The Gospel is our Partnership Linchpin – Philippians
The Gospel is Our Partnership Linchpin
Together Church | Pastor Brandon Werner
February 8, 2026 | Series: Philippians
INTRODUCTION
Last week, we learned that the Apostle Paul shared a very significant and meaningful partnership with the Philippian church. Their partnership created a deep affection in Paul for this church… so deep that he expressed it like this in the opening of his letter to them…
Philippians 1:1-5
1 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
In those verses, we saw there were at least four things that formed the foundation, the framework, of Paul’s meaningful partnership with this church.
The right partnerships are formed between…
- Partners who are bondservants of Jesus Christ
- Partners who view each other as saints
- Partners who are united under biblical leadership
- Partners who operate in the grace and peace of God
Last week, we covered WHO we should partner with.
But WHAT the basis for our partnership with other believers should ultimately be.
Today, we’re going to learn what was the linchpin of Paul’s partnership with the Philippians church.
“Linchpin” refers to the essential element that holds everything together — the person, idea, or component without which the whole system falls apart. Every semi-truck pulling a trailer has a linchpin.
BODY
What is the linchpin of our partnership? Here it is in verses 3-5…
Philippians 1:3-5
3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,
4 always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy,
5 for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now….
Do you see it? It’s in verse 5:
“your partnership in the gospel” That is the Linchpin!
The linchpin of Paul’s partnership with the Philippian church was their partnership in the gospel.
It wasn’t because they were culturally and socially aligned or because they agreed on everything… they were partners in the gospel.
What does Paul mean when he says “gospel”?
The word “gospel” was first used in the New Testament books that we call the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Have you ever considered why these four books are called the gospels?
They are called the gospels because each book proclaims the euangelion (you-an-GEL-ee-on) — the “good news” about Jesus Christ. These books are called gospels because they contain the written accounts of Jesus’ life, death, burial, and resurrection.
And “gospel” is the word Paul chose to use in eleven of his thirteen letters to describe the purpose of His mission.
Paul lived to proclaim the gospel: the good news of Jesus Christ.
That mission is reflected in Paul’s writings: the term “gospel” appears more than seventy times in his epistles to the churches, and it appears nine times in this letter to the Philippian church.
When Paul used this term, what did he mean?
What do his writings reveal?
For Paul, the gospel was…
- Transactional: the work Jesus performed to pay for the sins of sinners.
One of many places Paul describes the transactional element of the gospel is in…
1 Corinthians 15:1-4
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures
The work Jesus did to atone for our sins is transactional. We all have a sin debt to pay. The wages of sin is death. Jesus died to pay that debt, satisfying the justice of God, so that our sins could be forgiven.
That’s transactional. Jesus initiated the transaction with the price of His blood so that my sins could be forgiven and I could be redeemed.
I’ve made a lot of transactions in my lifetime, but this is by far the absolute best exchange I’ve ever made: my sins for His forgiveness, paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ.
The gospel is transactional, and when Paul spoke of the gospel, he was talking about this transaction.
But that’s not all.
For Paul, the gospel was also…
- Transformational: the work Jesus performs immediately in sinners who believe in Him to give them new life.
Transaction changes my status and pays my sin debt
Transformation changes who I am and gives me new life
One of many places Paul describes the transformational work of the gospel of Jesus is in…
Romans 6:1-4
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
As wonderful as forgiveness of sins truly is, it was not enough to God that Jesus would just pay the transaction so our sins could be forgiven…
Jesus died and rose again to transform us by giving us new life!
If you are a believer in the gospel, Paul says…
- You are a new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5)
- Your old man is dead, and you are the new man (Col 3)
- You are no longer a slave to sin but you are now a slave to righteousness (Rom 6)
- You are a saint and a holy one of God (Phil 1, 1 Cor 1)
- You are part of a new human race that now defines every aspect of who you are (Eph 2)
- You have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness and are now a citizen of the Kingdom of God (Phil 3, Col 1)
This is the glorious gospel Paul preached!
It wasn’t just transactional; it was also transformational.
We present the whole gospel when we proclaim both parts.
This whole gospel was and is the linchpin, the constitution, the binding agent that holds believers together in partnership.
And this is the only linchpin that will work. No other linchpin can hold together the kind of partnership God wants His church to experience with Him and with one another.
The gospel is our linchpin… is it your linchpin?
The linchpin of Paul’s partnership with the Philippian church was not their fellowship in…
- Social justice issues or political concerns.
- Church liturgy, traditions, or song selections.
- Their beliefs about the laws of Moses.
- Their understanding of election and free will.
- Their understanding of end time events.
- Their form of church government.
The linchpin of Paul’s partnership with the Philippian church was not in any of those beliefs that have led to the formation of multiple exclusive denominations of churches.
The linchpin to their partnership was the gospel!
Once you understand what the gospel actually is, you can see why replacing it as the linchpin always leads to division.
In fact, a great tragedy has happened to the church in every generation of church history.
That tragedy was inspired by Satan to divide and detour the church from its primary mission – which is the gospel mission of the Apostle Paul.
This is the tragedy:
Christian men and women have made another cause the linchpin of their Christian fellowship besides partnership in the gospel.
As a result, the church of Jesus Christ has been tragically divided throughout history:
- You can even see it in the first century church in the church at Corinth. The church at Corinth was divided because many people in the church had traded fellowship in the gospel for other causes (“I’m of Paul,” or “I’m of Apollos”)
- The apostle John identifies churches in the book of Revelation that chose this path.
- This tragedy is visible in the early church fathers and divisions they experienced.
- And it has repeated itself in every generation of the church.
Because of this tragedy of division, sincere followers of Jesus whose primary mission is the proclamation of the gospel have been cast out or driven out of churches and denominations of churches over issues that are not essential to the gospel!
And a countless number of believers have left their partnership with gospel centered churches because they are deceived to believe there is a greater cause than the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Billions of dollars of charitable gifts have been spent along with unmeasurable amounts of man hours on causes unrelated to the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
As a result, we currently live in an age in the church in America where so many church members are transient, moving from church to church for the wrong reasons. These miss out on a depth of maturity that comes from linchpin partnerships in the gospel.
The reality is that most Christians grow old and die without ever experiencing the kind of gospel partnership that Paul had with the Philippian church. What a tragedy! What a scheme by our enemy.
Through deception, Satan convinces many believers to pull the linchpin of gospel partnership.
When that happens, division isn’t just possible, it’s inevitable.
- Some pull the linchpin because there is a root of pride, and it is their way to be first among others.
They are like James and John wanting to be elevated above others in Mark 10.
They are like the Pharisees that Jesus pronounced seven woes upon in Matthew 23 because of their hunger for power and their hypocrisy.
They are like Diotrephes, whom the Apostle John writes about, in…
3 John 9
I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority.
All these are examples of people who fell into the deception of pride and took up the wrong cause because of their deception.
- For some, it is a root of bitterness.
Bitterness usually begins when someone is wounded. It could have been in the church. It could have been over a social or domestic issue. It could have been in a specific tradition or denomination. Whatever it was, their pain gave way to bitterness, and our enemy used the bitterness to deceive them into taking up the wrong cause.
Bitterness caused the older brother in the parable of the lost son to lose sight of the will of the father. In Acts 8, Peter says Simon the Sorcerer had a root of bitterness that blinded him – and his blindness caused him to desire power more than being the right kind of partner in the gospel.
- For some, it’s a root of idolatry.
Specifically, it is the idolatry of people pleasing for acceptance.
There’s always a trendy cause to take up. Some take up the wrong cause because they just wanted to be accepted by certain people; and they realize that the only way to be accepted is to take up their cause.
This happens constantly in politics and social issues…
“Denounce this thing or unfollow me!”
“Post your support of this thing or unfollow me!”
“Vote for my candidate or you’re not my friend.”
“If you voted for this person then you hate me and I am ‘drawing a boundary’ to remove you from my life.”
The need to be accepted can easily become an idol that pulls the linchpin right out of gospel partnership.
A root of idolatry can deceive even the most mature believers into taking up the wrong cause. It even happened to the Apostle Peter and Barnabas in Galatians 2! Both were racially influenced, stopped eating with the Gentiles, and started segregating with the Jews all because they wanted to be accepted by the circumcision party.
Paul had to confront them because he knew their behavior was “not in step with the truth of the gospel” (Gal 2:14).
So, it could be a root of pride, bitterness, or idolatry. Or…
- For many spiritual infants and children, taking up the wrong cause is simply due to spiritual ignorance.
It is an ignorance that causes some who are immature to think that something other than the gospel has the power to address the brokenness of the human condition.
This is one primary reason why Christians in America cannot be in good favor on all issues with any one political party.
American politics on both sides looks to social issues as the solution to human brokenness and a better world.
The only hope for the social problems of this world is the gospel.
Jesus understood this. Paul understood this.
That’s why, in all the scriptures, you will never find Jesus or Paul treating social issues as the solution to the human condition.
What you will find is both of them using social issues as a catalyst to create awareness of sin and point people back to the only viable solution for sin and brokenness in this world… the gospel!
You’re not going to solve social problems
Just by providing the right education options
Or by simply electing better politicians
You’re not going to resolve social issues
Just through better welfare programs for the poor
Or more government involvement with the sick
Social problems are only resolved when God changes the hearts of people. And Jesus said the only hope we have for that change to occur is the gospel of the Kingdom of God!
I’ve got opinions on social issues, as I’m sure you do.
And we should.
We should think deeply.
Training our minds to think biblically.
We should have incredible empathy for those who are suffering.
Empathy that leads us to act in love.
We should care about what is happening in our world.
At the same time, one of the most divisive things I could do in the body of Christ is stand up here and take up one of these social causes as the linchpin for our unity and partnership in the gospel.
Don’t ask me to lead our church to partner in a cause that is not the gospel. I won’t do it! Pulling the linchpin is divisive.
Now, we will hold the line on morality. You’ve heard us do it many times from this pulpit and we will continue that practice.
Increasingly, certain moral issues are being labeled social issues. When that happens, we hold the line on those things that belonged to the church and to God long before American politics interfered.
But even those moral issues are not allowed to be the linchpin cause. They will serve as catalysts that remind us of the devastation of sin and that the gospel is the only cure!
If we are immature in our understanding of why the gospel is the only linchpin that can unite the church, we become very susceptible to divisive behaviors and easily led astray.
Without the linchpin of the gospel…
- You’ll be an easy mark for some leader who uses rage bait or appeals to your emotions to get you to take up the wrong cause.
- You’re an easy target for some church leader who offers you sanctification through some means other than the gospel.
- You will easily trade a partnership in with others in the gospel for a partnership in other causes.
- Instead of being like the man who sold all that he had to buy a field so he could have one precious pearl, you’ll trade that pearl for some lesser cause.
Don’t do it!
Don’t take the enemy’s bait.
Tell every other cause to take a back seat to the cause of Christ and His gospel. Be like Jesus and Paul and see these social issues as catalysts for the gospel and reminders to passionately proclaim the gospel and to make more disciples of Jesus Christ.
If we do that, what could happen?
CONCLUSION
What happens when Christians set aside all the wrong causes and make the gospel their linchpin for partnership?
Billy Graham was perhaps the most influential Christian leader in America in the 20th century. His linchpin was the gospel. What happened? Christian leaders in all cities across America laid down their denominational differences and came together to sponsor city wide crusades. As a result, it is estimated that more than 2.2 million people made a decision for Christ during his crusades worldwide; with a significant portion of those decisions happening in the United States.
What happens when Christians set aside all the wrong causes and make the gospel their linchpin for partnership?
In 2010, Pastor Jerry returned as Senior Pastor after an 18-month sabbatical. When he came back, it was with a firestorm to make the gospel and discipleship the linchpin for partnership in our church. It was a major change of identity for us. Initially, a host of people left. But a remnant remained and a depth of maturity grew in our partnership in the gospel. The result? From 2010-2020, our church saw 330 baptisms in ten years; a totally that greatly outpaced the number of baptisms we saw under Pastor Jerry’s leadership from 1984-2009 in the first 25 years at our church.
What happens when Christians set aside all the wrong causes and make the gospel their linchpin for partnership?
Ministries like Reaching Souls International are born. Forty years ago, they set out with a mission: reach the maximum number of people for Christ in the least amount of time in the most efficient way. Our church partnered with them from nearly day one. We are the longest standing partnering church and the church that has contributed the most to their ministry in their history. But we aren’t their only church partner: several from multiple denominations support Reaching Souls. How are those partnerships working out? Reaching Souls has seen over 136 Million people make decisions for Christ in just forty years. Now that’s a partnership I can get excited about.
What happens when Christians set aside all the wrong causes and make the gospel their linchpin for partnership?
Instead of being distracted by social issues, we’ll see social issues as a catalyst for gospel partnership.
- Instead of starting up a new ministry to help addicts, we’ll partner with Hope Is Alive because they are partners in the gospel. Together, we us addiction recovery as a catalyst to offer the real solution: transformation through the gospel.
- And instead of starting up a new school just to provide education, we’ll partner with young leaders like Marisa and Josiah with Eden Academy because they are partners in the gospel. We’ll help launch a school that uses quality education as a means to share the gospel with families and children in this community.
When the gospel is the linchpin, identifying needs and serving others becomes a means to sharing the gospel, which is exactly what we see in the life of Jesus.
And lastly, what happens when Christians set aside all the wrong causes and make the gospel their linchpin for partnership?
Well, Paul goes into a Gentile-dominated, Hellenistic city with no known local contacts to present the gospel to people with radically opposing views. But he leaves with a gospel partnership with people who are among his greatest supporters and allies throughout his entire ministry… all because the gospel became their linchpin.
The question for all of us right now is, “Will we be like the Philippian church and be a faithful partner in the gospel that Paul preached?”
Will you put away pride, bitterness, idolatry, and spiritual ignorance that could lead you take up other causes? Will you so treasure the gospel that you will forever be partners in the proclamation of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ?
INVITATION
For that to happen, you must…
- Receive Jesus and be born again of the Spirit of God.
- Repent of pride, bitterness, and idolatry that will lead you to be partners with others who have the wrong cause.
- Commit yourself to treasure the gospel more than you treasure anything else in your life.