Have you ever stopped to consider that YOU are a partner with Christ in establishing the Kingdom of God.
When I think of partnerships, two types come readily to my mind-business and marriage. A business partnership is formed in order to attain a known objective, such as providing a service to the public at a profit for the partners. A marriage partnership is two people with common interests and values joined together to help one another reach the full potential that God has designed for each of them to achieve and to reproduce and create a microcosm of the relationship we have in Christ. In both a business and marriage partnership it is joining of the resources of the partners involved to achieve a common goal.
In the same way, the concept of a spiritual partnership implies that it is created with godly objectives, glorifying God and working to build His Kingdom. Just as we are united in a relationship, so we are all united in a partnership formed to glorify God by completing His work.
From the very beginning God planned that his creation would work somewhat in a partnership with Him. God created man to be co-workers with Him. In Genesis 1:26 God said “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let THEM rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Genesis 2:8, 15 says “Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
To say that we are equal partners with God would be wrong. Yet he invites us, even delegates work to us, to do kingdom work here on earth. Clearly, the partnership puts God in the dominant position, the Sr. partner, so to speak. Perhaps, similar to something like a partnership between Steve Jobs of Apple computers and a high school media specialist.
The story of Abraham in Genesis 18:16-33 illustrates God acting in partnership with his people. When God has determined to pass judgment over Sodom he states “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” God begins, as if recognizing that a valid partnership requires consultation before any major decision. Next, God unveils a plan to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He allows Abraham to know his plan and then allows Abraham to plead on their behalf. (Genesis 18:16-33).
In Philip Yancey’s book Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference he states that history is the story of God giving away power. After entrusting humans with the gift of free choice, God invited them to act as partners, even to argue and wrestle with the One who created them. Yet virtually everyone God picked to lead a new venture—Adam, Abraham, Moses, David—proved disappointing in part. Apparently God committed to work with human partners no matter how inept.
During his brief stay on earth, Jesus also demonstrated a partnership assembling a dozen flawed followers, to whom he handed over the keys of the kingdom of God. Think of the disciples, 12 ordinary men most were fishermen and one was a tax collector – Thomas was a skeptic whom many say had a bit of a gloomy personality and was easily discouraged; Peter was impulsive & strong willed; James & John nicknamed ‘Sons of Thunder’ had stormy personalities that were given to anger and quick judgments; Philip was slow to recognize Jesus; Matthew the tax collector likely had a poor reputation; Judas, was a betrayer.
These were men that exhibited weaknesses. They became afraid in a violent storm on the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 8:23-27). In Gethsemane they fell asleep when they had been asked to watch and pray (Matthew 26:40). They were indignant at Mary’s anointing Jesus with costly perfume (Matthew 26: 8). Like all of us, they suffered lapses of memory forgetting to bring food when crossing the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 16: 5). Jesus rebuked the disciples for their unbelief when He was casting out demons from a possessed child (Matthew 17: 15-20). On another occasion two of their number wanted to incinerate a town. (Luke 9:52-54)
With such flawed humans at the helm, it is hard to believe that the movement took off and the human partnership has not stopped since.
We are “God’s fellow workers,” the apostle Paul said (1 Cor. 3:9). We partner with God’s actions in the world. Paul states in 1 Cor. 1:9 “God who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord is faithful.” The Greek word Koinonia is generally translated as fellowship but can also mean joint participation or partnership. It seems to make sense in this verse as partnership: “God who has called you into partnership with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord is faithful.” Let’s think about this for a minute: If you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are in partnership with him – this means that all of your resources belong to him and all of his resources belong to you. He has a vested interest in you and your success. There is a mutual service. Christ not only knows about our weaknesses he is at work with us in our weakness to accomplish his goals.
The Bible speaks of Abraham and Moses as being friends of God, and of David as a man after God’s own heart. “You are my friends if you do what I command,” Jesus said, who then explained, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:5) Having shared the knowledge, Jesus now asks us to take up the partnership of God’s work on earth.
To summarize what true Christian fellowship is, relationship describes what we are, a community of people bound together by our common life that we share through our union with Christ. Partnership describes how we interact within that relationship—we are partners in a calling and an enterprise in which we are to work harmoniously with ashared purpose to achieve mutual objectives to glorify God and to do the work of Jesus Christ.
Do you think of yourself as Christ’s partner? Do you see yourself working with Christ to complete the good work he started? What difference does seeing yourself as a partner with Christ make in your daily life?