The Joy Of Gospel Partnership - Philippians 1:1-5 Series

Luke 14:33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

Many times the reason we get lonely, or we lack joy, is because we can’t find anyone who really cares about what we really care about. But that should never happen to a Christian, because there are millions of other Christians - people who care so much about the gospel that they would die for it. And if that doesn’t give me joy, I need to find what pile of trivia has captivated my affections and put that on the junk heap where it belongs, so that I start caring about what really matters.

Source of Joy: Gratitude for Gospel Partners

Our time is gone, which is sad because there is one huge piece of this puzzle that I haven’t gotten to yet, and it is absolutely essential for joy. If you want to increase your joy with joy-producing love relationships, it is not enough to just be partners in a common passion. There must also be gratitude to God for those partners.

3 I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel

His joy was connected to his thankfulness. Just like we saw in our study of Psalm 42 – an essential ingredient for joy is gratitude. If you want to get a lot of joy from your friendships, stop worrying about how they are treating you or how they feel about you or how much they like you, and turn your attention to gratitude for them.

It is amazing the impact that has. If you would have asked me prior to this week if I was thankful for all of you, I would have said yes. And I often start my prayers for you, “Thank you for that person God…” But this last week I have been much more intentional about it. When I pray for you, instead of just saying, “Thanks for so and so” and then getting on with asking God to bless you, I slowed down and cultivated an actual attitude of thankfulness. So I go through the prayer cards, and I think, “What is wonderful about this person? What graces exist in his life because of God’s kindness? How does the work of the church benefit from that person’s existence? What spiritual gifts does she have?” And as I did that, real, emotional gratitude to God started to well up in my heart for all of you, and I could just feel an immediate surge in my level of joy.

Just think of what you have seated around you right now! We live in a world that hates God, and treats the Lord Jesus Christ like just another man, and is in total rebellion against His Word and His will. And in a world like that, where almost everyone is an enemy of Christ, let me ask you this: How many of you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Look at that! Just look at it! Let your heart fill up with joy and gratitude for that! Another question: How many of you are willing to die for Christ? How many of you have devoted your life to serving the Lord Jesus Christ?

If you want to chase loneliness out of your life and replace it with joy-producing relationships, spend time thinking about what God has done in the hearts of the people around you in this church and strive for a thankful attitude about it. And as that thankfulness increases, so will your joy.