Philippians 1:1-18a on May 10th, 2026
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Walking Through Paul's Letters: Partnership in the Gospel
With our post-Easter Bible lessons, we have been walking through some of the early churches escapades, mostly revolving around Paul. Those were concrete stories of people and God in action. And starting today and for the next few weeks, we'll be diving into Paul's letters, particularly the one to the Philippians.
Now, I don't want to steal Hank Moody's thunder for his Galatians Bible study, but I have a microphone right now and I want to give a little overview of the Pauline letters. To start, these are real letters from a real person to real communities of faith. And my guess is that no one sending or receiving these letters ever anticipated that they would be published to let alone become sacred scripture that we still read 2,000 years later.
Understanding Paul's Letters
Paul's letters were occasional. Now, that doesn't mean that he wrote them occasionally from time to time. Now, it means he wrote them for an occasion with a purpose. And often, that occasion was a spiritual crisis of some sort.
Typically, each letter has a few different defined sections: a greeting or a salutation, a thanksgiving, the main body and a benediction. The astute among you might already know which sections we are in today. Key words like "to all the saints of Christ Jesus who are in Philippi" and "I think my God every remembrance of you" kind of give it away.
But these aren't just perfunctory pieces of epistles. These sections give us a sense of early on of the tone of the letter. They usually give a summary of the content to follow or at the very least what kind of mood Paul is in as he writes. And for the Philippians, Paul is warmly emotional, happy, thankful, despite him being in jail.
Paul's Imprisonment and Community Support
Now, a couple of weeks ago, we read about Paul and a Silas being locked up in jail while they were in Philippi. But this probably isn't when or where this letter was written. That information, we don't exactly know. Paul did not timestamp or geolocate his letters.
But what we can tell from his previous imprisonments and this letter is that he rarely did anything outside the support of the community around him, even from a prison cell. So, even now, even where he is, he has themes of thankfulness, joy, of partners in the gospel.
Paul was close to the Philippian people and he gives thanks for their work, for their support and the way that they have helped him shape him and his ministry from the first day until now, as he says. They were there from the beginning, shaping, supporting, helping Paul grow into who he could be.
Who Are Your Partners?
Who are those partners in your life? Who are those individuals, the communities that have formed you from the first day until now?
For me, I wouldn't be here without Dana. Without Fran and Bernie, Virginia and Wyman, or Will Rose or John Trump or Rick Summie, or Kevin or Titus or Rick or Randy plus countless others. I'm thankful for Luther Ridge, for Southern Seminary, for St. David, St. Andrews, St. Marks and Atonement Lutheran Church. And I thank my God for St. Philip Lutheran Church and Mertle Beach, South Carolina.
We like to think that we are self-made, that we found our own way, that we did it ourselves. But none of that is really accurate, is it? We are partners. Partners in ministry shaping this place and this mission. You, you are part of this. It matters. You matter.
Your faithfulness is bearing fruit that you can't see and you have continued to shape my faith in my role. This community has given me, given and used its gifts to make what we are doing right now possible. I thank my God for every remembrance of you, always and every one of my prayers for all of you, praying with joy for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
We are shaped by those who have come before us and by those communities that we have been part of.
Proclaiming Christ Through Imperfection
And the funny thing about this Thanksgiving is that Paul also mentioned those partners with mixed motives or outright selfish ones. Now I don't think that Paul is necessarily saying that we have good proclaimers and bad proclaimers. If I'm honest, I've got a good mix of both in me. There are selfish days, days that I feel like I usually could have done more, where I didn't make that phone call or that visit to that I should have. Sundays that I don't preach what I should because I don't want to deal with the headache later.
I'm sure we we've had negative examples of church people throughout our lives. I'm sure that you can think of a few who have proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambition instead of out of love.
But why does Paul bring this up? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way. Anyway, even in our conflicts, even through people who proclaim Christ poorly, even when we ourselves work from selfish ambition, God is still at work.
Over the past 12 years that I've been here over the 70 years of Saint Philip's history, over the 2000 years of Christianity, there are moments that we have proclaimed Christ with very misaligned motivations. And yet Christ is still proclaimed. Jesus is still alive. God is still working in us and through us broken vessels that we are.
God's Work Continues
God is still working right now in this place through you and through me. God gathers us around word and sacrament around bread, wine, water and song. We are fed and nourished for given and renewed blessed and called in our partnership with God and with each other.
We are the body of Christ, expanding God's table for all and for that we rejoice. We give thanks. That is what God is up to here in this renovated sanctuary and upcoming small groups in your engagement with this community.
God is at work through our partnership, shaping us and reshaping the world from the first day until now. And God is not done. God will continue to shape us through one another. God will expand this table. God will call us deeper into service. God will use us to proclaim Christ and him crucified until the day Jesus brings it all to fulfillment.
A Call to Gratitude
So we give thanks. We give thanks with joy just as Paul did for what God has done is doing and promises yet to do. And that is good news.
God's work is bigger than our successes or our failures, our good will or our misplaced motivations because we are human beings working with other human beings and our work will never be completely right or completely wrong. But in it all we can give thanks to God for the ways that we have been shaped in the gospel. Through those we have known just recently for years or from the first day until now.
Amen.