously engaged upon a common task, and one cheers and invigorates the other. This is our privilege, as this is our dignity, to be “fellow-labourers with God,” and in this supreme fellowship we enter into the joy of the Lord.