in the common cause. These Philippians help Paul
by sympathy and gifts, indeed, but by their own direct work as well, and
things are not right with us unless leaders can say, 'Ye all are
partakers of my grace.' There are other real and sweet bonds of love and
friendship, but the most real and sweetest is to be found in our common
relation to Jesus Christ and in our co-operation in the work which is
ours because it is His and we are His.

II. Thankful, glad prayer flows from such co-operation.

The prisoner in his bonds in the alien city had the remembrance of his
friends coming into his chamber like fresh, cool air, or fragrance from
far-off gardens. A thrill of gladness was in his soul as often as he
thought on them. It is blessed if in our experience teacher and taught
are knit together thus; without some such bond of union no good will be
done. The relation of pastor and people is so delicate and spiritual,
the purpose of it so different from that of mere teaching, the laws of
it so informal and elastic, the whole power of it, therefore, so
dependent on sympathy and mutual kindliness that, unless there be
something like the bond which united Paul and the Philippians, there
will be no prosperity or blessing. The thinnest film of cloud prevents
deposition of dew. If all men in pulpits could say what Paul said of the
Philippians, and all men in pews could deserve to have it said of them,
the world would feel the power of a quickened Church.

III. Confidence is born of love and common service.

Paul delights to think that God will go on because God has already begun
a good work in them, and Paul delights to think of their perfection
because he loves them. 'God is not a man that He should lie, or the son
of man that He should repent.' His past is the guarantee for His future;
what He begins He finishes.

IV. Our love is hallowed and greatened in the love of Christ.

Paul lived, yet not he, but Christ lived in him. It is but one
illustration of the principle of his being that Christ who was the life
of his life, is the heart of his love. He longed after his Philippian
friends in the tender mercies of Christ Jesus. This and this only is
the true consecration of love when we live and love in the Lord; when we
will as Christ does, think as He does, love as He does, when the mind
that was in Christ Jesus was in us. It is needful to guard against the
intrusion of mere human affection and regard into our sacred relations
i