September 20, 2026 | One People, One King

One King, One People | Philippians 1:3–5

Philippians 1:3–5

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. (ESV)

In Philippians 1:3–5, Paul’s joy and gratitude for the Philippian church flow from their partnership in the gospel. Jed Gillis explains that true Christian fellowship is deeper than simply gathering together. It grows from a shared allegiance to King Jesus, a shared treasure in the gospel, and shared action in serving Christ. Because believers belong to the same King, they are partners rather than competitors. Paul models what this fellowship looks like as he remembers other believers with gratitude, prays for them often, and does so with joy. We are called to examine our own allegiance to Christ and ask the Holy Spirit to shape our relationships into this same kind of gospel-centered fellowship.

Transcript of One King, One People | Philippians 1:3–5

Editor's Note on Audio Quality

Jason Harper: Hello, this is Jason Harper. I edit the videos for the sermons here at Berean Bible Church. I just wanted to give you a fair warning, we had some audio issues for the first about six or seven minutes. I restored it as best as I could, but the audio quality is quite poor. But after about six or seven minutes, the audio quality will improve. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the sermon.

Introduction: Our Longing for Community

Jed Gillis: This morning we will be in the book of Philippians. We'll be continuing there, Philippians chapter one. As we lift our voices in singing together , I invite you to consider why that is meaningful. Why is it meaningful to, to put our voices together to praise God together ? It's not just because of frequencies and sound waves. It's not just because chords sound good together In fact, sometimes, if we're honest, not all our cords sound good together.

What makes it beautiful to me, what often brings tears to my eyes is hearing body of believers sing together because I know the people singing that love Jesus. The people singing that have every reason to not say it is well with my soul. Every reason to say it's definitely not well with my circumstances.

And we still look to the Lord that we love and say he is well with my soul. It's because there's something that we share. That's why it's meaningful. If this were the absolute best room of vocalists that has ever existed on the face of the planet, and you told me that you'd seen all of those works and they don't love Jesus at all, I'd say give me this room here.

You come and share something. Because in our world, our hearts hunger for a kind of shared belonging, a shared love for something, a kind of community. We're gonna use different words to describe it, but our hearts long for this in this world. And it's more than just we participate in the same activity. Well, that matters. It's more than that. And it's great in our modern world, people who aren't religious long for this same kind of connection. They long for real community, real relationships, real connection to people. On one hand, we got a culture full of how can I get good, deep connections with people? And on the other hand, we have a culture where we seem to fight over our differences more than ever before. Kinda strange.

To give you just one case of this longing, back, by the way, now in 1972, so you can do the math on how long ago that was. Kurt Vonnegut gave a commencement address where he said this: "What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, but the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured."

That was 1972. So you read some stats for today. It's probable not better. He expresses this longing to say, "We're lonely.. We want to be really connected." Now, I'm sure Vonnie had some ideas that I didn't go chase all the way down as to how you could do that. But I would tell you, create a stable community where loneliness can be cured.

We have some answers for that. Paul does as we go through Philippians. And here at the beginning of the book, he illustrates first what this community is like, and as he illustrates it, he invites us into the same kinds of relationships. So I wanna read, we're really gonna look at verse three down through five. Today, I'm gonna read a little bit further so you hear the way he talks about the Philippians as he starts. 

Scripture Reading: Philippians 1:3-11

Jed Gillis: Paul says, "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now.

And I am sure of this, that he began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the Gospel .

For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and, and a full discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God."

[Garbled] he illustrates for us in his communication. We get like a sneak peek if you will, a little glimpse into the back inner workings of what happened with Paul and the churches to say what was this relationship like? What kind of communion did he expect us there?

What Is the Gospel?

Jed Gillis: And so the first thing you're going to do is we're going to go straight to his foundation. What he describes that is here is the reason. This is the cause. In verse five, he says, "Because of your partnership in the gospel. Because of your partnership in the gospel.".

So, first thing we need to go to say, "Hey, what's he mean by gospel?" So, if you talk about the ancient use of that word, you would know it's good news. That's what the word literally meant was good news, but it's used in specific ways.

You need to, well, for example, when Caesar Augustus was born, we have these writings where people use this word outside scriptures. So, when they use it . When Caesar Augustus was born, the gospel, the good news of Caesar Augustus

was proclaimed. And in the context, if you read where it's used, it's meant to say, "Here is a leader who will bring us peace." Caesar Augustus is gonna bring us peace, prosperity. It'd be kind of like in our modern world if the day after an election you woke up and you got an announcement of whichever candidate you thought was going to bring the most peace and prosperity into the United States, and you said, "Oh, it's the gospel of that person." Now, that sounds weird to us. We don't use it that way. But that's absolutely the way they used it then. One, one use of it.

Another use, uh, Plutarch, an ancient Roman historian, this was just after scripture was written, he used it to describe the defeat of the enemy army. In other words, this is the gospel, the good news that the war is over. That's how that word was used.

Josephus used it similarly. It wasn't so much about a ruler being born like Caesar Augustus, but when a new ruler came into power. There's a new king, a new emperor, and the announcement of that newness was, "Here's a gospel, a good news."

Interestingly, when they did it, and we, if you get into the grammar just a second, when they did it, they described it in, in plural. That doesn't make sense for us, but if we were to say, "This is the..." We kinda do it. News has an S on the end like it's plural. Good news. We don't think of that as plural, but the way they used to do it, they would say essentially, "This is the Gospels, the good news, of Caesar. This is the Gospels of this enemy being defeated." They would do it in the plural. Interestingly, when the New Testament writers kinda took it over for their own purposes, it became singular. In other words, it'd be like this if I said, "Oh, there's good news that this ruler is in power and he brings about peace and prosperity.

There's good news that the enemy is defeated, but let me tell you about the good news." That was how they highlighted that when the New Testament writers wrote it, they changed the form of the word so that you wouldn't hear this is just another good news like this one, it's another good news like Caesar, it's another good news like the enemy's defeated.

It's the good news, the ultimate good news, which they used that word on purpose because it had this political, military kind of feel. So when they announced the gospel of Jesus, they said, "Yes, it's a ruler who's gonna bring us peace. It's a ruler who's gonna bring us, bring us prosperity, but it's the good news of the ruler who's going to do that."

It was good news, the war is gonna be over. He's gonna defeat the enemies. But it's not just another good news, it's the good news.

And that's the good news that Paul speaks of here. When he says, "Your participation in the gospel," he means, when he writes to these Philippians, he says, "You have already enjoyed, heard, believed, participated in," we'll get to what all that means in just a second, "the good news of the ruler who brings peace, the enemy who's defeated, and the new king." And it's Jesus.

And it's the good news that God invites you to have peace in your soul like we just sang about through a relationship with Him, not because you've earned it, not because you've done enough good things, but because of His grace, because of His undeserved favor for you. Rather than being His enemy because of your sin, He invites you to be His child. Because Jesus lived a perfect life and died on the cross for us and was raised so that all who have faith, all who rest in Him can have eternal life.

Now, I probably could have asked many of you what's the gospel? Write it out in three sentences, and you'd have gotten pretty close to what I just said. Which is wonderful. Let's not forget that Jesus and His gospel is why we can sit in this room together in unity. It's because Jesus unites us, not because our backgrounds unite us, because our backgrounds are different. Not because our experience in life or our circumstances unite us, because those are certainly different. Because Jesus unites us.

When Paul writes and says, "I love you guys," do you... You got that when we read through it, right? That's basically what he says. "I love you guys, and I thank God all the time when I think about you, with joy." Paul says all that, and he tells you why: because of their fellowship or partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

Now, in one sense, this is not a sermon really about the gospel. We could spend all morning talking about what the gospel is and how that applies to our lives. It really isn't that. But in another sense, every sermon, from the New Testament at least, is based on the gospel. It's built on it in some way, because Paul here is using it as a foundation.

He says, "We have... We're partners in the gospel." He says, "My allegiance is to Jesus, and your allegiance is to Jesus, and that means I love you." You realize that's enough. That's enough to love your brothers and sisters. You don't really need more than that. My allegiance is to Jesus, and your allegiance is to Jesus. Now we can talk about what that means and there's misunderstand- sure, we can talk about all that. But if you come and say, "King Jesus rules my life and I love him," and that person next to you or across the room from you says, "King Jesus is my Lord, and I want to serve him and love him with all of my heart," whether you disagree now or not, you're gonna be around the same throne one day. That's enough. That was enough for Paul to say, "I love you guys." 

What Is Fellowship?

Jed Gillis: All right, so let's say we had gospel, but he gives us another word with it, participation or fellowship or partaking. When I read down in verse seven, "You are all are partakers with me of grace," that's a form of the same word. So what does it mean then to have fellowship or partnership in the gospel?

Maybe if you've been around church for a while, you may have heard the Greek word koinonia. That's the Greek word we have here that's translated as fellowship, and it's a, it's a rich, complex word. Th- there's no single word in English that just captures everything, and I think the problem is all the words we use in English can make us think of the wrong thing.

So if I say fellowship, some of you think of potluck.

Which it might be fellowship or it might not, but the fact that you ate together doesn't mean it's fellowship. Okay, so that's a little hard sometimes. We can hear partnership, and that sounds kinda like a business deal, right? We shake hands, we move on. It, it can sound like even if I refer to, if I referred to my wife as my partner, maybe that is perfectly normal to you.

Maybe that sounds kinda cold and a little sterile, and it's like, I mean, maybe more than partner. That's a little weird. So partnership gets an idea of it, but it doesn't get the whole idea of what this word means. We could talk about participation, and in our modern world, that may sound like you get a trophy for showing up.

That's not what it is either. So we have a hard, a, a challenge because the Greek word, there's no really great English word that says, "This is it." Honestly, maybe the best one would be friendship if we understood deep, real friendship. If we think of, well, I met you once, and we chatted, and we sat next to each other at a Volunteers game, and so we're friends now.

That, that's not what it means. But real, deep friendship might be the closest thing we have in English. But what I wanna do is point you to just a couple biblical passages and ask you, like, try to construct, if you will, like, here's the idea of, of fellowship. Try to think, okay, if Scripture refers to it these ways, then we wanna get like a mental map of, of what it means.

All right, one, in Acts 2:42, the church, the early church is said to continue in teaching, doctrine, and prayers, and all these things, right? And one of the things in that list is fellowship. It's koinonia. So listed... It, it's interesting because fellowship is not like extra. It's not as if we could say, "Well, I go to church on Sunday, and I participate in, like, the programs of church, and then I have a good spiritual life over here, and I can fellowship with God's people or I cannot."

That's not the way it's described in Acts 2. It's listed right alongside praying, teaching. Like, it's a core element of what church is. It's fellowship. So that's Acts 2:42. We could go to two other passages, Romans 15, if you wanna jot these down. I won't turn to them, but if you wanna look at them, Romans 15:26 and 2 Corinthians 8:4.

There, the word fellowship, interestingly, it's used for a financial gift. It's like when, when the church, when the people in Corinth, when they gave so that the church in Jerusalem would be supported, that is described, that gift is described as their fellowship. So just hold that for a second. We'll try to put it together.

But just get the idea of the big pictures. There's this sense of a core function of the church, and then there's this idea of, like, practical action to support somebody else. Fellowship is used in both of those cases. It's also not just used for us. John read it this morning. We have fellowship with the Son, Jesus, but through the Son, we have fellowship with the Father.

That, by the way, is one reason why potluck is not a sufficient definition. Or in Corinthians it says the fellowship with the Spirit. So all three members of the Trinity are given, you can have whatever this word is, fellowship, participation, friendship, with each member of the Trinity. Or 1 Corinthians 10, when we take communion, it said we have fellowship, same word, in the body and blood of Jesus.

Like we don't think of it that way all the time, but a minute ago when you together took the little cracker and the juice, what Corinthians tells you is you are fellowshipping with Jesus.

And on the, the negative side, 2 Corinthians 6 says we can't have that kind of fellowship with someone who's not a believer in Jesus. You can go check 2 Corinthians 6 and you can see where it's stated there. You, you can't have the same kind of fellowship. Does that mean we can't have friends? No. Does that mean we can't have a kind of fellowship?

Of course, we can. But there's a kind of deep connection that people who say, "Jesus is my king and my allegiance is totally to him," can only have with other people who say that.

So in my mind, when I try to take all of these threads together and say, "I wanna understand what on earth this word means." Here's the way that I map it in my head right now.

Three Marks of Fellowship: Action, Allegiance, Treasure

Jed Gillis: It describes sharing in at least three ways. There's a shared action, like we give to something. We gather together. We come together and support someone else within the body or another believer. We gather together to go on a missions trip. There's a shared action of some type. Now, shared action's not enough.

We can do a lot of things together without having real fellowship. But if you have no shared action, probably doesn't really fit the word fellowship. There's some kind of shared action. There's a shared allegiance. In other words, we're not really gonna have fellowship if one person comes and says, "I wanna do all the Christian-looking things so that I feel better, so that I rule my life, and good things happen."

And another person comes and says, "I wanna do all the Christian things, 'cause Jesus is my king and I love Him." We might share the same actions, but at some point we're gonna realize that's not quite the same friendship.

So we have a shared allegiance and that means when you have a shared allegiance, when you have one king, that makes one community. When you have one king, that defines everybody in his kingdom. They're, they're one. We don't just share a church building. We share a king. My prayer is in this room right now that as we sit here and share this same space, My prayer is that that's actually the least kind of fellowship we actually have, is that we're in the same place. We don't just share a church building, we share a king, and that means our allegiance to Christ makes us partners, I'm gonna use that word, okay?

Not the cold business kind, but partners. Our allegiance to Christ makes us partners, not competitors. That's true in this building. That's true when you go look at other churches in Knoxville. And it's true when you look at churches all around the world. You see, if we're all here, if I'm my own king, and you're your own king, and you're your own king, and we're all just kinda looking out for ourselves, then we're all competitors.

My kingdom and your kingdom rub up against each other all the time.

If we're all saying, "Jesus is my king. Jesus is my king," there's more than enough room in Jesus' kingdom for all of us.

Our allegiance to Christ makes us partners, not competitors. So we have shared action, we have a shared allegiance, and then this could relate to allegiance, but I, I split it out in my head, a shared treasure or a shared value. Something you say, "This really is worth it." So if you value the same things as somebody else, you treasure the same thing, you're committed to the same thing, so allegiance, and you act in a way that demonstrates that commitment. That's what fellowship looks like.

An Illustration of Fellowship

Jed Gillis: I wanna give you an example from, if you just imagine a, a mundane kind of, this is far less than the kingdom of Christ, okay? But let's just imagine the most dedicated UT football fan you can imagine, okay? Everybody got that mental image? And you all just thought of the color orange probably. All right, that person, that young man is 21 years old, finishing up at UT.

Biggest football fan, like, he knows all the stats, he knows everything about the players, all of that, right? So then he asks a young lady out on a date, and it turns out the only convenient time coming up is during the UT Alabama game on Saturday. All right, now let's just say he really likes this young lady.

So he's like, "All right, fine. I'm gonna do it. I'll skip the game." Okay, so he meets her about an hour before the game. They start talking, and after a few minutes she's kinda nervous, 'cause she really likes him too. After a few minutes she says, "You know, would you mind if we found a way to watch the game?"

First off, that guy probably just, you know, in the back of his mind, he's cheering and trying to act cool. "Would you mind if we find a way to watch the game so there's action?" And then she says, "You know, it's always ... The games are so meaningful to me. I never miss a game." Allegiance. 'Cause when I was a kid, my family would watch them together, and I loved the time I'd spend with my dad.

It's so valuable to me. First off, that guy's like, "Marry me now."

But notice what happened instantly. Because there's shared action, and there's a commitment, and there's a treasurer, that guy's ready.

But to take any one of those pieces out and it's not the same. So imagine she says, "Oh, I never miss a game because I love it so much." And he's like, "Well, I mean, do you mind if we like go to a restaurant where we can at least watch the game?" She's like, "Oh, no, I don't wanna do that." Be like, "Um, I'm confused.

Like you say you have commitment, you say you treasure it, but you really don't wanna do something with it. That feels wrong. Something's off." Now he's gotta wrestle through stuff, right? Take a different piece out. Let's say she says, "Okay, let's watch the game," and she says, "Oh, they're really meaningful to me."

So you've got action and you've got treasure. And he says, "Oh, do you watch the game often?" "No, I haven't seen a game in years." Like that doesn't make any sense.

And that friendship ... Now, if he really likes the girl, of course, he may be well to say, "Football doesn't matter that much." Sure. With football, we get to do that. But if you take any of these pieces out, you know, if she said, "Let's watch the game," so there's action. "I never miss it. I'm committed to it." And he says, "Oh, yeah, why do you like them so much?"

And she says, "Well, I don't really care about them. It's just something my ex-boyfriend and I used to do."

That change in treasure just totally changed the experience.

As I understand the word koinonia, friendship, those three pieces together have to all be there. There's gotta be action, there's gotta be commitment, and there's gotta be treasure. And I think scripture uses it different ways to emphasize different pieces. That's why sometimes we miss it. But really, it's just talking about what real close friendship is.

That's why, you know, if you go read Lord of the Rings, you get the first book, it's called... Well, the first of the trilogy, I know, The Fellowship of the Ring. Why do you use fellowship? Well, because Tolkien was really good with words, and there's a shared action. That group's all gonna go do the same thing.

There's supposed to be a shared commitment, and if the fellowship stays together, there is, and they value the same kinds of things. They wanna defeat the enemy. It's described as fellowship because it's meant to be. This is real friendship built on action, commitment, and, and value. It's hard for us to define sometimes.

But that's exactly what Vonnegut and a whole lot of other people in our modern world are longing for. They want relationships, real friendships, with people who ha- share actions and values and commitment with them. How many times do you hear somebody who says, "Oh, I went to church over there and I just never connected"?

"My job,, I started a new job. I've been there about two years. I just haven't really connected with anybody."

"My friend group,, I feel like they're all drifting different ways and I'm not really connected to them." "I moved to a new place and I just don't feel like I'm really connected to anybody." We have this deep longing for real friendship. And Paul wasn't talking about fellowship in UT football, of course. He was talking about fellowship in the gospel, the good news of the King, Jesus.

He was talking about that kind of fellowship. All the other friendships are wonderful, but if you want the deepest kind of connection offered in scripture to humans, the deepest kind of connection is found in the good news of Jesus Christ, in the best king and His invitation to you. And one reason that's so great is we all know there's actually, I, I think we all know, there's actually a problem if you order your entire life around UT football. If you wanna argue with me, come talk to me later.

That's okay. There's actually a problem if you do that. There's actually a problem if your, your brand new car is the center of your world. There's even a problem if everything is your life is around your family.

But there's absolutely no problem with Jesus being the center of your life. It's the kind of fellowship and friendship that can run deeper and stronger than anything else. If we have fellowship in the gospel, what that means is we are going to have a shared treasure. It's Jesus. A shared allegiance. It's to our King and to His bride and to His purposes in this world.

And then we're gonna share actions that demonstrate that.

How Paul Treats His Gospel Partners

Jed Gillis: So what happens in Paul, I said earlier he illustrates something for us in the way he writes. What happens when Paul writes a note to somebody who he says, "We are partners in the Gospel. We have fellowship in the Gospel." I want you to notice the pattern he gives us, the, the reflexive, if you will, like the Spirit is prompting him.

This is the, what he writes down when he thinks about them. We'll take it in, in five pieces. First, he remembers. "I thank my God in all my remembrance.". He remembers them. Keep in mind, he did not open up Facebook and Facebook goes, "Oh, it's their birthday today." And then he, "Oh, I remember them. I hadn't thought about them in, since last year this time," you know?

He didn't do that. For Paul to remember the church at Philippi, he had to remember them. He couldn't go look at somewhere else. He remembered them. And the implication here when he says, "In all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy," he didn't just remember them when Epaphroditus brought the gift.

Like, he thought about them. He thought about these believers that he loved. He remembered them. Second thing, it's a response of gratitude. His impulse was to be thankful. Now, think back. These are humans, like imperfect people, that Paul says this about. Sinful humans, weak humans, inconsistent humans, annoying humans.

That's what they were. They weren't perfect. Now, they also at times were amazing, and kind, and thoughtful humans. Okay, but when he looks back at the church at Philippi, he's not looking at, like, a bunch of super Christians who never did anything wrong. He's looking at real humans who had squabbles that we learn about in chapter four, real humans who had sin they were battling, and he says, "Since we are fel- partners in the gospel, since we have fellowship in the gospel, I thank God every time I remember you."

I would love to ask Paul, "What did you remember about them?" I wanna know if that's like Paul remembers this person who really opposed him some, but they worked through the difficulties. And then Paul thinks back and remembers that hardship and goes, "But I thank God for you." I wanna know what he remembered.

We don't know. But we know what he gives us here is when Paul thinks about people that he has fellowship in the gospel with them, he says, "I remember you. I thank, I thank God for you." First, let's say the impulse is to be thankful. Second, he takes that to God, so we'll make a third category, if you will. So there's remembrance, gratitude, and prayer.

See, it's one thing to think about someone, and then my impulse is to be grateful, and I might thank them for all kinds of things. It's another thing to take that a step further. I remember them and I thank God for them. Paul, every time, you're gonna see this throughout Philippians, you're gonna see it throughout really the New Testament epistles.

Paul, over and over, when he talks about his relationship with somebody else, he can't do it without talking about their relationship to God. Amen. Okay? He doesn't write, "Thank you, Philippians, for giving this gift." He writes, "I thank God for you every time I remember." He's always thinking about his relationship with others.

Every relationship Paul has with another believer is part of his relationship to God. That works a little bit in our, our human world. When you, if you're married, when you married your spouse, your other relationships are impacted. Maybe they radically change, maybe it's a small change. But when you marry, when there's a relationship that's close enough, it changes you.

Probably many of us had that experience. We had a friend when we were maybe in high school or college, and we were close, and we both got married. You haven't talked to them in 35 years. And there's lots of reasons for that, but one of them is that a relationship that was so important in their life came into that, and that friendship didn't really grow and continue into that new reality.

For Paul, his relationship to Jesus is so much that every horizontal relationship he views in light of his relationship with Jesus.

If we say our allegiance really is to Jesus as king, then that means Jesus is part of your relationship to everybody around you. If He's really king, then I don't park Him in this building as I go out to my other relationships throughout the week. If He's really king, then I don't go run my family however I want and come in and look godly when I come into the, the church building.

He impacts all of those relationships.

So when Paul looks at partners in the gospel, he remembers, he's grateful, he thinks about them in relationship to God, so he prays. Then he is, he's, I'll call it intentional, but it's hard to capture. What I mean is he, he frequently over and over remembers them. Notice how many times he says this, "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy."

The, the point is you're not supposed to think, "Well, Paul thought of us this one time. Paul thought of us a couple times." Like, no, Paul thinks about them over and over and over and over and over and over, and he makes prayer for you all, by the way. Notice that. He's not just praying for the overseers and the deacons of the church.

He's not just praying for the church leadership. He goes, "For you all," because he says you're all partners in the gospel. And when he does that, and when he prays for them, fifth thing that ca- characterizes that relationship is joy. Always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy. So when you think about your relationships with other believers, I mean when they do the things you want them to do and when they're easy to get along with, I mean when they're difficult to get along with.

When you think about your relationship with other believers, you say, "We sh- we are partners. We're friends in the gospel. We're both committed to Jesus. We both love Him. We both wanna show action and share action together that shows that." We have all of that. When you think about those people who are not perfect, who are inconsistent, is the natural, normal response of your soul to remember them with thankfulness and prayer towards God, over and over, with joy.

And if you feel like, "Uh, no, Pastor Jed, of course you know that's not always my response," it's not always mine either. I'm challenged by it though, because I see that that is what Paul did. Paul had a reality of fellowship around his King Jesus that was so real that that's what described his relationships. His allegiance to Christ was so strong and they shared it, that's what it looked like.

That's why sometimes people in our world around us will say Christians are what makes it hard to believe in Jesus. Which we should feel ashamed of that, by the way. Sometimes people say that because our relationships don't look like that. Our allegiance to Jesus is not strong enough to overcome the little squabbles and interactions and preference and backgrounds and all of these different things.

And so a world around us looks and, and says, "They don't really love one another." Either they're not following Jesus, or Jesus isn't worth following. And Jesus gave them the right to do that, right? He said, "By this shall they know you are my disciples, if you," what? "Love one another."

That's what love looks like. 

Application 1: Examine Your Allegiance

Jed Gillis: So I want to ask you, if you say, like the world around me and like in church, I have longing in my heart for that kind of relationship. I want the deepest community and friendship that God offers to humans. Here's what we can learn from this passage. First, I invite you to examine your allegiance in your heart.

What are you committed to? What do you really love? Not everyone who shows up at church on Sunday morning is really pursuing that kind of fellowship. I said it earlier, you can show up and do Christian things because you want your life to feel more comfortable, not because you're actually committed to Jesus in any meaningful way.

Especially in a southeast United States where for a long time it's been kind of respectable to go to church. Go to some places in, around the world where that's not the case, it looks a little different. Examine your allegiance. Paul doesn't write like this to every church. Go back and read the beginning of different epistles.

He will often say, "To all the saints in Christ Jesus," the set apart ones, often. He doesn't often say, "I love you so much because we have partnership in the Gospel."

Not every Christian is really doing what he describes here. Not everyone who shows up at church on Sunday morning is doing what he describes here. So examine your heart and your allegiance. If you're really committed to Jesus, some of you have had this experience, you really love Jesus, you're all in in every way you can be, and you run into somebody else who is, isn't it great?

Maybe you've had, I've had this, you run into somebody else who is, and you think, "There's a million reasons we're different. We disagree on all kinds of stuff." And I love 'em.

Because our allegiance to Jesus is worth that. So if you want deep connection, the way scripture says to get it, examine your own allegiance. To get the relationships you long for, you don't just need people around you. You don't just need people around you who are like you. You need people around you who share the life of worship towards your king.

That's where this fellowship comes from. We need that fellowship in the gospel, shared action with shared commitment because we love the same things. Now, I'll often give you, like, three points and say, "Hey, take a minute and pray about it." We're gonna come back to another point, but before we do that, I wanna give you a second right now, and I wanna take a second myself.

I wanna examine my allegiance. We'll just take a minute and pray silently. Ask God to open your eyes to that in your heart.

Jesus, make us a body of people who love you, who rejoice in your grace to us through the gospel, and who love each other because we have fellowship in the gospel. In your name. Amen. 

Application 2: Let the Spirit Shape Your Relationships

Jed Gillis: Second thing. I wanna ask you, if you say, "My allegiance is to Jesus, that's what I want. I'm not perfect at it. I'm not always there.

I need to come back to it over and over, but I want that." Second thing, ask the Spirit to shape your rela- your relationships like Paul's were shaped. Paul gives us an illustration, but he's not just telling you about deep friendship and illustrating it. It's there to say, "Can you have that in your own life?"

And if you want to build any kind of relational habit, you need a plan. You don't generally just have good intentions that radically change your life, right, without plans. Here's a plan. You don't have to do it this way. It's a five-week plan. It's the one I'm planning to do. Five categories. Week one, how can I remember my brothers and sisters more?

Set up a system to do that. If you have your cellphone, you got Church Center, it's got a directory app, you can scroll through that. If all you did in week one was look at a list of names consistently just to remember your brothers and sisters. Set up some kinda system. Now, when you remember that your brain may go all kinds of other places, that's great.

There's some overlap in these steps. But remember, you could pray for them. You could reach out to them. You could shoot a text. You could call them. You could talk, whatever. Many, many things, okay? But it's so easy to go about my life and just forget other people. So step one, remember. Step two, respond with gratitude.

When you look at that list of people, you will find sometimes your first impulse is not gratitude.

So sit with God on that and say like, "God, when I saw that person's name, why was my first impulse to complain?"

Why was my first impulse to be angry? They're your child. You know how to shape them. So sit with God on that and say, "So week one, remember. Week two, go, okay, when I remember, make sure I'm responding with gratitude. And when I'm not, I need to sit with my Heavenly Father on that."

Week three, draw the king into that relationship in prayer. I remember them. Now I'm gonna, "God, thank you for them. God," pray for them in this. "Thank you for what I see that's good. Help them to continue. When I know there's difficulties, God, help me to pray for them." If you don't know anything at all to pray for them, get on a phone call or something and ask them.

You'll probably blow their minds, and then they'll be glad to hear it. But respond with prayer. Remember, every one of those relationships isn't just a relationship between you and them; it's a relationship before Jesus between you and them. Fourth thing. Be intentional about what you're doing. We're already getting there, right?

There's overlap. If you're remembering, you're doing it intentionally. If you're being grateful and you're fighting against your own impulses, that's intentional. But to say not just, "Well, I wanna remember sometimes," how do I remember frequently? And when you know something, I know some of you do this really well, and I love...

I hear these stories and I'm grateful for it. Some people in here, somebody tells you something going on in your- their life, you write it down so you can pray for it later and go back and ask them. It's intentional, frequent, over and over and over. And then last one, God, help me to have true joy when I do that.

Now you might say, "I'm gonna do all five of those things at once." Great. Good for you. You might say, "I wanna do one a day and kinda focus and rotate through the week." Details of how you do it don't matter. But God gives you a shape of what those relationships look like in this section of Philippians. Ask him to bring that about in your life with other people within the body or other people that you know other places whose allegiance is really to Jesus, 'cause we live in a world where we're starving for real fellowship, and God offers it with him and with his people.

So let's step into it and ask him to build it more and more in our body. I invite you to respond again in prayer. Pray over those steps. Ask God to do that in your relationships.