Citizenship in heaven is the central theme, drawing a parallel between Roman colonial citizenship and the believer's heavenly citizenship. The sermon explains that just as Roman colonies mirrored Rome, local churches and individual believers should reflect heavenly principles. This heavenly citizenship is attained through the new birth and is characterized by a life lived according to God's will, not earthly concerns. Ultimately, believers are called to live as ambassadors for Christ, representing heaven in a foreign land, with the assurance of a future glorious body and eternal home.
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Turn with me to the Book of Philippians. As far as I can tell now, in my part of the conference, I would like to take up some of the figures that are used in the New Testament that explain to us what the local church is like, the local company of believers. If I use the word church or assembly interchangeably, I do it purposely. I don't think that we ought to use the word church when we're speaking only of the body of Christ and then assembly when we're speaking of the local company because it's the same word.
And whatever word we use, we want to understand that it is a company of the Lord's people called out and which is a part of the sum total of the church. Now the church which is his body is composed of all believers, I believe, from the day of Pentecost on down to the return of Christ. I don't believe the church occurs in the Old Testament. I don't think there's any teaching about the church in the Old Testament. In fact, I think it was a mystery hidden in the Old Testament. We have to turn to the New Testament to find out about the church.
According to the sixteenth of Matthew, the Lord Jesus said, It was a future thing at that time. He said, Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I believe that this is what the Lord is doing today. I wouldn't say that what the Lord's people are doing. I think we're doing a lot of things for which we have no sanction, no instructions, and no promises. I remember a dear man, I got acquainted with him some years ago, and he decided that the Lord's Day had been dishonored, and it has been.
So he formed an organization, and he was the founder and first and only president of it. It died when he died. The poor fellow was so set on... promoting the Lord's Day, that he formed what he called the Lord's Day Alliance, incorporated. And he wanted all of the Lord's people to try to get laws enacted that nothing could be done on the Lord's Day that wasn't compatible with the Lord's Day as a Christian observes it. And I saw him just about two months before his death.
And he had then been working at it for twenty-five years. And he was terribly discouraged. And I said to him, well, what are you really trying to accomplish? Well, he said, I want laws passed so that no business can be done, no stores can be kept open. Nothing can be done except Christian things on the Lord's day. Well, I said, how would unsaved people do Christian things? Well, he said, if they get and have it, maybe they'll like it. strange ideas that he had. And the whole thing was just in order to form rules and regulations and pass laws and get things to be done to consecrate the Lord's day.
After he had told me about all this, I said, well, how are you coming along? He said, not very well. I said, well, do you think maybe you might have missed the boat? Do you think you might have... Oh, no, he said, I think it's been well worth my while. Well, I said, what have you really accomplished? Well, he said, not much of anything. Strange that we sometimes think that things are well done when nothing is done. Now, what do you believe the Lord is doing? What do you believe the Lord is doing here in this world, at this time? I believe that he is building a church. And I believe that all of us who are believers are part of that church.
And I believe that any group of Christians in any given area ought to set forth by their living examples. They ought to set forth just exactly that for which the Lord intends the whole church. I think that each individual company of believers. Each local church should be an expression of the church, which is his body. I think if it's anything less than that, it's failed. And of course we have to acknowledge the failure. I think if it's anything more than that, it's superfluous. We need to learn just exactly what the Lord is doing.
Now with that big front porch, let's get to the house. Chapter three of Philippians, verse seventeen, brethren. He said that in verse thirteen, brethren. And he said it several other times, too, in this little book. We are brothers in the Lord. Perhaps we shall take that up another time. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as you have us, for an example, or an example. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.
For our conversation is in heaven. Now, you know, of course, that the word conversation means a great deal more than just talk. Talk is cheap, my father-in-law used to say, and I won't tell you the rest of them. Talk is cheap. It isn't simply that we're to talk. The Lord wants us to behave ourselves. He wants us to live in a certain way. I'm not a Greek scholar, but I've been told that this word is one from which we get our word politics, has the inference of citizenship. And we could really say our whole association, our whole manner of living, our whole aim in life, ought to be anyway, at least, in heaven itself.
Our conversation is in heaven. From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. who shall change our vile body. I know people object to that. They say, well, it's our body of humiliation, but if you don't think your body is vile, you go without a bath for two weeks in August. We need to get accustomed to the things that the Lord says about us, and we don't smell too sweet, either physically or spiritually. The Lord wants us to know that there are a great many changes that need to take place, and brother and sister, we badly need a change.
We need a new body. I need a new body. I'm very aware of that. In the last few years, I've been much more aware of it than at any other time in my life. We need a new body. You need a new body. He shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, or body of glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself." Now, they tell me that in the first century there was a Roman custom And this probably is brought out in the twenty second of Acts as clearly as anywhere else.
You might turn with me and read that portion, twenty second of Acts. There was a custom among the Roman peoples and Rome governed the world pretty well at that time. Even Palestine was an occupied country. It was said that there was a custom at that time that any city which met qualifications could be a Roman colony, and that citizenship in that particular country or city would also be tantamount to citizenship in the Roman Empire.
That a person might be a citizen of, say, Philippi, and Philippi was such a city, could be a citizen of that place, never been in Rome at all, never even visited Rome, knew very little about Rome, and yet he would be a citizen of Rome. Each individual colony would be a little colony of Rome itself. Now, we don't want to represent Rome, but we do want to represent heaven, and that's the very simple lesson that I want to try to teach you this afternoon. How can you and I be a part of a little colony of heaven?
Acts chapter twenty-two, and they arrested Paul. We won't read about that. They cried out in verse twenty-three, cast off their clothes, threw dust into the air. The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bad that he should be examined by scourging. He might know wherefore they cried so against him. And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondained? When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest, for this man is a Roman.
Now Paul had never even been to Rome. He got to Rome later. He'd never been to Rome, but he was a Roman. Then the chief captain came and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yeah. And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was freeborn. Then straightway they departed from him that should have examined him. And the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him. On the morrow, because he would have known the certainty, wherefore he was accused of the Jews, he loosed him from his bands, and commanded the chief priest, and all their counsel to appear and brought Paul down and set him before them.
Roman citizenship had great value. I hope that you and I appreciate American citizenship. I'm not much of a flag waver, but I do appreciate American citizenship. I appreciate being permitted to live in a country where we have the... the measure of liberty that we have. And I pray God daily, and especially in the election year, I think we ought to pray earnestly that God would lead the right man to get into the right offices, not necessarily the best man. The right man isn't always the best man.
God had some plans to work out in the Old Testament under Pharaoh, under Nebuchadnezzar, under different ones. God has different ways of working with the people today. But I think we ought to pray very earnestly that we will use our American citizenship, that we will use the liberties that are given to us. We don't always use them. We have a great many benefits that we don't take advantage of at all. Roman citizenship was greatly valued. It was obtained either by birth, as the case of the Apostle Paul, which meant no doubt that his father had done something for the Roman government, and he was given citizenship, and then his children automatically became citizens when they were born.
They were citizens of Rome without ever being there. Or it could be obtained, as this man had obtained it, at a great price. He had paid for citizenship. It had cost him something to get this citizenship. All of these things I should hope to bring back to your memory and lay a parallel between these two. Spiritually, you and I, as individuals, have citizenship in heaven. Heaven is our homeland.
When I was a boy, I had strange notions about the old country. I grew up in a neighborhood where practically everyone in fellowship in the group where I was, where I was saved, and where my parents went, practically everyone was from the British Isles. And they all talked about the old country. I had... strange ideas about this worn-out place that was called old, and this was now called new. And then I thought, well, isn't it strange that people want to always go back to the old country, and they want to go back and see the old country.
And I didn't realize that what really attached them and attracted them to this place was that they were still citizens of the old country. They still belonged to that country. Most of them were born there, and they felt that this is really home. Where's your home? Well, I feel sorry for you if the only home you have is here on this earth. I really feel sorry for you. It isn't very much, is it? If this is the only home that you have, I feel sorry for you. Well, we do have a better home than this.
We have a home, a homeland, and we attain that by birth, by the new birth. The Lord Jesus said, Except a man be born from above. Born from above. The new birth is not just the new one of the same kind. It's a different kind of a birth. We're born from above. I belong to heaven. I've never been there, but I belong to heaven. I belong to the Lord.
And most of you, under the sound of my voice, this afternoon, belong to the Lord. You're His because you were born into his family. There are many other ways in which we're His. We're His by purchase. We're told in First Corinthians six, you're not your own. You're bought with a price. You really belong to the Lord because he bought you. He paid too much for you, too. I don't mind telling you that. You'll never be able to earn your salt. You'll never be worth your keep. The Lord paid too much for you. But he loved you. He loved me and he wanted us. And he purchased us.
He purchases us with the blood of his own. A marvelous price to pay. I only have two boys of my own. My wife and I raised five hundred others with the help of a good staff at the children's home, but I only have two boys of my own. And I couldn't give either one up for the best man who ever lived. or for all the men who ever lived. I couldn't find it in my heart to give them up, to purchase others, and certainly not my enemies. But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
You will be thanking Him for all eternity for this, brother and sister. He purchased us at such a cost. The Lord Jesus laid down His life for us. We're told not only that He loved the church and gave Himself for us, but the Apostle Paul said in Galatians two twenty, the Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me. So we have been purchased to be members of the citizenship of heaven. When Second Corinthians chapter five, the Lord tells us that we have a ministry now, you might just turn to that, we have a ministry, every Christian participates in this, it is a ministry of reconciliation.
That is, you and I have the responsibility of telling people that the Lord Jesus Christ was a propitiation for our sins. Two things go together. Propitiation is Godward. Reconciliation is manward. They should always be thought of together. Because the Lord Jesus suffered and died in our place, God is propitiated. That doesn't mean that he's appeased. I know the Webster Dictionary says that, and I know that the ancient Greeks thought that their gods had to be appeased. But propitiation is still another thing. proficiation simply means that God is able now to righteously do what He wanted to do all the way along.
He wanted to bring us to Himself. He wanted to bring us into His family. He wanted to make us His own. And the Lord Jesus, by His suffering, has propitiated God. Now, on the basis of that propitiation, God can reach down the human beings and bring this to Himself. in reconciliation. Now, I know that there's a hymn, but it's not scriptural. If anybody gets his theology from hymn books, he's going to be pretty badly fouled up. Most of our hymns are, as the Dutchman said, they just couldn't be wronger.
Most of our hymns are not very good theology at all. And when you read in a hymn, God and sinners reconciled, just mark it off. It isn't so. God is not reconciled to anything or anyone. It doesn't need to be. God is right. We're wrong. We're the ones that need to be reconciled to Him. And that's why he says in Second Corinthians, the fifth chapter, in verse eighteen, all things are of God. who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, or the service of telling others that they can come to God to be reconciled to him, to which that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing the trespasses unto them, and have committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
Now then we are ambassadors for Christ. As so God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sinned for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. We have the ministry of reconciliation. We are ambassadors. I was passing through a town and looked up at a church building. I don't know anything more than this that I'm telling you, but I... I just looked up at the sign as I went around the corner and it said, join the ambassadors for Christ. Now, I don't know what in the world they had in mind, but I can tell you you couldn't do that.
You couldn't join the ambassadors for Christ. We are ambassadors of Christ. Every believer is an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you're not a believer, you couldn't join. There's no such thing as joining ambassadorship. I often thought that it would be rather a nice thing to be appointed by a president to be an ambassador to some country. This is sort of a job for old men that are retired, more or less, and I just don't have any hope for that at all. In fact, the last three presidents that came through Colorado Springs didn't even call me up. I'm sure they're not about to give me any ambassadors yet.
But I often thought it would be a kind of a nice thing, you know, to be a representative of your country. And there are a lot of fringe benefits as well. Well, I have an ambassadorship. So have you, brother and sister. We are ambassadors for Christ. We represent the Lord. We represent Him in the foreign country. The world is a foreign country. Heaven is our home. We are here as strangers and pilgrims. Now, I know we don't act much like it. That's what we are. You know the difference, don't you, between a pilgrim and a tramp.
A pilgrim is going someplace. And you and I are going someplace. We're headed for home. We're on a circuit, but we're headed for home. We're here as ambassadors for the Lord. One of these days he's going to recall us. It may be that he'll have to recall us because we have been mistreated. Many ambassadors have been recalled for this purpose, for this reason. It may be that he'll have to recall us simply because we've outlived our usefulness. Or maybe, perished the thought, he would have to recall us because we have been unfaithful to him in this present time.
But we are ambassadors for the Lord Jesus, and we have a ministry of reconciliation. Now, let's think a little bit about some of the things that a colony of heaven, or a colony of Rome, for that matter, might want to do. A little colony of Rome would be controlled by the Roman laws, much more than by the local laws. The children's home, with which I have been connected for forty years, has had some real problems because We not only have, we have to be subject to many of the local laws, but we have to be subject to state laws and federal laws.
When we first began the home, forty years ago, we didn't have to give an account to anybody at all. In fact, I went to the local authorities and asked if I couldn't have some kind of a