From your very first moment until today might just be phase one

By Dean Collins

Do you remember the day you met your partners? It might be a good day to remember. You can pick one or a few to focus on, but let me help you think of the categories. Some of you have a husband or wife you loved enough to choose to marry and make your partner for life. Some have business partners who dreamed up a way to invent some new product or innovative way to deliver a service. Some of you have ministry partners who together have taken on a mission in a particular church, part of the world, city, or among a special population. Some have friendships closer than family, and these are the people you chose to share your life’s work and dreams with and where you seek wisdom and counsel.

A beginning hard to top

What were the circumstances of how and when you met these people? How long have you known them? How has God used you in their lives and them in yours? As Paul began his letter to the Philippians he clearly has a special group like this in mind. This church started when Paul showed up on his second missionary journey. I’m sure you have some interesting stories of how your most valuable partnerships began, but Paul’s introduction to his partners is Philippi is hard to top!

Paul’s first trip was prompted by a middle-of-the-night vision. He was in Troas when it happened. He saw a man pleading with him to come to Macedonia. Paul was convinced that was God’s way of getting him focused, and so he sailed to Macedonia. Maybe your partnerships had similar beginnings. In one way this was very clear concerning Paul’s first step, but as you read Acts 16 you learn that the next step was not yet revealed. When Paul arrived he went to the largest city, Philippi, but clearly didn’t know either what to do or how he was called to help. And when you are sure there’s something you are called to do with a particular person or group but you aren’t sure what, then you should probably do what Paul did. Pray over it. Paul remained several days and he started to pray about what he was to do.

His first partner was a wealthy businesswoman named Lydia. She had some of her female colleagues with her when she met Paul. This group of women were God seekers, and clearly the Lord prompted Lydia to dialogue and listen to Paul. This partnership launched the church. And it was wild from that moment on. If you think Christ-centered partnerships are slow and easy, then think again. Sometimes they are wild and rocky. That might just be the evidence that God is in the middle of something significant in your life, in your partners’ lives, and more importantly in the lives of hundreds and even thousands of people who need to know or know more about Jesus.

An interruption impossible to ignore

Paul’s partnership with Lydia resulted in her baptism, and immediately she opened her home to Paul and his missionary partner Silas. Lydia also opened her checkbook to help fund Paul’s startup in her community. But they kept praying. We mustn’t make the mistake of praying about just where to go. We must continue to pray about how to do God’s work. As they left the house to go to their “place of prayer,” they met a slave girl with a spirit of divination who started following and actually annoying or interrupting both their prayer time and their strategic planning. And maybe God will use some sort of interruption to clarify the work you do for Him with your partners.

This poor woman was in bondage both to an evil spirit but also to a man who kept her enslaved to him so he could make money off of her fortune-telling. Eventually Paul cast the evil spirit out of the woman, setting her free but making her owner mad enough that a riot started. That incident resulted in Paul and Silas landing in jail and chained together with other prisoners. This might be the moment you would guess Paul thought he had the wrong business plan. It turns out it was all a part of God’s strategy for launching a new kingdom venture in Philippi. Your rocky start or what appears to be a crisis might actually just be the catalyst for an impactful Kingdom enterprise.

A beginning unwise to forget

As Paul wrote to this special group of faith partners he couldn’t help but remember those first rough and rocky days. But he also was filled with joy and gratitude that this group had become his prayer and funding partners, even from a distance and while Paul was once again under house arrest waiting trial for doing the very thing God called him to do.

Paul’s gratitude and joy was less about himself and his own situation and more about the fact that God had started something in the life of the Christians in Philippi, and he was certain God would finish this good work in and through them.

So take a minute and thank God for your spouse, your business partners, your church community, and your friends. God brings us into life together not only to bless us, but that through us He might finish the work of renewal and restoration he has started.

Until you lock arms with someone in Heaven there is still a good work that needs to be completed nearby. And it probably involves some old and some new partnerships God has or will soon reveal. Our job is to pray, to love each other deeply, and to see what God might be stirring up next for us to do together that will bring Him glory!

Your time with God’s Word
‭‭Philippians‬ ‭1:3-11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

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