Shall in life, through Jesus, reign.

Pause, my soul! adore, and wonder!

Ask, ‘O why such love to me?’

Grace hath put me in the number

Of the Saviour’s family:

Hallelujah!

Thanks, eternal thanks, to thee!”

To what end, or for what purpose did God call you? He called you, as we had it this morning, that you might receive Christ and walk in him, or, as the text has it, that you might have fellowship with Christ. Now the word “fellowship,” [koinonia] is not properly to be interpreted here as a society, but as the result of society; that is to say, fellowship lies in mutual and identical interests. A man and his wife have fellowship with each other, in that which is common to both and enjoyed in communion accordingly. All their possessions are joint possessions; they are kinn’d together in love; and, if the wife hath anything, it is the husband’s, and the husband, in his love, thinketh all that he hath to be his wife’s. Now, when we were called to Christ, we were called to have fellowship with him of this peculiar kind, that we became relatively and absolutely identical with Christ. We were made one with him, so that everything Christ had became ours. This was the act of faith, to let us take hold of what Christ had; and this is the result of faith, to give us Christ and to give us to Christ, so that we are in kinship together and make one person, Christ the head and we the members. Now we have a unity to Christ, a fellowship to Christ, first in his loves. What Christ loves we love. He loves the saints-so do we. He loves sinners-so do we. He loves the world and pants to see it transformed into the garden of the Lord-so do we. Whatever Christ loves, our heart loves, for our heart and Christ’s heart are welded together, put into the same furnace and then made into one, so that what he loves we love, and what he hates and detests and abhors, we also deprecate and loathe. Then we are one with Christ in his desires. Doth Christ desire anything?-so do we. He desires to see multitudes saved-so do we. He desires the glory of God-we also labour for the same. He desires that the saints may be with him where he is-we desire to be with him there too. He desires to drive out sin-behold we fight under his banner. He desires that his Father’s name may be loved and adored by all his creatures-we pray daily, “Let thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven.” We are called then to a fellowship with Christ in having the same loves and the same desires; so too in our measure we have the same sufferings. We are not nailed to the cross, nor do we die a bloody death; yet many of our compeers that have gone before have done so, and if it ever came to that, there are millions of as true hearts as ever became sacrifices to God still in England. But when he is reproached, we are reproached, and we have learned to bear his reproach too; and a very sweet thing it is to be blamed for Christ’s sake, to be despised for following the Master, to have the wits of the world against us-’tis well, ’tis well. It was so with him. The servant would not be above his master, nor the disciple above his Lord. Some few drops of his cup we drink, and they are but few; and yet it has been given to some more than to others to “fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ for his body’s sake, which is the Church. And, beloved, we have also fellowship with Christ in his joys as well as in his trials. Is he happy; we are happy to think Christ is happy. I do not know whether you have ever drank that joy, believer, but I have found it a very sweet joy to be joyful because Christ is joyful. You may have known some friend, perhaps, who had another dear friend, and he saw that friend prospering in the world; he did not get on himself as he could wish, he was sickly, he was often low in spirit; somehow, as often as ever he saw his friend, marked his prosperity, saw his happy wife and smiling children, he said, “It always makes me happy to think how you prosper.” There was true friendship here. Now between Christ and his people there is such love, that if Christ is crowned, never mind where I am, if God also hath highly exalted him, what matters it, what matters it, even though he crush me in the very dust? I think a man must undergo some overwhelming trouble before he can lay hold on this as a comfort; but if he can once get it, from my own experience I bear witness, there is no sweeter, more thrilling delight to be known this side of heaven than that of having Christ’s joy fulfilled in us that our joy may be full. Oh! see him rise! see him crowned! hear the songs of angels! mark the terror of devils! know that his name is high over all in heaven and earth and sky, and you will feel, “Well, well, all these things that I have to suffer are just nothing. It does not signify; it is all well, Christ is exalted and I am perfectly content.” This is to have fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Nor does the fellowship end here; nor is it possible to-night to go through the whole of it, for our fellowship with Christ leads us to be partakers of all his riches. Whatever Christ has, belongs to us. If he has riches in pardoning, supporting, instructing, illuminating, sanctifying, preserving, or perfecting Christians, they are all ours. Is his blood precious? It is mine. Is his righteousness complete? It is mine. Are his merits sweet? They are mine. Has he power in intercession? It is mine. Has he wisdom, righteousnes-has he anything? It is mine. The father hath called us to have fellowship with Christ, and to be partakers in all he has. So is it with all his glory. There is not a crown he wears but we have part of it; nay, there is not a gem that sparkles in a crown he wears but it sparkles for us as well as for him. For us the golden streets; for us the chariot in which he rides along them; for us the crowding angels; for us the joyous acclamations; for us those chords of music; for us the shout of “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed the saints unto God by thy blood;” for us the second advent with all its splendours; for us the universal reign of Christ, the gathered sceptres and the congregated crowns; for us the day of judgment, with the reeling columns of the sky, and the rocks dissolved before the heat of the blast of his anger; for us the angels as they gather up the righteous, and even for us the triumph of the Lord, when with shout of archangel he shall destroy his adversaries with the breath of his nostrils for ever. There is nothing to come in scripture, or in all the prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled when Christ shall come; there is nothing anywhere to be revealed concerning Christ, but what is ours, since our fellowship is with him.

And all this, brethren, leads to practical spiritual fellowship with Christ. I do hope you that are in Christ, will strive to-night to realize that you are in him. Come now, I am not trying to preach now, I want to talk this over with you. If thou believest thou art in Christ thou art one with him to-night; say then to thy soul, “Thou art one with Christ even now. In thyself thou art everything that is vile, but in him thou art nothing of the sort. My soul, to-night thou art strong and rich, and blessedly perfect. In him thou art in heaven. In him there is nothing to taunt thee, nothing to accuse thee, much less any thing to condemn thee.” Come, put on thy silver sandals, daughter of Zion; wrap thyself now in thy scarlet and fine linen, which thy Lord hath bought for thee; come thou with him up to the mountain and sit with him awhile,

“Far from this world of grief and sin,”

and let him speak to thee while he tells thee, “Thou art mine and I am thine.” Then will you be able to say, “Truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

Now we conclude by noticing the third point in two or three-words. All this leads us to perceive our security. Saints must be saved-it cannot be otherwise-for two reasons, first, because God has called them. Now the gifts and calling of God are, according to scripture, “without repentance,” that is to say, if he has once called a man, he never sends him back again. What! give me quickening grace and let me die after it! Give me to taste the joys of the Spirit and yet take them away from my lips for ever! Why this were unheard of cruelty. For God to destroy the guilty in hell is just, but, I venture to say, that for God to give spiritual enjoyments, the intense, the unutterably intense delights of spiritual enjoyment, and not intend that the person should always enjoy these, to take them away for ever, would be to put a sting into hell which I cannot conceive of, because he is faithful in all his ways and righteous in all his judgments. Nay, let the sinner bear his guilt, but do not add the unnecessary torment of letting him first of all know the hope of eternal life and then find himself disappointed. Doth God play fast and loose? Doth he give and then take back again? Doth he make us nobles and then degrade us into beggars? Doth he put crowns on our heads and then slay us? Doth he make us his children and then cast us out of the family? God forbid! these were unheard of things for a God to do. God is faithful who has called you. Having called you, he has justified you, having justified you he will glorify you.

Then, again, there is another reason why you are saved. He has called you into fellowship with Christ, and that fellowship, if God be faithful, must be complete. You have shared his sufferings, you have had to bear a part of his reproach; his faithfulness secures the rest. He is “the strength,” yea, the eternity of Israel; “he is not a man that he should repent.” Pronounce his name with reverence: it hath in it more virtue than ten thousand material pledges. He is God: therefore he will maintain the fellowship all the way through. Am I to bear the cross and not to wear the crown? Am I to come as a guilty sinner and have fellowship in his blood and yet not have fellowship in the heaven into which, by that blood, he entered as my representative? Am I to come and trust to Christ and have fellowship in the merit of that dying Saviour and yet have no fellowship in his living power? Am I to-day by faith to be in fellowship with him and never by sight to have the same? Oh this were strange, oh this were two modes of acting, sowing divers seeds, this were having mixed weights in the bag. God acts on one principle, not on two, and where he calls us to be his sons and to be partners with Christ, he will carry out the deed of partnership and we shall see his face and we shall wear his crown and we shall sit upon his throne, and that shall come by-and-bye. Therefore, courage, brothers and sisters, and let us rejoice to-night while we come to the table that we are secure for God has called us-we must be saved for we have fellowship with Christ.

Now I have been preaching only to the people of God, and there is a large number of my hearers that are not of this happy family. I would I were preaching to them also; but the time has fled. Let me say this word of encouragement to them, the grace that called us can call you. You cannot save yourself, but he can save you, and here is a promise which he gives you, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” To call upon that name is to invoke it in prayer; venture upon it in fact, and trust it by faith. If you believe in Christ, you shall be saved. I know not who you may be; to every creature under heaven the same gospel is preached, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou”-I know not to whom that refers just now-“thou”-though thou be the vilest sinner living-“thou shalt be saved.” Trust Christ now and your sins are gone; rest on him and you are snatched from the kingdom of evil and put into the republic of life; you become members of Christ’s body, you are saved-

“Oh, believe the message true,

God to you his Son has given.”

Cast yourself upon him; trust his grace, and heaven is yours for ever. The Lord add his blessing now for Christ’s sake. Amen.