A Little Letter – A Lot of Gospel

Good morning. Pleasure to be
here with you this morning. Our desire is to bless and encourage
you. I can tell you I’ve already been
encouraged by the time I’m singing in prayer this morning. I really
appreciate that. Thank you. Tell you just a little bit about
us. My name is Matt Layton. I grew up in Georgetown. All
of you probably know where that is. We came down from Georgetown
this morning, about two hours. And I showed up a little late
because even though I’m from Colorado and I’ve been to Fort
Collins many times, I missed the turn off on I-25 and we were
on I-76 and we had to go I don’t know how far to finally turn
around and make it back. But by God’s grace, we’re here.
And my wife, Nuria, is from Barcelona. So she’s Spanish, although if
you want to be on her good side, you have to ask her how things
are going in Catalonia. Because Catalonia is the province
in Spain in the Northeast. corner and they have their own
language. So my wife is bilingual. She’s
trilingual. She speaks English too. But she
grew up speaking Catalan first and Spanish second. And if you’ve
been following it all in the news, Catalonia wants to be independent
from the rest of Spain. And maybe we’ll talk more about
that in the Sunday school hour. So when you greet her afterwards,
ask her how things are in Catalonia and her face will light up. We
met in 1995. I went to Spain initially with
Campus Crusade for Christ. And we met at a Christmas party
in 1995. I’d only been there for about two weeks. And somebody
introduced us because my Spanish was poor, my Catalan was nil,
and her English was quite good. So we hit it off right away.
A year and a half later, a year and eight months actually, a
little longer, we were married. We’ve been married for 15 years,
and we have five children. Dan and John are in the back.
They’re 11 and 9. And the other three, Tonya, our
daughter, is 7. Alex is 3, and Mark is a year
and a half. And they’re all in the nursery
probably dismantling it. So we’re happy to be here with
you this morning. This is actually our third visit.
We came 10 years ago for the first time. We just showed up.
And we’re actually sent to Spain by a fire church in California,
Grace Bible Church in Escondido. And since I’m from Colorado,
we were here during the summer. This was in 2002 before we went
back to Spain after I graduated from seminary. We thought, we’ll
come visit the fire church in Port Collins. And so we met Ron
then. And I came back in November of
last year and Ron was still in Romans. So we were encouraged
to see that he takes Romans seriously. And this is our third time back.
So it’s a pleasure to be here with you. I have to confess a
certain feeling of inadequacy. I spoke to Ron on Thursday about
your week and how things have gone and the passing of Mike.
And I have a message this morning from Philemon and strategically
maybe it’s not the best message. Maybe it would have been better
to preach from Romans 8 28 although you were probably there recently. Talk about God’s sovereignty
the comfort that we find in his sovereignty and his love. I could
have maybe preached a sermon like Ron prayed this morning
about taking advantage of the days that God gives us here in
this life to serve impassionately. And I’m going to preach to you
about Philemon. Philemon is really about forgiveness. So It’s not
maybe the most appropriate sermon for the way things have gone
through this week. But one of the reasons why we missed the turn off on
the way down is because I was actually talking to my wife about
this very thing. And one of the things that we’re
reminded of is that Kuailemen fundamentally is about the gospel.
And the gospel is good for us every day. It doesn’t matter
what circumstances we find ourselves in. We need to hear the gospel.
We need to preach the gospel to ourselves. We need to be preaching
it to each other. So my desire this morning is
that the Lord will meet each and every one of us where we’re
at and minister to our needs, our particular needs and bless
us and encourage all of us through our time thinking about Philemon
together. So if you want to open your Bibles
to Philemon, It’s right after Titus, right before Hebrews.
It’s a very unusual biblical book for two reasons. It’s very
short. It’s the third shortest book
in the Bible. The other two that are shorter, anybody know? Second
and third John. That’s right. So it’s, to begin
with, 25 verses, fills up one page. You can go home today and
say we did a whole book of the Bible in the church, which is
That’s a good thing too. It’s short, but I think what
makes it even more unusual is that it’s highly personal. So
Paul does write other letters to individuals. He writes to
Timothy and to Titus, but when you read through Timothy and
Titus, you realize that those letters are about public matters.
They’re about order in the church, they’re about worship, and there’s
actually indications in 1st, 2nd Timothy and Titus that those
letters were supposed to be read out loud in the congregation.
But Philemon’s really not like that. Philemon is kind of a personal
note of correspondence, and it has to do really with three people. There’s this triangle of relationships. Paul, of course, who’s writing,
his friend Philemon, who receives the letter, and the letter’s
titled after his name, and this runaway slave named Onesimus. That’s really what it’s about.
I don’t know that it was read out loud in the church that met
in Philemon’s house or not, but it’s in our Bibles. So I think
the first question we have to ask is, what is this really short
personal note of correspondence doing in what’s the Constitution
for the Church of Jesus Christ? And what are we supposed to do
with it today, 2000 years after it was written? Well, historically,
that question has been answered in different ways. Some people
have thought that Philemon is a treatise about slavery. It’s God’s definitive word about
slavery against slavery or perhaps for it. We’ll talk more about
that a little bit later. That’s one option. We could take
Philemon that way. That’s what we’re supposed to
do with it. We’re supposed to understand the institution of slavery. Or
I think probably the most common answer is that in Philemon we
have sort of a moral example. There’s an example of forgiveness
of reconciliation and an implicit exhortation. This is what the
Lord wants us to do. I think that’s how most people
take it. And I think there’s a lot of truth in that. But I
would suggest to you this morning that there’s actually more in
Philemon than just a moral example. More than just a commandment
for us to forgive each other. There’s something more fundamental.
In Philemon we see the reasons why we ought to forgive one another.
And what is it that enables us and motivates us to forgive one
another, even when we’ve offended each other very seriously. So,
I was reading the commentary as I was preparing for this message,
and a commentator said that Philemon is like a parable of the gospel.
Isn’t that interesting? He said it’s a parable of the
gospel. I think that’s a really good
way to describe it, because what I think we see in Philemon is
the gospel, the power of the gospel, to transform lives, specifically
repairing and restoring broken relationships. So I suggest to
you this morning that that’s what Philemon’s about. With that
thought in mind, we’re going to read it and then we’ll talk
about the storyline about the plot. So I left my Bible at home
as we left before seven o’clock this morning in a big rush. I
was going to read from the English Standard Version. I see this
New King James. This is good. Because the new King James, out
of all the versions I’ve seen, is the only one that gets verse
six right. Verse six is really important. So there’s a hint.
As we read through this, we’ve got to pay special attention
to verse six. So it reads like this, Paul, a prisoner of Christ
Jesus and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved friend
and fellow laborer, to the beloved Aphia, Archippus, our fellow
soldier, and to the church in your house. Grace to you and
peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank
my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing
of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus
Christ, Lord Jesus, and toward all the saints, that the sharing
of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgement of every
good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. For we have great
joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints
have been refreshed by you, brother. Therefore, though I might be
very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for
love’s sake I rather appeal to you, being such a one as Paul,
the agent and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ, I appeal to
you for my son Onesimus, whom I’ve begotten while in my chains,
who was once unprofitable to you, but is now profitable to
you and to me. I’m sending him back. You therefore
receive him. That is my own heart. whom I
wish to keep with me that on your behalf he might minister
to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent I wanted
to do nothing that your good deed might not be by compulsion
as it were but voluntary. For perhaps he departed for a
while for this purpose that you might receive him forever no
longer as a slave but more than a slave as a beloved brother
especially to me. But how much more do you both
in the flesh and in the Lord. If then you count me as a partner,
receive him as you would receive me. But if he’s wronged you or
owes you anything, put that on my account. I, Paul, am writing
this with my own hand. I will repay, not to mention
to you that you owe me even your own self besides. Yes, brother,
let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the
Lord. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing
that you will do even more than I say. But meanwhile, also prepare
a guest room for me, for I trust that through your prayers I shall
be granted to you. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ
Jesus, greets you, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my
fellow laborers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with your spirit. Amen. OK, well, the first thing
we have to do is retrace the story. the plot, try to put it
together as much as we can from the details that we have in this
letter and also the letter to Colossians to the Colossians.
Philemon was a good guy. He had a house and in that house
they had church meetings. So that’s verse two. Philemon
probably was pretty well off because in the ancient Mediterranean
world, houses were small and not that there was a megachurch
meeting in his house with thousands of people, but certainly there
were dozens of people meeting there. His house would have been
unusually large in order to have that kind of a meeting. We also
see that Paul commends him because through him, the hearts of the
saints had been refreshed. Verse seven, that’s probably
economically, he’s probably helping out the poor people in the congregation. He’s a good guy. He’s got at
least one slave by the name of Onesimus who one day decides
he’s going to make a run for it. And he takes off. He bolts. And before he leaves, he helps
himself to some of Philemon’s stuff. We deduce that from verse
18 because what does Paul say? If he owes you anything, charge
it to my account and I’ll pay for it. Onesimus probably owed
Philemon. for the things that he had stolen
from him. The reason why he stole is because this was really common
in the ancient world. Slaves would take off. They’d
run away. And of course, they didn’t have
any resources or any money, and they usually had to try to go
far to escape from their masters. He probably stole so that he’d
have enough money to pay for his journey. We know a little
bit about slaves running away in the ancient world because
historians have discovered this pretty detailed legislation from
the first century about how to deal with fugitive slaves once
they were found. And the punishments could be
very harsh, all the way to execution. A fugitive slave that was captured
usually was punished very harshly. So the slaves, when they left,
they had to find some sort of a strategy for survival. Most
slaves would run as far away as they could to another country,
maybe to a big city where they could try to get lost in the
population. Other slaves looked to find refuge with an important
person who they thought maybe could intercede for them or help
them. We don’t know when Onesimus first took off, we don’t know
what he was thinking, but what we do know is that he ends up with
Paul in Rome. Now, maybe he went to Rome because
it was a big city and he thought he could lose himself there.
How does he end up with Paul? Well, maybe the authorities caught
him and they threw him in jail close to where Paul was. God’s
sovereign, that could have happened. I think it’s more likely that
Onesimus, while he’s running, he starts to come to his senses.
He realizes he’s in trouble. He knows Paul is in prison and
he goes to find him, hoping that Paul can help him. However it
was, he ends up with Paul. While he’s there, Onesimus is
converted. How do we know that? There’s
this really interesting language in this letter. You know, this
letter is full of, it’s very rich. For as short as it is,
I think you could preach three or four sermons easily out of
this letter. One of them would have to do
with Christian fellowship. And it would be based on this
language that Paul uses, this family language. He says two
things about Onesimus. First, he says, in my imprisonments,
I begat him. Or, depending on your translation,
I became his father. Now obviously it’s not biological. What he’s saying is I preach
the gospel to Onesimus and under my ministry he came to Christ. He became a believer. But isn’t
this interesting because when Paul talks to Philemon there’s
no indication that Philemon wouldn’t have been anything but a great
Christian testimony. He’s a good guy. In this letter
he’s a good guy. He’s one of Paul’s dearest friends
from what we can deduce from the letter. So Nesimus all these
years is serving Philemon his Christian master who’s giving
him a great testimony. Not only that he’s in the house
he’s serving in the house where the church meets he’s hearing
sermons potentially he heard Paul preach Colossians 2. You
can look and see if you think that Paul was in Colossae before
he wrote the letter or not. But He had all these opportunities
to believe in Jesus Christ while he was with his Christian master,
and it wasn’t until he ran away and he hit rock bottom that he
finally surrendered and believed. Isn’t that interesting? That
happens maybe to all of us in certain areas of our lives. We
have to hit rock bottom before we’ll finally rest in the Lord,
before we’ll finally trust him in his goodness. Well, anyhow,
he becomes a Christian. Paul says, I engendered him,
I became his father. And then he says, Onesimus, my
son. He calls him his son. Who else
does Paul call his son? Timothy, right? First Timothy.
Paul calls Timothy his son. Now that we understand because
Timothy is a believer from the time of his youth. He’s a disciple
of Paul. Paul mentors him. They work together
closely. And Timothy actually becomes his successor. Not as
an apostle, but as ministerially in Ephesus. So we can understand
why Paul would call Timothy his son, but why would Paul call
Onesimus runaway, fugitive slave on the bottom rung of the social
ladder? Why would Paul call him his son?
Isn’t that counter-cultural? It’s counter-intuitive. Well,
the thing about it is, now that Onesimus is in Jesus Christ,
he believes in Jesus just like Timothy does. He’s part of a
new creation, that new creation that enters history now. And
in heaven, Timothy and Onesimus are on the same footing, equally
worthy, being in Jesus Christ, equally deserving to be in God’s
presence because of what Jesus had done for them, fulfilling
all righteousness. And so Paul can call Onesimus his son, just
like Timothy, because in heaven, all the social distinctions between
the two of them are going to be eliminated and erased. So
there’s this family language. Isn’t this interesting? And Paul
appeals. This is important because Paul
appeals to Philemon. He says, Oh, Nesimus is my son. He’s become a Christian with
me. Remember, you became a Christian with me, too. You owe me your
very self. Isn’t that interesting? Verse 19. See, Paul, he’s appealing
to Philemon. He wants Philemon to forgive
Nesimus and he doesn’t want to twist his arm. He doesn’t want
to obligate him. In this letter, Paul, unlike
other letters, he doesn’t say, I, Paul, the apostle. So he doesn’t
come out and just pull rank on Philemon and say, I’m an apostle.
I’m going to tell you what to do. You better forgive Onesimus
or, no, he says, I want you to forgive Onesimus, but I want
you to do it for the right reasons. I want you to do it for Christian
reasons. And one of them is fellowship. Now, Onesimus and Philemon, they’re
not just master and slave, they’re brothers in the Lord, you see.
And what’s interesting is, so that’s the question. Is Onesimus
a Christian? Paul says yes. How does Paul
know that? How does Paul know that Onesimus
has been converted? Certainly Onesimus told him,
I believe in Jesus. But how’s Paul so sure? Well,
think about it. Paul’s a weirdo in the ancient
Mediterranean world. I mean, he’s wacky. He’s in jail
because he’s preaching about this Jewish prophet who died. And some people called Christians
say he rose again. And Paul is so passionate about
it. He doesn’t care if they throw him in jail. He’s going to keep
preaching about this guy. Paul’s crazy. To most people. Why is Onesimus voluntarily staying
in Rome to serve Paul? Why is he staying there? To serve
this guy that everybody else thinks is wacky, the only explanation
is that Onesimus believes in that Jewish prophet who died.
And Onesimus believes that he rose again from the dead. And
Onesimus is willing to give his life for Jesus. And he’s there
serving Paul for Jesus’ sake. Onesimus has changed. There’s
this play on words that’s really interesting in the letter. Onesimus
means, I don’t know if, let’s see if there’s, here in this
version it doesn’t say, maybe in some of your versions if The
first time Onesimus appears, there’ll be a little letter or
a number, a little raised number, and that indicates there’s a
footnote. And the footnote will tell you that Onesimus means
useful. So, it’s likely that when Philemon acquired him, however
he got him, he changed his name. That was really common. The owners,
when they got slaves, they would change their names to break with
their old identity, and now there’s a new identity as a part of the
family that that slave was going to serve. So likely, Philemon
buys Onesimus and he says, I’m going to change your name. Your
name is now Onesimus. You will be useful to me. But
what happens? Paul says a little bit farther
down in the letter, well, he was unprofitable, says the new
King James. He was useless to you, say other
versions, but now he’s become useful again. both to you and
to me. Do you see the play on words
there? Onesimus, useful, useless. I mean, imagine Philemon in his
house and he calls out to his wife, Apphia, hey, have you seen
useful? And she says, oh, come to think
of it, I haven’t seen him for a couple of days. And by the
way, the Blu-ray and the plasma are gone. And what does Philemon
say? He’s become useless. Paul says,
now he’s useful again. Why? Because God has changed
him. And now he’s, he was this runaway
fugitive slave. Now he’s serving Paul in prison
in his chains. And Paul’s real happy. Paul’s
happy to have him. He says, this is the translation
here’s a little bit weird, but he says in verse 12, I’m sending
him back. He’s sending Onesimus back to Philemon. You therefore
receive him. That is my own heart. That’s referring to Onesimus.
He’s saying Onesimus has become my own heart. He’s so dear to
me. Paul doesn’t want to send him back, but he has to, for
two reasons. First of all, because he doesn’t
own Onesimus, and so legally he’s got to send him back to
his owner. But secondly, now that Philemon and Onesimus are
both part of the same family, they’re both reconciled to God,
they have to start acting like they’re part of the same family,
and they need to be reconciled to each other. So Paul’s obligated
to send him back, for legal reasons and for spiritual reasons. Put
yourself in Onesimus’ shoes for a minute. You’ve got to go back
from Rome to Colossae. Anybody know how far that is?
Just guess. Round numbers. A thousand miles. It’s a thousand
miles. You can’t get on Southwest Airlines
and be there in a couple of hours. You can’t get in your car and
drive for a couple of days and get there. It’s going to take
him a long time to walk back. Not only that, while he’s walking
back, he’s aware the whole time that Philemon doesn’t have to
forgive him legally. Philemon would be legally a righteous
man if he punished Onesimus according to Roman law. He could punish
him, he could have him executed. So Onesimus goes back to Philemon,
not sure what’s going to happen. And from Philemon’s standpoint,
this isn’t easy either because Philemon’s got neighbors and
some of his neighbors probably have slaves. When they find out
that Onesimus gets back, what are they going to say? You know,
the neighbor leading over the fence, hey Phil, They call him
Phil. Phil’s better, isn’t it? Hey,
Phil, I heard Onesimus is back. What are you going to do to him?
Punish him. Go hard on him. Because if you
don’t, then my slaves are going to think that they can run away
and get away with it too. You see, the social pressure
that would have been on Philemon to not forgive Onesimus, but
to bring justice down on him. Paul knows this. Paul knows that
this is going to be really hard for Onesimus, and that’s why
he writes the letter. He intercedes. That’s what the letter’s about.
And the letter really reaches its climax in verses 17 and 18.
Paul says two things. In verse 18, he says, but if
he’s wronged you or owes you anything, put that to my account.
So again, as we said earlier, probably Onesimus had stolen
from Philemon when he ran away. And Paul knows that in order
for accounts to be settled, in order for justice to be satisfied,
maybe some payment needs to be made. And Paul offers because
Onesimus doesn’t have a portfolio. He doesn’t have resources. So
Paul says, if he owes you anything, I’ll pay for it. That’s verse
18. But I think for me, the most
striking verse is verse 17. Paul says, if you count me as
a partner, receive him as you would receive me. Notice what
he’s doing. He’s appealing to this relationship,
this friendship, this intimate, loving relationship that he has
with Philemon. And he says, receive Onesimus. Don’t just brush his offense
under the rug. Don’t just set it aside. When
he comes back to you, I want you to receive him with open
arms, just like you’d receive me. Do you see that? He’s asking
for there to be full forgiveness and full restoration. That’s
the petition. Did it work? Probably so. Imagine that Onesimus
goes back and says, you know, letter and receive him as you
would receive me. And Philemon says, none of that, off to the
gallows. I don’t think anybody would have kept the letter around.
Probably the letter was saved as a reminder of just a beautiful
display of God’s grace and reconciliation. And church tradition says that
Onesimus actually went on to be a church leader. There’s some
church tradition that says he was a bishop. Who knows? But
likely that’s why it’s in the Bible, because it worked. Paul’s
intercession worked, and Philemon forgave Onesimus. So after going
through that, we’re in a better position to ask the question
again, what are we supposed to do with this letter, and how
does it help us 2,000 years later? Is it a treatise about slavery?
I would suggest to you this morning that if it is, it’s not a very
good one. And the reason why I say that, I’m not criticizing
the inspired text, because I don’t think it’s about slavery. If
you go back and you read sermons from the 19th century, both in
the United States and in Great Britain, you can find preachers,
pastors, godly men, some people whose books we still read today,
in the North preaching from Philemon saying, God is in favor of abolition. Because look, what does Paul
say? Have him back as more than a slave, also as a brother. I
trust that you will do more than I ask. You see, Paul is insinuating
that Philemon give Onesimus his freedom. That’s God’s will, emancipation. But then in the South, then in
the South, again, guys in the same denomination would say,
look, in this letter, Paul’s got the perfect opportunity to
criticize the institution of slavery and to command Philemon
to give Onesimus and any other slaves he has their freedom,
and he doesn’t do it. So what is it? Well, I would suggest
to you this morning that this letter is just not about slavery.
I think Paul would have been against slavery in its form in
the first century and its form in the 19th century. They were
different, of course, but he would have been against all the
abuses just based on all this teaching about the image of God
and so forth. But it’s interesting, he doesn’t
take slavery as an institution on in his letters. What is he
saying, Colossians? He tells slaves, not to try to find their
freedom, but to serve their masters as if they were serving Jesus
Christ himself. Isn’t that interesting? And what does he say to masters?
He doesn’t command them to give slaves their freedom. He says,
be good masters, be good Christian masters. So Paul’s talking about
something else here. Is he giving us a moral example?
Is this just sort of an exhortation? Okay. You guys have offended
each other. Get out there and forgive. Just
do it. Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and this is the
Lord’s will that you forgive each other. Is that what he says?
Mike hinted at this earlier. He’s not trying to obligate Philemon. He wants Philemon to forgive
Onesimus, but he wants him to do it for the right reasons.
He wants him to do it because of Jesus Christ. So let’s think
about this for a minute. This is, I would say, a parable
of the gospel. I think we see in Philemon the power of the
gospel to transform people’s lives to restore broken relationships.
And I would suggest to you this morning that what Paul is doing
in this letter is he’s living consistently with the grace that’s
been shown him in Jesus Christ. And he’s asking Philemon to do
the same thing. It’s that simple. Paul is living. He really believes
that his sins are forgiven. And he’s living in a way that’s
consistent with that. And he’s asking Philemon to do
the exact same thing. Think about Paul for a minute.
We haven’t thought about Paul in all this. Where is Paul? Rome,
he’s in jail, house arrest, it might not have been the worst
conditions ever, but he’s got all kinds of problems. Now, I
might have said to Paul, Paul, why would you intercede? Why
would you take the time, take the trouble to intercede for
this runaway fugitive slave? He’s got all kinds of other things
to worry about. Why would you offer to pay for
what he stole? I mean, why would you do that?
I think the reason why he does it is because he is reflecting
the very thing that Jesus Christ had done for him. Paul’s intercession
is a mirror image of Jesus’ intercession for him before the Father. Think
about it. Paul was a fugitive too. Paul was running from God. Paul was racking up a debt of
sin he could never hope to pay. He was persecuting the church,
persecuting Jesus Christ himself. But what happened? Along came
the intercessor, the Lord Jesus Christ, who lived a life of suffering
in this fallen world that accumulated in his death on the cross. But
you see, when he was on the cross, 2 Corinthians 5.21 that we read
or sang this morning, I heard it, I don’t remember where it
was. He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us. He paid all
of Paul’s debt. And so he stands before the Father
and he says to the Father, if Paul owes you anything, charge
it to my account. I’ve paid it. But there’s more. Jesus led a life of perfect obedience. He didn’t sin one time. The only
human being in history that deserves to be in God’s presence. When
Jesus is raised from the dead and he’s exalted, he goes to
heaven not by grace. He goes there because he was
obedient. He’s worthy of being in heaven. Jesus is secure in
heaven, isn’t he? Is God ever going to send Jesus
away? No, because Jesus deserves to be there. And what does Jesus
say to God the Father? About Paul, 2 Corinthians 5,
21, he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become
the righteousness of God in him. What does Jesus say to the father
about Paul? Receive him as you would receive me. And so as Paul
is trusting in Jesus Christ, he’s clothed with Christ’s righteousness. He deserves to be in heaven because
of what Jesus did for him. Paul knows this. He believes
it. He really believes it. He believes that God is on his
side. He believes that God is looking out for him. And that’s
what frees Paul to quit looking out for himself and look out
for the interests of other people. You see that Paul’s living. He really believes the gospel,
you see, and it’s transformed his life. It’s made him radically
obedient. Obedient to the point of even risking his relationship
with Philemon when he says, have this fugitive slave back, receive
him as you would receive me. Maybe Philemon is going to get
mad at him. That’s risky, but he’s willing to do it. Why? Because
he knows that all his needs are met in Jesus Christ. And now
he’s free to love other people. That’s actually one of the three
or four sermons that we could preach from Philemon. But I wanted
you to see that Paul’s living consistently with the gospel.
He really believes it, and it’s transformed his life. And what
he’s asking Philemon to do is the exact same thing. Let’s go
to verse six. I told you verse six would be important. Spurgeon
said that verse six of Philemon is the hardest verse of the Greek
New Testament to translate into English. And here I am, I’m about
to make a big deal out of it. Sometimes you read it in English
and you’re like, what does this mean? Then you read it in Greek and
you’re like, what does this mean? Well, It’s actually not that hard to
understand. The versions do different things with it, but I think we
can see the main gist of it. Paul is praying, and he’s thinking
about sending Onesimus back, and he tells Philemon, I’m praying
for you, but I’m praying something really specific. So it starts
off, that the sharing of your faith, now that phrase there,
typically when we think of sharing our faith, we think of preaching
the gospel. to non-believers, we’re sharing our faith. I don’t
think that’s what it means here. Not that Philemon couldn’t have
been a great evangelist, but what Paul commends him for is
helping other people, probably economically. So this word sharing
could be translated as generosity, that the generosity of your faith,
Philemon is generous and Paul’s praying that he be even more
generous by faith. that the fruit of his faith,
he would be generous. If his generosity of your faith
may become effective, and here’s where I like the new King James,
by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in
Christ Jesus. What’s he saying? I want you
to remember how generous God’s been with you. And I want you
now to be generous with Onesimus. And that’s my prayer. My prayer
is that God would make you freshly aware of every good thing that
you have in Christ Jesus. so that your heart will be softened
and so that you’ll be ready to receive back this brother, Onesimus. I want you to remember how much
you’ve been forgiven so that you’ll be willing to forgive
in turn. Now, if you think maybe I’m pulling
a lot out of that, let’s let’s confirm this. If you turn with
me to Colossians, this back, not too far, Colossians, Colossians
and Philemon, the two letters, probably arrived to Philemon’s
house at the same time. So the guy named Tychicus, we
read about him in Colossians 4, would have carried both the
letters, and it’s likely that Philemon read both of them on
the same day, or at least close to each other. In Colossians
chapter 3, it’s hard for me to read Colossians 3 and not think
that Paul had Onesimus in mind. when he was writing this in Philemon.
Colossians 3, starting in verse 12. Paul says, therefore, as the
elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies. Think
about this is Onesimus and Philemon needing to forgive him. Kindness,
humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering, bearing with
one another and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint
against another and then here it comes, even as Christ forgave
you, So you must also do. See the dynamic. You’ve been
forgiven. Now you forgive others. God has
been generous with you. Now you be generous to others.
So let’s pull this into a conclusion and some application. If you’ve
ever been really offended, I mean, if somebody’s ever hurt you deeply,
you know how hard it is to forgive. You know how hard it is to give
up feelings of bitterness, resentments, that desire to see justice come
down on the head of the other person, it’s really hard to forgive
somebody when you’ve been deeply hurt. How, how are we supposed
to forgive when it hurts so much? Paul does not say, as I said
earlier, he doesn’t say to Philemon, Just brush it under the rug so
that everybody can get on with their lives. He’s not just asking
Philemon to kind of have Onesimus back in the house and just get
on with life. No, he’s saying, receive him as you would receive
me as a dear brother, more than a slave. Now as a dear brother,
I want you to embrace him when he comes back. I want your relationship
to be better now than it was before. You see, if we’re able
to do that, that is such a fantastic testimony. And and our family
members or friends or whoever it is that maybe is on the outside
of the church sees that we’re capable of forgiving each other
even after deeply offending each other. They say that’s not normal.
How can you forgive that guy after he did what he did to you.
How do you even want to be around him and now you’re friends. That’s
that’s fruit of the gospel. That’s fruit of remembering how
much God is forgiving us. That’s what enables us to forgive
what are comparatively minor offenses. Paul doesn’t say to
Philemon, forgive him and you’ll feel better. I have to admit,
I think I’ve said that on a couple of occasions, fantastic biblical
counselor that I am. Jim Neuheiser needs to teach
me more maybe. It’s true, if you forgive somebody that’s hurt
you, you’ll feel better about it. But think about how selfish
that is. Okay, I’ll forgive you, but I don’t care about you. I
just want to feel better. That’s not what Paul’s saying.
He’s appealing to Philemon to forgive for Christian reasons. Like we said, I think Paul’s
prayer for Philemon is, I want you to feel really forgiven so
that you’ll feel forgiving towards Onesimus. That should be our
prayer too. The letter ends in verse 25.
This just doesn’t happen naturally. God has to do this in our lives.
He has to do this in our congregations. Look how Paul finishes the letter.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. You
know, I write so many emails every day and I sign it. I have
to admit, you put the, you know, in Christ or blessings or whatever
on the bottom and sometimes you don’t think about it. I think
Paul labored over this letter and he chose every word carefully.
And so this isn’t just how he signs his letters. He’s saying
something meaningful here. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with your spirit. It’s only by God’s grace that
we can really understand how much we’ve been blessed in Jesus
Christ. It’s only by his grace that our hearts will be softened
by those truths. And it’s only by his grace that
those truths in turn will transform our lives in such a way that
our congregations are blessed and the watching world sees a
testimony of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our
midst. So let’s pray that God would do that in our lives. Lord, we want to thank you again
for the scriptures and for all the different kinds of books
and letters that we have. And we want to thank you for
this little letter to Philemon that maybe the first time we
read it, we think, what are we supposed to do with this? But
yet it’s so rich. There’s so much there to encourage
us and bless us, to strengthen us and to transform us. And God, we pray that your grace
would be with us. that the Spirit would apply the words from this
letter that we’ve read this morning and the things that we’ve talked
about to change us, make us freshly aware of how generous and good
you’ve been with us so that we can be generous and good with
one another. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.