in these sacred human
relationships.
3. Then there is the _fellowship of service_. Now, it follows that, if
we are fully saved, we are and we should be workers together with God,
not simply going out on 'our own', as you young people say sometimes,
trying to do people good; but really, if it is as it ought to be, your
relations are expressed in those words, 'We are workers together with
God'.
There are several particulars about that fellowship of service which I
want you to note. For instance, there is _the union of purpose_. You
cannot have fellowship with God in service without a union of purpose.
Are you in for that? Perhaps it may give my words a closer application
if I glance at two or three references: 'For this purpose was the Son
of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the Devil'. Are
you in union with Him for that purpose? There is the reason round about
us, plain and visible enough.
Take another: 'To this end came I into the world that I might bear
witness of the truth'. Are you in union with Him in that
witness-bearing? I assure you there is a great need of it.
Take still another: 'As the Father hath sent Me, even so'--that is a
very powerful little link--'even so send I you'. There is not only the
sender and the one sent, but the same purpose in both minds.
There is _the unity of effort_; that is, being yoked together for the
work. It is a beautiful thing to be yoked with loving comrades in
service, so that when there is a difficulty to face, some burden to be
carried, or something to be moved, then you can go in for a good pull,
a strong pull, and a pull all together. But this fellowship with Christ
really means having Jesus Christ as a yoke-fellow in your work for God;
that as you are not your own, you are not left to yourselves, but find
that He is yoked up with you, and when the pull comes it is pulling
together--He pulls and you pull.
4. Then this service sometimes goes so far as to become _the fellowship
of suffering_. Jesus Christ could only redeem men by the sacrifice of
Himself. There was no other way, and if He had not done that man would
not have been redeemed, and the whole world would have remained under
the ban of condemnation and without hope. It is on the same track that
we must work out our union with Him in the service of God and humanity.
When I was meditating on this Divine union a picture imaged itself
before my mind. The scene was a prison in Rome, where was
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