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I. CHRISTIANS ARE CITIZENS OF HEAVEN.

1. By birth. Thus was Paul a Roman citizen. We may well claim for our country the place from which we derived our life.

2. By enrollment. All who are born from above are registered from above. Their names are "written in the Lamb's book of life." No objection urged against the entry shall be deemed valid.

3. By affinity. As strangers yearn for the home of their birth, so we have instincts and desires which point to a heavenly origin. Thus streams flow towards the ocean, and flames ascend to the sun.

4. Our education is a further evidence. A child's future may be inferred from the instruction which fits him for it. Travellers preparing for a foreign residence learn the language. So Christians are educated for heaven. This is the object of afflictions. Earthly trial is heavenly discipline, and works out for us "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

5. The exercise of our Christian graces indicates where our country is.

(1) Faith is the substance of the heaven hoped for, the evidence of the glory unseen.

(2) Hope's object and realization is heaven.

(3) Charity, while finding scope for exercise here, has for her true home, and her full and everlasting development, the New Jerusalem.

6. Our citizenship is in heaven because our Father's home is there. Where He dwells we cannot be strangers. "Our Father which art in heaven."

7. This, too, is the residence of the King, and therefore the city of His friends and subjects.

8. There our friends are gathering.

9. Heaven is our home, and we are expected there.

II. Heaven being our city, OUR LIFE SHOULD BE HEAVENLY. Admiring the beauties with which the Creator has decked the earth; thankfully enjoying the gifts of His providence; humanly feeling for our own and others' sorrows; diligently performing our duties, etc., let us bear about us the inspiring assurance that our conversation is in heaven.

1. Let us not, in the pursuit of any earthly object, be so eager as to absorb our thoughts. Let us not be elated by prosperity, nor depressed by adversity.

2. Let us prize our vocation above all our other possessions and privileges. Are men zealous in attaining earthly distinctions? Let us "give all diligence to make our calling and election sure." The holy alone are enrolled as citizens of heaven.

3. The honour and interests of our country are committed to us. As an Englishman abroad ought to feel that the honour of his country is compromised by his conduct, and that he must act as a representative of his nation; so let us while strangers and sojourners remember that we are representatives of heaven.

4. As a loyal citizen desires to promote the prosperity of his country so should we try to promote the best interests of the Church.

(J. Vaughan, M. A.)

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KJV: For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

WEB: For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;