They who feel most their
connection with the city which hath foundations should be best able to
wring the last drop of pure sweetness out of all earthly joys, to
understand the meaning of all events, and to be interested most keenly,
because most intelligently and most nobly, in the homeliest and
smallest of the tasks and concerns of the present.

So, in all things, act as citizens of the great Mother of heroes and
saints beyond the sea. Ever feel that you belong to another order, and
let the thought, 'Here we have no continuing city,' be to you not merely
the bitter lesson taught by the transiency of earthly joys and treasures
and loves, but the happy result of 'seeking for the city which hath the
foundations.'

II. Another exhortation which our text gives is, Live by the laws of the
city.

The Philippian colonists were governed by the code of Rome. Whatever
might be the law of the province of Macedonia, they owed no obedience to
it. So Christian men are not to be governed by the maxims and rules of
conduct which prevail in the province, but to be governed from the
capital. We ought to get from on-lookers the same character that was
given to the Jews, that we are 'a people whose laws are different from
all people that be on earth,' and we ought to reckon such a character
our highest praise. Paul would have these Philippian Christians act
'worthy of _the gospel_.' That is our law.

The great good news of God manifest in the flesh, and of our salvation
through Christ Jesus, is not merely to be believed, but to be obeyed.
The gospel is not merely a message of deliverance, it is also a rule of
conduct. It is not merely theology, it is also ethics. Like some of the
ancient municipal charters, the grant of privileges and proclamation of
freedom is also the sovereign code which imposes duties and shapes life.
A gospel of laziness and mere exemption from hell was not Paul's gospel.
A gospel of doctrines, to be investigated, spun into a system of
theology, and accepted by the understanding, and there an end, was not
Paul's gospel. He believed that the great facts which he proclaimed
concerning the self-revelation of God in Christ would unfold into a
sovereign law of life for every true believer, and so his one
all-sufficient precept and standard of conduct are in these simple
words, 'worthy of the gospel.'

That law is all-sufficient. In the truths which constituted Paul's
gospel, that is to say, in the truths of the life