I SHALL begin at the end of my text, because I find it to be the easiest way of mapping out my discourse. We shall first remark that _the church is God's farm_: "Ye are God's husbandry." In the margin of the revised version we read, "Ye are God's tilled ground," and that is the very expression for me. "Ye are God's tilled ground," or farm. After we have spoken of the farm we will next say a little upon the fact that _the Lord employs laborers_ on his estate: and when we have looked at the laborers--such poor fellows as they are--we will remember that _God himself is the great worker_: "We are laborers together with God." I. We begin by considering that THE CHURCH IS GOD'S FARM. The Lord has made the church his own by his sovereign _choice_. He has also secured it unto himself by _purchase_, having paid for it a price immense. "The Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance." Every acre of God's farm cost the Saviour a bloody sweat, yea, the blood of his heart. He loved us, and gave himself for us: that is the price he paid. Henceforth the church is God's freehold, and he holds the title deeds of it. It is our joy to feel that we are not our own, we are bought with a price. The church is God's farm by choice and purchase. And now he has made it his by _enclosure_. It lay exposed aforetime as part of an open common, bare and barren, covered with thorns and thistles, and the haunt of every wild beast; for we were "by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Divine foreknowledge surveyed the waste, and electing love marked out its portion with a full line of grace, and thus set us apart to be the Lord's own estate forever. In due time effectual grace came forth with power, and separated us from the rest of mankind, as fields are hedged and ditched to part them from the open heath. Hath not the Lord declared that he hath chosen his vineyard and fenced it? "We are a garden wall'd around, Chosen and made peculiar ground; A little spot, enclosed by grace Out of the world's wide wilderness." The Lord has also made this farm evidently his own by _cultivation_. What more could he have done for his farm? He has totally changed the nature of the soil: from being barren he hath made it a fruitful land. He hath ploughed it, and digged it, and fattened it, and watered it, and planted it with all manner of flowers and fruits. It hath already brought forth to him many a pleasant cluster, and there are brighter times to come, when angels shall shout the harvest home, and Christ "shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied."