So you need to find yourself in Christ in order to find your way in life. Check. But what is it about our identity in Christ (as slaves, saints, and saved) that affects the way we live?
It all starts with gratitude.
This truth really hit home for me this past Fall when a mass was found in my wife's ovaries during an ultrasound on our unborn baby. For a couple of weeks, I thought that I might lose either my wife or baby or both! But as my wife and I would talk late into the night, we began to reflect on God's goodness to us in Christ over the years. And those reflections produced gratitude.
And on the night of my wife's surgery, with the prayers of a hundred saints echoing her own, my wife's prayers were transformed from pleas for mercy to praises for grace. And in this gratitude, she found peace as she went before the knife. God in His grace drew her back awake after her surgery to the sound of two heartbeats on a monitor.
When you find yourself in Christ, you become grateful. And that changes the way you live. Paul alludes to this when he writes "I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy to offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God." (Rom. 12:1) You offer yourself because you're grateful.
This gratitude can occur in the most miserable of circumstances. Take Paul, who is bound in a Roman prison and awaiting death. As soon as his greeting is over to the Philippians, he expresses profound gratitude. His gratitude, naturally, is expressed for something, to someone, and affects the way he lives.
Paul expresses gratitude for his church family's partnership in the Gospel. He thanks God because of the Philippians' partnership in Gospel from the first day until now. What does he mean by partnership? He describes it in this way in v7: they are "fellow partakers of grace, both in his imprisonment and in defending and confirming the Gospel." Fundamentally, they are fellow partakers of grace. The same Word and Spirit that broke Paul's heart concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ also broke the heart of this people--from the wealthy merchant, Lydia, to the jailer and his family (Acts 16).
The fact that these people were fellow partakers of grace filled Paul with gratitude. Why would another's salvation and sanctification have that effect? For one, it reminds us of our own salvation. The joy of knowing Jesus from birth, or of knowing him for the first time in later years. It draws us back to our own experience of grace. It also reminds us of the power of God. There are few greater evidences of the Spirit's work than in the repentance and faith of a sinner saved by grace.
These are a few of the practical reasons (aside from the biblical ones) for why we join in fellowship with God's people and share the Gospel with the lost. Watching another grow in Christ, or come to Christ for the first time, draws us to our knees before the Author of so mighty a salvation and brings joy to our hearts in how He glorifies His name through sinners like us.
But there are two particular dimensions of this partnership in the Gospel--this partaking of grace--that Paul mentions: imprisonment and defending the Gospel. How can the Philippians share in Paul's imprisonment (lit. chains) when they are not imprisoned? God's grace turns fellow believers into fellow sufferers. It is one thing to talk of death. It is another to hold a dying person's hand. It is one thing to grieve a friend with a terminal illness, or with crippling depression. It is another to engage that person even more and not shirk away because of uncomfortability.
Fallen human nature drives people away from suffering. God's grace draws us toward it. And in praying, crying, and caring for the suffering, we become co-sufferers. This in turn strengthens the God's people--the saints. That is why Paul says that the Philippians are in his heart. In this blessed partnership of grace and suffering, it is as if the prayers and love of God's people have placed them right alongside Paul in the prison cell. Oh the joy of being part of God's people rather than a lone ranger who "worships God in his own way."
Finally, this partnership is expressed in "the defense and confirmation of the Gospel." Together, God's people not only partake of the grace of God, but proclaim it. Francis of Assisi once said that we should "Preach the Gospel, and if necessary, use words." While you might appreciate the sentiment, this is absolutely false. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God proclaimed (Rom. 10). And as it is a marvelous act of God's grace to open a sinner's heart to the Gospel, so it a continuing work of God's grace to open a sinner's mouth to share the Gospel.
As the chains bear down upon the sinner, they are unable to obstruct the saving message. Paul may stand condemned by mankind in its hatred of God while he sits in his prison cell, but through him and God's people in Philippi, the defense and confirmation of the Gospel continues. Just as Christ was condemned and died the sinners death at the hands of cruel world, so His resurrection vindicated His message, fully defending and confirming the Gospel He proclaimed and established with His own perfect life and atoning death.
So together, the people of God are partners in the Gospel. They are fellow partakers of grace. And this grace is made manifest in the way the suffer together and proclaim the Gospel together. Paul writes that "though I am bound with chains like a criminal, the Word is not chained." (2 Tim. 2:8) This blessed partnership in the Gospel is a passive one, where God works in the hearts of sinners and through the tongues of sinners to proclaim His glory. And this great work makes us grateful.
Tomorrow, we will continue with who Paul is grateful to and how it affect the way he lives.
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