“Partnership in the gospel.”
In his book the power of loving your church David L Hanson writes about what he calls the ball cap crisis that erupted in his church when several teenagers began wearing baseball caps in the worship services now not wanting to be viewed as a close-minded or narrow-minded traditionalists Hanson initially permitted the boys to wear their ball caps in church this made him a hero to some particularly the boys and their families but as you can imagine there were others in the church who were offended and outraged by the decision.
Hanson later reversed his decision and required the boys to remove their caps in the worship and their families eventually left the church Hanson wrote that he did not change his mind because of any external pressure even though the matter continued to be a source of tension in the life of the congregation. He said this issue caused him to meditate on the life and mission and function of the church in ways that he had not done in years and he claims that the decisive factor that changed his mind is when he asked himself this question do I pastor a church or just a collection of individuals.
How would you answer that question do you view the church as just a collection of individuals. Unfortunately, there are many people that view the church that way. When I was a boy the church that I attended with my parents they would often sing a song, I don’t remember its name but it described the church as pilgrims traveling together through a foreign land on their way home.
Now it seems like the church is more prone to view itself as tourists who just happen to be on the same bus with different even competing interests’ priorities and agendas as a result various worldly philosophies like individualism, relativism, subjectivism, pragmatism, and human made traditions now dominate church life.
And sometimes as a pastor I feel like I can almost see the attitudes and viewpoints of some who sit in worship services like this with a disposition that seems to announce that if this church doesn’t adhere to my idea of church, if it doesn’t meet my needs, suit my taste, or keep my interest I’ll just find another church.
See this “me” first mind set it’s even affecting how the church reaches out to the lost as there are many pastors and churches these days that seem to be willing to do virtually anything just to draw a crowd. Leaning over to reach the world the church has fallen in.
And we are rapidly losing our influence in the culture because in too many instances these days the church is only offering people what the world offers, our offer is just dressed up in religious terminology. And I am not talking about buildings, or dress codes, events, functions, or even what a service looks like. I am talking about the heart of you and me, I am talking about the fruit of the Holy Spirit and the Truth of the Gospel.
How desperately then does the church need to go back to the core of our faith and ask and answer this fundamental question what is the church? What is the church?
Is it merely a collection of individuals?
Or is the church as Paul describes it here in Philippians chapter 1 verse 5… is it partnership in the gospel?
Different translations use different words – fellowship in the gospel or participation in the gospel. But note the common phrase “the gospel.”
All of the chief priorities of the church from exalting the glory of God to spreading the gospel to the nation’s to nurturing disciples to maturity would all happen organically if and when the church puts Jesus and the gospel first, allowing our lives to be shaped by the gospel.
The Church is Partnership in the Gospel
The Church is Partnership in the Gospel.
This is the message of Philippians chapter one verses three through eleven in this text
we find Paul’s Thanksgiving to God for the church at Philippi but as you read the text as we study the text this morning, I hope you will see that what we find here is more than just a close connection of human friendship between Paul and the Philippians. Instead, they were bound together in gospel partnership.
Paul’s words here by the power of the Holy Spirit teach us the dynamics of Gospel Partnership. Dynamics that should bind us together as Christians in the church, bind us together like 2 pieces of metal welded together.
Look at verses 3 to 5, the affirmation of gospel partnership, verses 3 to 5.
See it begins verse 3 with an affirmation with thanksgiving. Verse 3 “3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you…”
One of the worst things for a person who has been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone to be is ungrateful.
It is a weird irony, a great contradiction and in fact calls a person’s salvation into question, because Christians by definition are grateful people.
Christians by definition are grateful people.
Church, do you catch what is going on here?
Do you remember the first week of Philippians?
What was Paul doing, he was setting up the themes for the rest of the letter.
And what were those themes?
- Being bond-servant for Christ, being captivated for Christ.
- And Joy in Christ.
So, what is Paul doing here? Hmm?
He is expanding both of these themes. Remember he held himself up as the example of the bond-servant, of being captivated for Christ. And here he continues his example of how to live captivated by Christ. By demonstrating joy in his thankfulness for the partnership in the Gospel… to who, who was his thankfulness too?
God…
And why?
Verse 5 “5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”
So, Paul is demonstrating in word and deed that a believer, that a Christian, a Bond-servant of Christ, the Church is to be joyous, thankful and partner with others in the work of the Gospel.
So let me ask you. Are you thankful today,
If so for what?
For God?
For the people he has placed in your life to partner in the gospel with?
What relationships has God brought into your life that you can truly give Him praise for?
On this list of God-given relationships for which you can give God thanks, would you include the church? Can you say of the church what Paul says in verse 3 “3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you…”
See Paul said “I don’t care when it is, where I am, or what I’m doing, just the thought of you as the church that God has connected me to causes me to give God praise.
What about you? Can someone say they give thanks to God for their relationship with you? Can the church say as Paul did that, they are thankful for your partnership?
Your answer sadly to that question might be, No.
How could I partner with people in the church, how could I work to promote the Gospel. The people of the church that I know, don’t know their bible well enough, or that person uses foul language, talks about me behind my back, is a liar, cheater, thief, or maybe you think I cannot partner with anyone I don’t have anything to give, I am not good enough.
But listen church. The church in Philippi was not perfect, the people Paul wrote to had weaknesses and problems just as we do.
The church in Philippi had struggles with fear and division and persecution. In chapter 4 verses 2-3 Paul calls 2 sisters out by name and asks the rest of the congregation to help them work out their differences. Yet somehow Paul was able to look beyond bad memories, unresolved issues and difficult personalities and say that every time he thinks about the church God connected him to, it makes him thank God.
He thanks God, not because everything in the church is the way it should be. But I thank God…
If I can get ahead of myself, in verse 6, God has begun a good work in the church and because God will complete what he has started.
You do know that the church is still under construction, and that we are all co-labourers in it.
So, there are things in the church that shouldn’t be there but if in the midst of the mess you can see the hand of God at work, you should thank God for the church.
Thank God for the church.
Remember the church is the Bride of Christ, and if that is the case Jesus has an ugly wife.
But Jesus says “She won’t look like that on the wedding day, because I’m going to wash and clean her so that she’ll be a bride without spot or blemish.” You see church we need to love the church and be thankful to God for her, she is Jesus’ bride.
Hopefully by now most of you know my wife Angela, and if anyone was to say to me “Lindsay, I like you but I cannot stand your wife…” the first thing I would think is “have you meet me? Have you meet my wife?”
But the second thing I would think is, you cannot like me, love me, partner with me and not do the same with my wife. And it is the same with Jesus…
Church you cannot love Jesus and not love the church, you cannot be a believer and not partner with His bride in the work of the gospel.
Church make gospel partners.
So we are to be thankful to God for Gospel partners, for the church.
But, verse 4, Paul also says that his thanks floods into his prayers.
“always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy”
What Paul is saying here is everyday when I pray, I never forget to pray for you with joy.
There is affirmation with Thanksgiving, there is affirmation in prayer and in verse 5 there is affirmation for gospel partnership. Paul says, let me give you the reason for my continual thanksgiving verse 3, and the reason for my prayer verse 4.
Verse 5 it is “5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”
Note that the word used for partnership in the Greek is “Koinonia” which is commonly translated as fellowship.
Fellowship.
Unfortunately, the word fellowship has lost some of its meaning. We have misused the term to describe any time when we get together at the same place doing the same thing having a good time together. But that is not the partnership that Paul is talking about here, that is not the fellowship that Paul is talking about.
We know this from the context and background of this letter. Paul wrote this letter from prison in Rome. The church was suffering in Philippi about 1,300 km away and there was no way of knowing if they would see each other again. Yet Paul says we have Koinonia we have partnership, we have fellowship, we are bound together.
Which says to us that real Christian partnership, real fellowship is not about being in the same place at the same time doing the same thing.
No, there is a bond in Christ that ought to draw us together that time, space, and circumstances cannot separate.
What is it then that should bind us together?
How do we experience this Koinonia?
It is working partnership; it is sacrificially working together for the fulfilment of a common vision.
And what is this vision this truth that binds us together, you ask?
Look at Verse 5
It is Partnership, Fellowship, Participation in the Gospel.
Paul says the way we are to live as bond-servants for Christ, what will bind us together as a church, is something bigger than pastoral vision, church tradition, congregational culture, worship modes and styles, programs, geographical locations, and physical structures.
It is something deeper, greater, and higher that will bind us together.
What is it?
Listen, the Gospel. The Gospel.
The word Gospel, means Good News. But we cannot understand the good news until we first accept the bad news.
We know what the bad news is, we don’t always want to hear, we sometimes struggle to accept it. That is why it is bad news. But the bad news is:
That God is holy and we are not and we will have to answer to God for how we have lived our lives and Romans 3:23 tells us that no one is good enough, not one.
We need to accept that there is nothing we can do to make ourselves right with God, that’s the bad news.
But this is where the good news comes in. God so loved the world that He sent His perfect Son Jesus to Earth. To live the life, we should have and to die the death we deserved. And if we run to the cross, put your faith in Christ you will receive forgiveness, become a bond-servant of the Lord and gain eternal life.
Are you getting this church?
Not the preacher, the gospel.
This is what binds the church together, are you hearing this?
Not the choir, the gospel.
Listen to me. Not the food or the social time, the gospel.
Not the culture, the style, not the building but the Gospel of Jesus.
The Gospel binds together the rich and the poor, the gospel binds together the European, and the Asian, and the African. The Gospel binds together the single in marriage, the young and the old, the gospel binds us together. It doesn’t matter how much money you make, what colour your skin is, where you went to school.
Paul says this is what binds us together partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
This is what pleases the Lord, partnership in the gospel.
You do know God is not impressed with preachers and choirs and crowds and money and buildings and prominence and reputation.
What God is looking for is a church that is working together so that every lost man woman boy and girl can hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and be saved.
And this is it church, this is how we live as a bond-servant to Christ, a life of joy. We do it in partnership with one another in the Gospel for Jesus’ sake, for what he has done for us. We do this out of thanksgiving, out of joy, out of delight. We do it because when we are saved, when the gospel has truly penetrated our hearts, we are left with no other option.
So, church today. I ask you one last time. Who are you partnered with, who is partnering with you for the sake of the Gospel?