Sermons 2025

Text: Philippians 1:2-11
Theme: Joyful Partnership
Outline
3. Obligation to each other, support, mutual encouragement.
2. SN me, mine first, bulk at rules 
1. JC comes to give you everlasting joy, gives you rules not as a burden but to grow and mature, str with HS

Sermon
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Epistle lesson of the Letter of Saint Paul to the church in Philippi the first chapter verses two through eleven.
Boys and girls I pray that you are doing well this morning. Have you ever had to work together? Sometimes you might have to work together on a homework project. You worked together to get a Christmas tree and put the ornaments on. You help with the housework. You work together in a partnership. That is an example of the partnership of grace that Paul writes about today. How does Jesus help us in our partnerships with His love and mercy? Ponder that question as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.

3. Obligation to each other, support, mutual encouragement.

“3 eI thank my God fin all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 gbecause of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began ha good work in you iwill bring it to completion at jthe day of Jesus Christ.” It is easy to see the love and joy that Paul has for the church in Phillipi. Paul remembers them every single time he prays. He rejoices in their partnership together in the Gospel because the Philippians church has been the first, and many times only, church that provides Paul constant support both financially as well as in prayer. They have banded together with Paul for mutual support and encouragement in the Gospel. We do likewise still today with our support of missionaries, both locally and around the world, partnering with them in the spread of the Gospel.

The Greek word that we translate as partnership is koinonia which we often translate as partnership, i.e. (literally) participation, or (social) intercourse, or (pecuniary) benefaction:—(to) communicate(-ation), communion, (contri-)distribution, fellowship. Being in a partnership means that there are obligations to fulfill. For the church that meant praying for Paul and supporting him in the ministry. For Paul, it meant checking in, writing to, and making sure that the church was not falling away into false doctrine and error. That they were continuing steadfast in the faith. As partners, they mutually supported and encouraged one another in and through Jesus Christ.

2. SN me, mine first, bulk at rules

This may sound very strange to our ears, and especially to our sinful natures. “Pastor, what do you mean that because of the Gospel, I have an obligation?’ “That means that there is something that I have to do.’ ‘Why are you to tell me I have to do something?’ Yes, because Jesus Christ has taking upon Himself your flesh, suffered for you, bled upon the cross and rose from the dead for you, you have an obligation to those around you. There is something for you to be doing! Christianity is not merely about sitting in a pew stoically  while listening to the preaching of God’s word and singing hymns. It is an active part of life, lived out in love of God and service to our neighbor. It is nothing more than the Law of God at work as a guide, guiding you as a Christian, building you up that your love may abound more and more.

Our sinful nature abhors this. It sounds legalistic. It sounds like works righteousness. It sounds like I cannot be lazy, sitting around, twiddling my thumbs. Like Adam and Eve, we know God’s good and gracious will and yet we turn away, desiring to be like God rather than follow His rules and commands. We do not desire to follow God’s rules. We want to be the ones making the rules, forming them in such a way that my wants, my desires, my needs are met before anyone else’s. 

1.    JC comes to give you everlasting joy, gives you rules not as a burden but to grow and mature, str with HS

Yet, why has God given you the Law? He has given it for the very means of curbing, and destroying our sinful natures. Through Jesus, He shows you that you are not first. He is. Jesus comes in your flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, is wrapped in swaddling cloths, laid in a manger, all in service to you. Jesus leaves His throne on high and comes in meekness to serve you. By His death and resurrection from the dead, He gives His very life that you might give yours in service to others. He gives you of His Holy Spirit that you may be encourage, and strengthened in your lives as He who has begun a good work in you will bring it to completion. 

As we state in the Confessions, “But when a person is born anew by the Spirit of God and is liberated from the law (that is, when he is free from this driver and is driven by the Spirit of Christ), he lives according to the immutable will of God as it is comprehended in the law and, in so far as he is born anew, he does everything from a free and merry spirit. These works are, strictly speaking, not works of the law but works and fruits of the Spirit, or, as St. Paul calls them, the law of the mind and the law of Christ. According to St. Paul, such people are no longer under law but under grace (Rom. 6:14; 8:2). Since, however, believers are not fully renewed in this life but the Old Adam clings to them down to the grave, the conflict between spirit and flesh continues in them. According to the inmost self they delight in the law of God; but the law in their members is at war against the law of their mind. Thus though they are never without the law, they are not under but in the law, they live and walk in the law. ”

Jesus gives rules and commands, not as a way to burden you, not as a way to cause you to despair, but that you may grow and mature in the faith and love that He has given to you. That you may have an opportunity in your very lives, to shine forth with love and joy to “approve what is excellent, sand so be pure and blameless tfor the day of Christ, 11 filled uwith the fruit of righteousness that comes vthrough Jesus Christ, wto the glory and praise of God.”
What does this look like? Approving what is excellent means that we focus upon what Jesus has done for us by His incarnation, death, and resurrection as we live out our lives. In love for our neighbor, we hold to the word of God, what it says about our sinful nature, as well as revealing God’s will to us. In love we condemn sin in ourselves, as well as others, not because we are better or more holy then they. Rather, because we know the great love that God has for us, and we desire that they repent of their sins before it’s too late, and join us with in the great praise of the redeemed. Hell is hot. I do not want my friends there, and I am sure that you do not as well. Thus why, through our thoughts, words, and deeds, we hold fast to the faith until the day when Jesus comes again in power and glory.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.