work! work! work!  It is never-ending, and it is a burden!’ Yes, it is a burden, just because it is an honour.  Do you know that the Hebrew word which means ‘glory’ literally means ‘weight’?  There is a great truth in that.  You cannot get true honours unless you are prepared to carry them as burdens.  And the highest honour that Jesus Christ gives to men when He says to them, not only ’Go work to-day in My vineyard,’ but ‘Come, work here side by side with Me,’ is a heavy weight which can only be lightened by a cheerful heart.

Is it not the right way to look at all the various forms of Christian activity which are made imperative upon Christian people, by their possession of Christianity as being tokens of Christ’s love to us?  Do you remember that this same Apostle said, ’Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach the unsearchable riches of Christ?’ He could speak about burdens and heavy tasks, and being ‘persecuted but not forsaken,’ almost crushed down and yet not in despair, and about the weights that came upon him daily, ‘the care of all the churches,’ but far beneath all the sense of his heavy load lay the thrill of thankful wonder that to him, of all men in the world, knowing as he did better than anybody else could do his own imperfection and insufficiency, this distinguishing honour had been bestowed, that he was made the Apostle to the Gentiles.  That is the way in which the true man will always look at what the selfish man, and the half-and-half Christian, look at as being a weight and a weariness, or a disagreeable duty, which is to be done as perfunctorily as possible.  One question that a great many who call themselves Christians ask is, ’With how little service can I pass muster?’ Ah, it is because we have so little of the Spirit of Christ in us that we feel burdened by His command, ’Go ye into all the world,’ as being so heavy; and that so many of us—­I leave you to judge if you are in the class—­so many of us make it criminally light if we do not ignore it altogether.  I believe that, if it were possible to conceive of the duty and privilege of spreading Christ’s name in the world being withdrawn from the Church, all His real servants would soon be yearning to have it back again.  It is a token of His love; it is a source of infinite blessings to ourselves; ’if the house be not worthy, your peace shall return to you again.’

And now, lastly, we have suggested by this text

III.  A strong encouragement.

’Fellow-labourers with God’—­then, God is a Fellow-labourer with us.  The co-operation works both ways, and no man who is seeking to spread that great salvation, to distribute that great wealth, to irrigate some little corner of the field by some little channel that he has dug, needs to feel that he is labouring alone.  If I am working with God, God is working with me.  Do you remember that most striking picture which is drawn in the verses appended