"I want--and this sums up my prayer-- To glorify Thee till I die, Then calmly to yield up my soul to Thy care, And breathe out, in faith, my last sigh." CHARLOTTE ELLIOTT. CHAPTER IX CHRISTIAN STANDING AND CHRISTIAN PROGRESS PHILIPPIANS iii. 12-16 Christian exultation--Christian confidence--"Not in the flesh"--"In Jesus Christ"--The prize in view--No finality in the progress--"Not already perfect"--The recompense of reward--What the prize will be In a certain sense we have completed our study of the first section of the third chapter of the Epistle. But the treatment has been so extremely imperfect, in view of the importance of that section, that a few further remarks must be made. Let us ponder one weighty verse, left almost unnoticed when we touched it. Observe then the brief, pregnant _account of the true Christian_, given in ver. 3: "We are the circumcision, we who by God's Spirit worship, and who exult in Christ Jesus, and who, not in the flesh, are confident." This is a far-reaching description of the true member of the true Israel, the man of the Covenant of grace. Note first its positive lines. "_We worship_," "_we exult_," "_we are confident_." Every affirmation is full of divine principles of truth. "_We worship_"; ours is a hallowed, dedicated, and reverent life. It is spent in a sanctuary. Whatever we have to be, or to do, as to externals; whether to rule a province, a church, a school, a home; whether to keep accounts, or sweep a room; whether to evangelize the slums of a city, or the dark places of heathenism, or to teach language, or science, or music; whether to be active all day long, or to lie down alone to suffer; whatever be our actual place and duty in the world, "_we worship_." "We have set the Lord always before us." We have "sanctified Christ as LORD in our hearts" (1 Pet. iii. 15; so read). We belong to Him everywhere, and we recollect it. We owe adoring reverence to Him everywhere, and we recollect it. Let us reiterate the fact; ours is a hallowed life, for it belongs to a divine Master; it is a reverent life, for that Master in His greatness is to us an abiding Presence. The fact of Him, the thought of Him, has expelled from our lives the secular air and the light and flippant spirit. We are nothing if not _worshippers_.