Brethren, we have to take His yoke upon us by the act of faith which leads to a love that issues in an obedience which will become more and more complete, as we become more fully Christ’s.  Then death will be ours, for then we shall count that the highest good for us will be fuller union with, a fuller possession of, and a completer conformity to, Jesus Christ our King, and that whatever brings us these, even though it brings also pain and sorrow and much from which we shrink, is all on our side.  It is possible—­may it be so with each of us!—­that for us Death may be, not an enemy that bans us into darkness and inactivity, or hales us to a judgment-seat, but the Angel who wakes us, at whose touch the chains fall off, and who leads us through ‘the iron gate that opens of its own accord,’ and brings us into the City.

SERVANTS AND LORDS

’All things are yours; 22.  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; 23.  And ye are Christ’s.’—­1 COR. iii. 21-23.

The Corinthian Christians seem to have carried into the Church some of the worst vices of Greek—­and English—­political life.  They were split up into wrangling factions, each swearing by the name of some person.  Paul was the battle-cry of one set; Apollos of another.  Paul and Apollos were very good friends, their admirers bitter foes—­according to a very common experience.  The springs lie close together up in the hills, the rivers may be parted by half a continent.

These feuds were all the more detestable to the Apostle because his name was dragged into them; and so he sets himself, in the first part of this letter, with all his might, to shame and to argue the Corinthian Christians out of their wrangling.  This great text is one of the considerations which he adduces with that purpose.  In effect he says, ’To pin your faith to any one teacher is a wilful narrowing of the sources of your blessing and your wisdom.  You say you are Paul’s men.  Has Apollos got nothing that he could teach you? and may you not get any good out of brave brother Cephas?  Take them all; they were all meant for your good.  Let no man glory in individuals.’

That is all that his argument required him to say.  But in his impetuous way he goes on into regions far beyond.  His thought, like some swiftly revolving wheel, catches fire of its own rapid motion; and he blazes up into this triumphant enumeration of all the things that serve the soul which serves Jesus Christ.  ’You are lords of men, of the world of time, of death, of eternity; but you are not lords of yourselves.  You belong to Jesus, and in the measure in which you belong to Him do all things belong to you.’

I. I think, then, that I shall best bring out the fulness of these words by simply following them as they lie before us, and asking you to consider, first, how Christ’s servants are men’s lords.