Partners in the Gospel
Philippians 1:3-8
1 Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, 5 for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; 7 just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace. 8 For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. 9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, 10 that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, 11 being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:1-11)
New Covenant Baptist Church: It is an incredible privilege to be a member of this church that the Lord started over fifty years ago. We could use many words to describe our church. In reading some of the memories and testimonies that you wrote I found repeated words like friendly, Bible teaching, missionary, supportive, loving, joyful, gracious, prayerful, kind, devoted, faithful. Many of you described how you came to Christ through this church and grew in your walk with God through faithful Bible teaching and discipleship.
The word that I would use this morning to describe New Covenant Baptist Church through the years is partnership or fellowship. It is the word that Paul used to describe the Philippian church: “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, 5 for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:3-6). Paul gave thanks to God for their “fellowship in the gospel.” “Fellowship” is a rich word, κοινωνία (koinonia), meaning fellowship, companionship, partnership, participation, community, communion, intimacy.[1] The word originally had commercial overtones. If two men started a business, they were said to be in koinonia—a formal business partnership. They shared a common vision and invested together to see the vision become a reality.
True Christian fellowship is more than just superficial chatting over coffee and donuts. It is more than just sharing a potluck meal together. It means sharing the same vision and then investing personally to make it happen. Thus, there are financial overtones in the word koinonia—as well as a call to personal sacrifice. It means investing your life in the lives of others for a common purpose.
I want to take a few minutes this morning to unpack what true Christian fellowship is from these few opening verses of Paul’s letter to the Philippians.
Let’s get a bit of background in front of us. Acts 16 tells us the exciting story of the beginning of the church at Philippi. The apostle Paul came to this city in Europe in response to a vision of a Macedonian man asking for help (Acts 16:9). There he met Lydia a seller of purple at a riverside prayer meeting. The Lord opened her heart to the things spoken by Paul (Acts 16:14) and she and her household believed and were baptized (Acts 16:15). Later, Paul cast a demon out of a young slave girl and for this act of kindness he and his companion Silas were beaten and locked up in prison.
There Paul and Silas have a midnight prayer and worship service when suddenly an earthquake interrupts the singing, opening all the prison doors and loosing their chains. Paul then leads the frightened jailer to Christ and baptizes him and his family in the middle of the night. Shortly after their release from their wrongful imprisonment, Paul left town and traveled to Berea, Thessalonica, and Athens.
From that inauspicious beginning a great church was born. Since Paul had founded the church, and since he had personally led the charter members to Christ, they naturally looked to him with great reverence and love—and he in turn kept this particular church always in his heart. A bond was formed that would never be broken.
Ten years later Paul found himself in prison in Rome awaiting trial before Caesar. He was under a type of house arrest, evidently chained to a guard at all times. However, he could receive visitors, and could even preach and teach while in prison. When the Philippian church heard about his imprisonment, they sent a much-loved leader from the church named Epaphroditus to Rome with a gift for Paul’s personal needs. While in Rome Epaphroditus became sick and nearly died. When word got back to the Philippians they were naturally very concerned.
Eventually Epaphroditus returned to health and Paul sent him back to Philippi carrying a brief thank-you note to the church. That brief note is the New Testament book of Philippians. This letter is spontaneous, warm and personal. It’s theme is “joy” in the Lord. It is obvious that Paul had a relationship of close fellowship with this church. Even though they were miles apart, Paul’s heart was tied up with these people, and their hearts were with him. There was no natural explanation for this closeness between this Asian Jew who was now in prison in Rome and these European people who themselves were no homogeneous group. What knit them together was true Christian fellowship.
After Paul’s initial greeting in Philippians 1:1-2, the body of his letter begins with gratitude to God: “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy” (Phil. 1:3-4). The reason Paul gives for his gratitude and joy in prayer is “for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:5-6).
Let me share with you five aspects of true Christian fellowship:
1. True Christian fellowship is gospel partnership.
It’s nothing short of miraculous that such diverse people as a Jewish preacher, a wealthy businesswoman from Thyatira, a formerly demon possessed slave girl, and a Roman prison guard would come together in common life together. What could possibly be strong enough and important enough and true enough and permanent enough to hold together in such glorious love and unity people like them, or in the case of the 21st century, people like us?[2]
The answer is right there in Philippians 1:5: their partnership or fellowship or communion was “in the gospel.” Again in Philippians 1:7 Paul says they “all are partakers with me of grace.” The word “partakers” is συγκοινωνός (sygkoinōnos) meaning a co-participant, a joint partner. What grace did they share in? It was, “in the defense and confirmation of the gospel” (Phil. 1:7). In fact, this whole section is focused on the gospel. Paul uses the word “gospel” six times in this one chapter.
The “gospel” is the good news of what God has graciously and lovingly done in and through the incarnation, sinless life, atoning death, and bodily resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ to satisfy His own wrath against sin and to secure our forgiveness and in doing so to reconcile us to Himself forever. The gospel message is not just, “If you’ve got some problems in your life and you’d like to have a better life, trust in Jesus. He will make your life happy.” The true gospel confronts our fundamental problem, namely, our alienation from a holy God due to our sin and rebellion. If we die in this condition, we will be eternally separated from God, under His just wrath in hell. But God, who is rich in mercy, provided His own Son as the substitutionary sacrifice to make atonement for our sin, so that all who trust in Him are saved from God’s judgment and given eternal life.
“That single, glorious, exhilarating, breathtaking truth is what bound Paul and the Philippians together. The gospel is the only thing that accounts for their love one for another and their prayers for each other and their devotion to walk through the hardest of times side by side and their courage to endure persecution and in some cases death itself.”[3] Paul rejoiced over their partnership in the gospel. Their participation in the gospel has at least three dimensions.
First, they shared in the gospel because they were believers. They had been saved by the grace of God in Christ. Their sins were forgiven. They were baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ, His church. Back up in Philippians 1:1 Paul addressed his letter to them “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi.” “In Christ” was the source of their spiritual lives. “In Philippi” was the sphere in which they lived it. “Saints,” God’s holy people, was their new nature.
But more than just being saved by the gospel, the Philippians had partnered with Paul “in the defense and confirmation of the gospel” (Phil. 1:7). A quick look forward into Paul’s letter gives us some insight into how the church at Philippi had partnered with Paul in the work of the gospel. In Philippians 1:19 Paul says that the church at Philippi prayed for him; in Philippians 1:27-30 we see evidence that the church suffered for their faith in Christ; in Philippians 2:15-16 Paul says that they shined the light of Christ in their witness; in Philippians 2:25-30 Paul says that the church sent Epaphroditus to minister to him while he was in prison; and in Philippians 4:10-18 Paul says that the church at Philippi regularly supported him financially in his mission work.
“Though Paul wasn’t able to take the church of Philippi with him on his missionary journeys to serve side by side with him he knew well that this particular church wasn’t just sitting on the sidelines either. They were helping Paul in his ministry by praying for him, by supporting him financially, and by sending some from their congregation to assist Paul in his times of need. They were also serving in partnership with Paul by carrying out ministry efforts in Philippi while Paul was away. The church at Philippi was actively proclaiming the gospel in their community and shining the light of Christ in their community, even to the point of suffering for their faith. It thrilled Paul’s heart to have such faithful and consistent partners in ministry and to know that the work of the gospel was continuing to go on in Philippi even when he was away.”[4]
When Paul thanks God for their “fellowship in the gospel”, he is thanking God that from the very first day of their conversion, they rolled up their sleeves and got involved in the advance of the gospel. True fellowship means putting the gospel first as the controlling motive of your life and then doing whatever it takes to spread the life-changing message to the ends of the earth.
2. True Christian fellowship means praying for each other.
Though Paul was imprisoned far from the Philippians, his chains could not prevent him from remembering them and praying for them. His remembrance of them filled him with thanksgiving and joy, as he thought about how God was truly at work among them. And those thoughts turned into frequent prayers on their behalf. The word “prayer” in Philippians 1:4 means to ask, to petition. Paul interceded for them.
What did he pray for? You can see that in Philippians 1:9-11. He prayed “that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment.” He asked for a growing love based on the truth of God’s word. He also prayed “that you may approve the things that are excellent” (Phil. 1:10). In other words, that their priorities would be right. He prayed, “that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ” (Phil. 1:10). And he prayed that for their “being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:11).
I talked with your former pastor Leon Hataway a couple weeks ago. He was sorry that he could not be with us today. But Leon prays for you every week. He has a specific day and time each week when he remembers New Covenant Baptist Church and prays specific requests for you and me. That is true Christian partnership in the gospel.
3. True Christian fellowship means serving God together.
We’ve already seen how, from day one, the Philippians joined Paul in the cause of the gospel. They were active in serving the Lord. The concept of being a church member who just attends a church service once a week would have been completely foreign to them. It should be foreign to us! The local church is not supposed to be like a theater, where you file in, find a seat next to folks that you don’t have any relationship with, watch the performance, and file out. Christ never saves anyone so that they can just add church attendance to their list of weekly things to do. Every believer is saved to serve Christ.
You and I have served alongside each other for years now. What a blessing you have been to one another in the ways you have served. Who could forget Dorothy Belluchie calling you when you were absent from church on a Sunday? Oh, how we miss Norval Hinkle’s warm greet at the front door! So many have served in so many ways over the last fifty years. We could never list them all and the differences they made in our lives and the impact they had for the gospel.
When you’re working side by side with people in the cause of Christ, when you find yourself in a fox hole with others in the war to advance the gospel, you find that you need each other. You can’t do it alone. You don’t want to do it alone. It’s no fun to do it alone. You need others to do what you can’t do, and you need others to support you and pray for you. That is what a church is. That is why I love the church. There is nothing like it in this world where we have this kind of fellowship.
True Christian fellowship means praying for one another and serving Christ together.
4. True Christian fellowship means trusting God for the results.
Paul writes, “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). I can trust God to work in the lives of my brothers and sisters. God began their salvation; He will finish the job. When you look at the context of this letter, Paul isn’t saying this just to individuals, but to the church as a whole. He is saying: “He who began a good work in you Philippians will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Paul had not begun the work in Philippi; God had. From the Macedonian vision in Troas (Acts 16:8-10) to the meeting with the women by the riverside, to the miraculous conversion of the jailor, it was all the work of God. God finishes what He starts. No one was more confident of this than Paul. God initiated the salvation of the Philippians and the birth of the church. God would complete His work, with or without Paul. The Philippians’ security did not rest with Paul, but with God.
This church began with a group of twenty-five who met in Bill Henderson’s living room to pray about starting a church in the Clifton area. But it was not just a work of those few. It was a work of God. This church is not just the result of the work of pastors and leaders and members over fifty years, it is the result of God at work in Christ through His Holy Spirit.
God will finish what He started. True Christian fellowship means participation in the gospel, praying for one another, serving the Lord together, trusting the results to God, and,
5. True Christian fellowship means love for each other.
Philippians 1:7-8: “just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace. 8 For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.”
Paul calls God as his witness of his longing and affection for the Philippian believers, not because they would be prone to doubt him, but because he felt it so deeply. “Affection” is the word for bowels or the inner vital organs. It emphasizes the emotional aspect of Paul’s love for these people who were so dear to him.
The world tries to counterfeit this kind of affection, but it can’t duplicate it. This is why people go to bars hoping to meet that special someone. It’s why they join clubs and social organizations and why they participate in service organizations. It’s why they get hooked on social media. Men and women desperately want fellowship. They need this kind of deep relationship but they don’t have a clue where to find it. The affection Paul had for the Philippians—and they for him―comes only through a shared relationship with Jesus Christ. Those who know Jesus are joined in a spiritual bond that runs deeper than any human tie.[5]
God has created us for ‘partnership’ with other believers, specifically for the purpose of putting His love on display and proclaiming the good news of Christ as the One and Only Savior who has made reconciliation with the Father possible. He calls us to be “partners in Christ!” And when we are striving together, even in the midst of difficult and hard tasks, for the purpose of making great the name and fame of God and bringing others to faith in Christ, we will also find that we have formed deep and lasting relationships with others that will be a source of great joy for us as we recognize them as gracious gifts of God to us.
Again it goes back to the ground of their fellowship: the gospel of Jesus Christ. We love only because Christ first loved us. Think about how much Jesus Christ loves you. Reflect on the depths of a love that would lead Him to the cross where He suffered and died on your behalf. Meditate on how patient and kind and compassionate and forgiving God is toward us all. That, says Paul, is the same sort of love Christians have for each other.
I love you, church. God is not finished with us yet, but He who began a good work here fifty years ago will complete it in us until the day of Christ Jesus. All glory to God!
[1] Strong’s Concordance, Blue Letter Bible, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g2842/nkjv/tr/0-1/
[2] Sam Storms, https://www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/philippians-13-8
[3] Storms, https://www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/philippians-13-8
[4] Matt Morgan, Partners In Christ, https://www.escalatechurch.com/resources/escalate-sermon-blog–small-group-questions/post/partners-in-christ—philippians-1:3-11
[5] Ray Pritchard, https://www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/joyful-living-in-a-grumpy-world/
