Philippians 1:1-11
We walked slowly through these 11 verses discussing the impact of the words and their meaning in our hearts and our daily lives.

From verse 1, the idea that our relationship to God should really be more closely described as a “bondservant” or slave who has willingly agreed to submit to a benevolent master was striking. This is one who is solely committed, for life, to this master, willing to go where he commands, do what he demands (or needs us to do), and all the while benefiting from his protection that comes from taking his Name as our own. In verse 2, we discovered how another word complements the slave relationship and that is “the saint” … and by Paul’s use of the word, we are all saints, those of us who have accepted Christ as our savior, we are all positionally covered by the blood of his sacrifice and therefore we are “set apart,” holy, and sacred property. For me, as we talked, I became excited about the change in relationships if we treated our fellow believers as truly sacred… special, something to be protected and lovingly handled. See pre-post for more about the sacred.

In the following verses, we investigated further the essence of joy, in particular when dealing with those with whom we are in partnership, or koinonia. Paul prayed with joy for his friends, for those whom he held in his heart and gave thanks for them daily. They were sacred to him. As someone else said, when you might lose something, you realize how precious it really is to you. And so, this koinonia was a good example of a mutually beneficial partnership (which true koinonia must have). Paul received their commitment, their funds, their messengers while he provided them with his knowledge, his love, and his prayers.

Paul was confident that the work he began in Phlippi would be completed because of his confidence in God is always faithful. God began that work and so He would finish it. But of course, we reminded one another, this completing process is in God’s time, not ours. Our role is to continue to seek and trust Him despite the circumstances.

Lastly, we spent some time talking about the beautiful prayer in verses 9-11, the key elements being that their love might abound (for God & others) and so grow in knowledge and insight that they would discern between good and best [choices], they would remain pure and blameless [cleansed] and filled with the fruit [results] of righteousness [right living and doing]. All of this transforming process is for the glory of God.

And so we face a variety of circumstances in our lives to test this prayer. Are we holding our brothers and sisters in our hearts? Are we treating them as sacred? What about our family members? We have the possibility of being in true koinonia but we must take and carry our part of the journey.