Jesus got this divine life by depending absolutely upon the Father all His life long, depending upon Him even down into death.  Jesus got that life in the full glory of the Spirit to be poured out, by giving Himself up in obedience and surrender to God alone, and leaving God even in the grave to work out His mighty power; and that very Christ will live out His life in you and me.  Oh, the mystery!  Oh, the glory!  And oh, the Divine certainty.  Jesus Christ means to live out that life in you and me.  What think you, ought we not to humble ourselves before God?  Have we been Christians so many years, and realized so little what we are?  I am a vessel set apart, cleansed, emptied, consecrated; just standing, waiting every moment for God, in Christ, by the Holy Spirit, to work out in me as much of the holiness and the life of His Son as pleases Him.  And until the Church of Christ comes to go down into the grave of humiliation, and confession, and shame; until the Church of Christ comes to lay itself in the very dust before God, and to wait upon God to do something new, and something wonderful, something supernatural, in lifting it up, it will remain feeble in all its efforts to overcome the world.  Within the Church what lukewarmness, what worldliness, what disobedience, what sin!  How can we ever fight this battle, or meet these difficulties?  The answer is:  Christ, the risen One, the crowned One, the almighty One, must come, and live in the individual members.  But we can not expect this except as we die with Him.  I referred to the tree grown so high and beautiful, with its roots every day for a hundred years in the grave in which the acorn died.  Children of God, we must go down deeper into the grave of Jesus.  We must cultivate the sense of impotence, and dependence, and nothingness, until our souls walk before God every day in a deep and holy trembling.  God keep us from being anything.  God teach us to wait on Him, that He may work in us all He wrought in His Son, till Christ Jesus may live out His life in us!  For this may God help us!

CHRIST’S HUMILITY OUR SALVATION.

VII.

Philippians 2:  5-8.—­“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.  He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

All are familiar with this wonderful passage.  Paul is speaking about one of the most simple, practical things in daily life,—­humility; and in connection with that, he gives us a wonderful exhibition of divine truth.  In this chapter we have the eternal Godhead of Jesus—­He was in the form of God, and one with God.  We have His incarnation—­He came down, and was found in the likeness of man.  We have his death with the atonement—­He became obedient unto death.  We have His exaltation—­God hath highly exalted Him.  We have the glory of His Kingdom,—­that every knee shall bow,