Most successful people have partners and thank them for their help, even if the partners are not well-known. Howard Schultz, who made Starbucks popular, “Success is best when it’s shared.” An ever much more well-known businessman said, “Business is not about one’s own success or failure, but how successful we make our partners.”
Some of the most bonded groups are those who went through some intense experience. Men who were in combat together feel they are a “band of brothers.” Being committed to a common mission welds people together. The reason some churches don’t have a sense of partnership among the members is because they view it like school, a place they go to to hear a lecture, rather than a body they are on a mission with.
To hear more about who your partners are, if you’re a true believer in Jesus, listen:
Thankfulness (1:3-11)
Paul Is thankful for the Philippians: “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you.” There are people that you think of them with a sense of fondness, of appreciation, a warmth, a smile. They didn’t just come for the weekly service; hear Paul preach and then go out the door. They were partners. They were bound to him through the common experience of taking the gospel out.
Covenant has Gym, Jr and Gym as venues to help spread the gospel and do it in partnership with the church.
Sometimes people don’t finish the jobs they start. They start painting a wall but don’t do the trim. But God will finish what he started in His people. Notice three truths about this promise:
The Certainty: This is certain. It’s not, “He might complete it if you’re good,” or “It all depends on whether you do the right religion.” He will do it.
Who: It’s God’s work. It does not depend on us. He begins it and He completes it.
When: It won’t be completed now, in this age. There’s no experience, “second work of grace,” or discipline that will complete it in this age. It is incomplete until “the day of Jesus Christ”; the day He raises the dead.
For more on how God starts and finishes salvation, click on the YouTube link above.
Rejoicing (1:12-18)
More of the gospel going out and so Paul says, ‘I rejoice’. (1:18) Reformed believers don’t really observe “Easter” because every Lord’s Day is a celebration of the resurrection of Christ but the world thinks it’s “Easter” and they should pay more attention to Jesus, maybe watch a religious show on TV or go to church. We should rejoice that the gospel – or parts of the gospel – is getting out even if by a godless TV network or magazines.
Why do we meet in a gym?
A gym attracts kids and we can use it to spread the gospel and it doesn’t interfere with meeting for church. With the money we spent to buy and refurbish the Providence gym, we could have bought a traditional church building with pews and stained glass. But that doesn’t attract the youth. It’s not as useful for evangelism. The most important factor should be what helps spread the gospel.
We don’t condemn other churches around us who may be doing some things we think aren’t fully Biblical if they help get the gospel out.
For more on how to prioritize the gospel, click on the YouTube link above.
High hopes (1:19-30)
Paul’s dilemma: (1) get his head cut off or (2) go spread the gospel and strengthen the church more. Execution or ministry? Either he gets to go be with Jesus or stay and build up the church.
The choice is between what the church needs and the fulfillment one only finds with Christ. The living now is for the Body of Christ. The typical modern Christian thinks the choice is only between his individual pleasures now in the body and his individually being with Christ in heaven. For the modern American Christian, Christ’s Body, the church, never enters into the equation. If your view of your Christian life has been entirely individualistic — it’s you and Jesus, only two sets of footprints in the sand, no church to partner with — you don’t understand Paul’s dilemma.
To die is to gain Jesus but to live is Christ because it’s with our partners.
So, who’s your partner?
Our dilemma: If we die, we’re with the Lord. If we live, we’re with our partners, the church. For us, the yearning should be for the Lord and the life here should be with the church, to partner with it, for its progress.
For more on how the reason why we should be living is in partnership with the church, click on the YouTube link above.
Faith is a Gift
We believe because it was given to us to believe. Faith in Jesus is given to those who believe. Faith is not ginned up by our “free will.” It’s given by God. Faith is not first a product of our choices. It’s first a product of God’s choice. That means the ultimate difference between the saved and the lost is not that the saved made a choice that the lost did not. It’s that God made a choice for the saved — to give them faith — that He didn’t make for the lost. What sets the church off from the rest of the world is that the church is made of the people to whom God gave the gift of faith.
For more on Philippians 1, click on the YouTube link above.
Covenant Reformed Baptist Church is Danville’s/Caswell County’s Reformed Church.