Let's turn now in our Bibles to the small Pauline letter to Philemon. There's only one chapter. So we'll be focusing this morning on verses four through seven of the letter to Philemon, but again, I want to read it in its entirety to us this morning. So, we have it before us. This is an amazing little letter and it has much to teach us about how we're to live in the Christian Church, how we're to be as members of the body of Christ and our interaction with one another. Philemon, let's give our attention to the reading of God's Holy Word. Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother. To Philemon, our beloved fellow worker, and Apphia, our sister, and Archippus, our fellow soldier, and the church in your house. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers because I hear of your love and the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and all the saints. And I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake, I prefer to appeal to you. I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus, I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. Formerly, he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and me. I'm sending him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep him with me in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel. But I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion. But out of your own free will for this, perhaps, is why he was parted from you for a while that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave as a beloved brother, especially to me. But how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord? So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. If he has wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it to say nothing of your owing me, even your own self. Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. Confident of your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say. At the same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously given to you. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Bow with me briefly in prayer. Father, we pray that as we come to hear from your word now that you might bless the reading of it and the preaching of it. We pray that you will speak to us through this means this morning. And that you will penetrate our hearts with the truth of your word. That you will convict us where we need to be convicted. That you will encourage us where we are discouraged and need that encouragement. And as we've. Just prayed a moment ago that you'll use your word. To further sanctify us and conform us into the image of Christ. God, we desire to be a biblical church in the church and a people that Truly, do not bear your name and take your name in vain, but bear the fruits of being your covenant people. So, Lord, we're dependent on you for life and fruit. So minister to us now, we pray. For we ask it in Jesus name, Amen. Well, it has been a bit of time and probably long enough since we took our initial look at this little letter of Paul's to Philemon to justify a bit of a review of what we saw in the first sermon. I'm guessing that most of you have either weren't here or have probably forgotten what it was that we considered in that first sermon. I want to do a quick review at this point of just a couple of things that we had established in the look at those first three verses here, and I've put a couple of those things at the top of your outline this morning. The first thing to remember as we begin to look at this next section, verses four through seven, is the overall basic thrust of the letter. And we saw that it is quite simply, at least at the at the outset, and really what this letter is. And we need to know just generally what's going on that it is. And you probably heard this as we read it this morning. This little letter is an appeal by the Apostle Paul to a man named Philemon. And Paul in this letter is asking this man Philemon to forgive and to receive back a runaway servant or slave named Onesimus. That's what the letter is about. It's from Paul to Philemon concerning this runaway named Onesimus. We considered why Why would such a personal letter be in the New Testament? I mean, what kind of benefit are Christian people throughout the ages to derive from such a personal and, in the right sense of the word, such an idiosyncratic letter? We're so far removed from things like slavery and the times that they lived in. How can we possibly benefit? And this is a rather intimate kind of a letter. Are we really supposed to be listening in on this? Why is this in the New Testament? That's been a question asked throughout the ages of the Christian church and we answered that at least partially by saying that this letter is in the New Testament because it is a clear And being clear, it's a beautiful picture of the mutual love and respect and humility that is to characterize the Christian church and is to be the stamp upon the shape of our relationships with one another. This is giving us a picture of what it is to look like as we dwell together as the body of Christ and as we relate to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. In other words there are lots of exhortations in the New Testament throughout the New Testament. We have these these general exhortations in the different epistles that go out to various churches. And we hear them as groups. We hear them as a church. That we are to show respect and humility towards one another. That we're to love and forgive one another. But here, in Philemon, we have an actual test case. We have this general call that goes out to us. We have it brought down and we have faces put on it. There are some individuals here who are being called to actually engage in and fulfill and do the specific things that are generally called for throughout the New Testament. And one of the beautiful things about this is that we see Paul himself, who is the one who generally, and maybe most often is the guy who puts out this call, he's the guy who's always telling everyone Love one another. Consider others higher than yourself. Humble yourself before one another. Forgive one another. Don't assert your rights. And here Paul is leading the way in this letter by doing just that. You see, Paul here is actually foregoing. You saw it as I read, particularly, you'll see that in verse eight and following Paul is forgoing his own apostolic authority, which would give him the right to command what he desires from Philemon and say Philemon as a as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are going to do this. Paul has put that aside so that and he humbled himself. He said Philemon I'm not going to say that because I want this to flow out of your own heart. I want this to come from your own free will that by your own volition you will you will be touched in the heart and your love will overflow towards Philemon or towards Onesimus. Onesimus is taking a great risk here as well. Onesimus is giving up his right. He's currently free. And yet he's going back. He's taking this letter. He's going back. He's risking just punishment. He's risking coming back under the thumb of servitude and maybe reengaging himself in a life of servitude. And so he's actually giving up his own self-interest as he's coming back. And Philemon is being asked to give up his legal rights as a slave owner. He's been defrauded. He's been wronged. And he has the right to exact some kind of retribution and recompense for this. He's in the position of, I was wrong. He was really wronged. He's not being asked to look at it a different way, kind of view it from a different vantage point. He really didn't wrong you. That's not what's being said. He really did wrong you. Philemon, you're being asked to forgive him, to lay down your own self-interest, to lay down your own rights, and to love and forgive Onesimus. You see, the gist of this is Master Philemon is being asked to treat slave Onesimus like an equal brother in Christ. That's what's going on here. Well, it's it's upon the back that background, then. That we can move forward to consider Paul's acknowledgement of Philemon's true faith in Christ, which has been so evidently manifested in his love for all the saints. And that's really what what Paul is getting at here as he begins the letter, he is going to acknowledge and affirm that Philemon, you have been showing the fruits of true faith in Jesus Christ. It's evident that God's spirit is working in you. It's evident that you love the saints. And that's what Paul is saying here in verses four through seven. But as we come into verses four through seven I need to at least let you know that this is a notoriously difficult section of the New Testament. I'm not at all intending to drag you behind all of the problems that face the interpreter when you come to this passage. When we read it in the English, it's a little difficult to understand even in English to kind of follow Paul's thought, but it's really a tough section in the Greek. And again, I just want to say that at the outset because there are some hard decisions that need to be made with interpretation as you go through this section. Let me just demonstrate this and put some some proof behind my assertion that it's a hard passage by just pointing out one example of the difficulties that come up in verses four through seven for us. I want you to notice back in chapter, I'm sorry, verses four and five. Notice Paul says there, I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints. OK, you might not have caught it there because it comes out. This is a very good translation of what's there in the Greek. But the issue here is that Paul has kind of just jumbled everything together. He hasn't separated love and faith like he normally does. Neatly into two categories. saying something that we would we we would normally expect Paul to say something like I have heard of or I thank God when I remember you in my prayers because I have heard of your faith in Jesus. One category and then and your love toward all the saints. There's the other part of it but rather he bundles them both and he seems to say that Philemon has both faith and love in Jesus and He has faith and love in the saints. Why is that a problem? Well, because we are never in the Bible called to put our faith in saints. That we put faith in other people. Rather, we're called consistently and always to love the saints. But to put our faith in Jesus Christ. Put our faith in God the Father. And so this is one of those issues that comes up here. Now, thankfully, Paul goes on here in verses six and seven, and he more clearly there connects faith with Christ. And love with the Saints. And knowing that, and also there's this one other thing that helps us. There are structures that the writers would use at this time. This is called a chiasm. What Paul is doing here is he's writing a chiasm. The beginning part of this phrase and the end go together and the two things in the middle go together. And so you can see there again when he says, I hear of your love, that love goes with the saints. Faith goes with Jesus Christ. But Paul has just sort of thrown all this together. He's speaking in what's called a kiosk structure. But then he breaks these things out and he explains them further in verses six and seven. Well, having seen that there are these hard matters to deal with some confusion, at least they present themselves as some kind of confusing things in the Greek. And frankly, that's just one that that we are going to look at or that we've seen here this morning. What we want to do now, though, is focus on the important matter of Paul's comments concerning Philemon's faith. That's really what we want to get to is what are the important things that Paul has said concerning Philemon's faith. And as Paul moves from the greeting to the greetings there in verses one to three to the actual body of the letter here he begins. I want you to see this that he begins with these four autobiographical notes concerning himself and we have those at the beginning of each of the verses that we're considering here. Look at the beginning of verse four. He says I think and then at the beginning of verse five he says I hear. The beginning of verse six, he says, I pray. And at the beginning of verse seven, he says, I have derived much joy and comfort. And so each of the verses he begins with this autobiographical statement of something that he is either doing or has done. But that he doesn't stop there. Every single one of those autobiographical actions that he claims to be doing or has done, every one of those are tied directly to Philemon. And he relates every single one of those actions to Philemon. Notice again, verse 4, I thank my God when I remember you, is what he says. Verse 5, when I hear of your love and faith, I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective. And verse 7, I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother. You see, Paul, right at the beginning of this letter, is seeking to edify and encourage and build up Philemon by telling him of some specific ways that he himself, that Paul himself has been edified and built up by Philemon's life of faith. In other words, there's this reciprocity going on. Paul saying, brother, you have encouraged me. And as I'm telling you this, I'm hoping you're encouraged by knowing that you've encouraged me. There's this mutual edification going up here. This is a going on here. This is a brother that Paul prays for and whose faith and love have brought Thanksgiving and joy and comfort to him. And thus, we are we're immediately struck with the the particular theme of this current section and really the theme of the whole letter. And that is Paul is saying, Philemon, our faith as believers in Jesus Christ, our faith is to manifest itself, is to break forth in the fruit of good works in our lives, and particularly that fruit is to be manifested in the relationships that we have within the body of Christ. Brother to brother, sister to sister, as the church gathers together, Our faith is actually to be manifested together as we bear fruit among ourselves as the body of Christ. That's the theme of this section. That's the theme of the whole passage. It's ultimately what Jesus said. They will know you're my disciples by your love for one another. And here is something. Rather ironic, as we stand back from this text a little bit, we can see Philemon is being asked in this little letter to keep doing what he has been doing. Paul is going to affirm you have been doing this, but now I'm asking you to do this. I'm asking you to keep doing what you've been doing. But now in relation to one who has really wronged you. And really, that's the rub of obedience right there. We tend to find it fine to love lovely people. It's fine to show kindness and gentleness and goodness In situations that do not require that we actually suffer in the giving of that love that we actually make a sacrifice of our own self-interest in that love. And here Philemon is being asked Philemon you have blessed so many people. I'm asking you now to extend that love and that blessing for the Saints. To this one Onesimus who has wronged you. Why is it that we tend to be so loving and we find it so easy to be loving to everybody else except those who have are from our own household, from the closest to us, the ones that rub us the wrong way. We find that such a challenge. To let love cover a multitude of sins, well, this is the gist of Paul's call to Philemon concerning Onesimus. As mentioned just a moment ago, there are many difficulties in this text, but verse six here is probably the most difficult of all. Where Paul writes, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. Again, I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. In isolation, if we were to take this verse and we remove it from the context here in Philemon, it sounds like Paul is praying that Philemon's evangelistic activity will be effective in bringing a full knowledge Of all the good things that are available in Christ to those who he is witnessing to. And as attractive as that thought is. I don't think that's at all what Paul means when he mentions the sharing of your faith. To Philemon here in verse 6. The word Behind the English translation, the sharing, the sharing of your faith, is that famous New Testament word for deep Christian fellowship. Many of you know the word, it's the word koinonia. That's what is behind this word sharing. Koinonia predominantly refers to the communion of the Saints. Koinonia predominantly refers to the fellowship and the self-sacrificial love that the church shows to one another. And therefore, notice here in our text, it's not surprising then that Paul mentions the Saints here in this short section two times. See it there in verse five First, Philemon's love for all the saints in verse 5, and then the fact that the hearts of the saints, verse 7, the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through him. And therefore, although our modern ears, when we read the phrase, the sharing of your faith, when we read that, when we hear the terminology, The sharing of your faith, we predominantly think of something that we do out there. And that's that's not that that's absolutely legitimate. That's the way we talk about it. That's the way we use that terminology when we go out evangelistically and we share our faith out there. But when we read it here, Paul's not talking about an activity that goes on predominantly out there. He's talking about an activity that predominantly is to be going on in here. This is where, from Paul's terminology here, the sharing of our faith is to take place. When Paul says that he is praying that the sharing or the communion or the communication of Philemon's faith will be effective for full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for Christ's sake. His point here is, is that he is hoping he's hoping that Philemon will know he will come to know experientially in a much more fuller way than he already knows. He will come to know the obedience of faith. The blessings of the obedience of faith. You see, throughout the New Testament, we have that that constant theme Faith without works is dead. A faith without works is a dead faith, and therefore it is not a true and a saving faith. Our faith is to produce fruits of righteousness. And the preeminent fruit that our faith is to produce is the fruit of love. Love for God and love for our brother. And as we commune with and as we love one another, the great mark of the Christian, that they will that they will know that you are my disciples by your love for one another. That is how we are literally fellowshipping in our faith. That's how the communion of the saints. That's that's the taking the cover off of it. And that's what communion of the saints looks like. That's how you share your faith among yourselves. And as we obey by loving one another, what happens is, is we gain by that that love and obedience that is manifested within the body, we gain a fuller, more experiential knowledge of the will of God. God calls us to this kind of love among ourselves. And when we obey, we actually experience the blessings of that obedience. We don't just know it on paper. Well, God says to do this. No, we say I've done that and I know the blessing of obedience when I love my brother, when I love my sister. That's all the good that God desires us to taste and walk in. And all the blessings of that full knowledge of every good thing, the blessings of obedience, they are ours to enjoy because of what has been done for us in Christ. I want you to look at that passage again, four through seven here, because what Paul is praying for here in relation to Philemon is that his faith will more and more issue forth in obedience. That's the sharing of his faith that Paul talks about here, that it will take shape. It will actually have tangible works. And the primary shape of that obedience is a self-sacrificial love for the saints. And love being the fulfillment of the law, when we walk in the law, when we walk in the obedience of faith, we experience and we come more and more to a fuller and fuller knowledge of all the goodness of the will of God. And we have all these blessings for the sake of Christ. That's what Paul means when he says, and I pray. I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. And this interpretation, I think, is confirmed by verse 7 as well. Look at verse 7 in relation to Verse six. He says, And I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ, because or for I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. In Paul's other letters and in other places, particularly a place like First Corinthians, Paul has made the point that because we are united to one another as the body of Christ, because we're united to one another when we sin, our personal sin affects the whole body. The analogy is that, you know, if I smash my finger with a hammer, I hurt because my finger is attached to my body. When I stub my toe, I am in pain because of the unity of the members of the body. My members are not isolated from the rest of my body somehow. What we need to see here, and something extremely exciting that Paul is saying here, is that on the flip side of that truth, on the flip side of that truth from the negative side, when we sin we affect the whole body. What Paul is saying here is that when we obey, because we are united to one another as the body of Christ, our individual obedience is a blessing and source of edification for the whole body. You see, Paul is saying here to Philemon, Look, I've derived much joy and comfort from the love that you have shown to these people over here. In other words, Paul was not the direct recipient of the love. The care Paul is saying, as you have loved the saints, I've been edified and built up by your expression of love to them. That's been a huge source of comfort and joy in my life. So Philemon's obedience, the sharing of his faith, the communion of the saints, which has refreshed the hearts of God's people is something for which Paul has been greatly edified and encouraged. That greatly edifies and encourages me, Paul says. And that is, here is this amazing truth that Paul is communicating here then in this little section. You might or might not remember we noted last week that God uses others in our lives to encourage us to do the right thing. So he surrounds us with a body to encourage us to do the right thing. We also learn that God uses the gospel in our lives to enable us to do the right thing. Well, here is a beautiful example of a gospel motivation for obedience instead of which Paul could have come in simply with the law and said, you need to do this Philemon instead of coming in with that kind of legal motive. You need to do this. You need to obey the call of love and forgive Onesimus. Instead of that, Paul is majoring on a gospel motive here. Paul is saying Philemon, when you obey as a fruit of your faith. You grow in your knowledge of the Lord Jesus and his will. And you bring great edification and joy and comfort to the rest of the saints. In other words, there's an exponential result to your obedience through it reverberates throughout the body of Christ. And that's the point of this section here. Faith working by love has this exponential effect in the body of Christ. The church is literally built up and refreshed by obedience. When each part does what it's supposed to do, it builds itself up in love. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter four. You see, you might sit here this morning and you might wonder, what are my gifts? What good can I do in the life of the congregation? I mean, I'm 12 years old or I'm a I'm a woman. I don't talk well. I'm not serving in an office. You might wonder and be tempted to think that, you know, I guess just the way I am, I have no impact on the church's life. My life. seems to be ineffectual in the grand scheme of things, because I don't really do anything. I don't I don't contribute to the church. Brothers and sisters, I want you to hear this this morning that that kind of thinking is absolutely not biblical. We've we've gotten into what some have called power religion, everything has to be seen and shown And we talk about it maybe to ad nauseam. What are my gifts and we make up all kinds. So someone feels like they have a part to play. That's not biblical at all. Every single Christian. who walks in obedience. Every single Christian who loves the Saints is making a dramatic impact upon the life and well-being of the church. It just happens that way because we are united to one another in Jesus Christ. Our obedience in the very small things of life, they matter. And they have much greater impact and effect on the church than other things that we tend to idealize. And we put out there and we say, oh, well, that's making this great impact on the church. No, your obedience that you will love one another is the greatest thing that you can do for the edification and the building up of the church. You see, this little letter gets down to the nitty gritty of the Christian life. Philemon is being asked to live out the Christian life to express the gospel obedience of love and letting love cover a multitude of sins. What Paul is affirming here is he's saying, Philemon, you have been living a godly life. This has been going on, but guess what? Here now comes the real test to your faith. Philemon, you're being asked now to to actually walk in faith and walk in obedience in a particularly hard area. And I don't think it's I don't think it's too hard for any of us here. I don't think it's too hard for any of you to understand how hard Philemon's situation is. I mean certainly his his circumstances are are totally different from ours. But the issue, the core issue, is exactly the same. He's being called to love someone who's really wronged him. That's not unique to that age. That's not unique to that church. It's not unique to the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus. And thus, this is the challenge that is coming to his faith. And this is the challenge that God puts before you in your faith. And let me be so bold to say, yes, God is talking to you right now. And yes, God does mean that person. That relationship. And yes, you are to begin by forgiving that person. You are to begin by letting love cover the sins that have been committed against you. You see, our faith must take shape. In the shape and in the manifestation of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, it must issue forth in fruit that is tangible and touchable between brothers and sisters in Christ, because a faith without works is a dead faith. And frankly, we have no right to claim to know Christ. We have no right to claim to be in fellowship with God, to have his spirit dwelling within us unless we love one another. Because if you don't have, if we don't have, if this church doesn't have love, then we are nothing. John writes in his little letter, First John. Chapter four, verse 21, he tells us the command that we the command we have been given from Christ. Is this whoever loves God. Must also love his brother. Why? Because Jesus said they will know you are my disciples by your love for one another. That's how we share our faith. Among ourselves. That's how faith is shared among the saints. The communion of the saints. The communication of our faith in action. in real life situations. And this is how the church grows and is built up in love. And when we seek by faith to obey this call to love. Again, the good that comes from it is exponential. Just think of a of a relationship possibly that you might be in right now that has some tension. between yourself and a brother or sister in Christ, even in this congregation, when you obey the call here to love them. To forgive them. To give up your self-interest. Think of all the benefits that happen from that single act of obedience. First and foremost, the relationship between yourself And that is strange brother or sister. It's healed. So that's gone. Next, what do you do? You grow in your knowledge of the will of God. You can actually tell somebody, I know the true benefits of obedience here. I know it seems hard and it seems crazy to love that person who's wronged you. But I know it now by experience, I know God is telling us the truth when he tells us to do that. And that's going to be the best thing you grow in your your experiential knowledge of the will of God, because you've actually done it. You're now you've experienced the blessings of obedience. And a third thing. You are then used, as that relationship is healed, as that obedience is manifested and given, you're used to bring great blessing and edification and comfort and joy to the rest of the body. It is such a joy to hear about reconciliation. When was the last time someone talked to you about a strange relationship that has now been reconciled? Didn't that fill your heart with joy? Didn't that build up the body? Weren't we all edified when the son that was lost came back? That's how the church grows and is built up. One act of obedience showing love in that estranged relationship has exponential effect. All the blessings that come to us and that God has for us in the way of obedience. That's what Paul is calling for here and trying to urge Philemon in. And why we have this letter in this book in our Bibles is because Paul wants us to experience the blessings and God wants us to know and experience his will, the blessings of obedience so that our church will grow and be built up in love. Let's pray together. Our Father, we we acknowledge your law, the law of love, that we are to love one another, even as you in Christ have loved us and forgiven us. Father, we thank you for pouring out and shedding abroad your love in our hearts. And we pray that you might fill us with a greater measure and continue To reveal to us the love that you have for us in Christ so that our hearts would not be able to contain all the blessings that that we receive from you and all the love that we have from you, but that it would pour forth in our lives. Towards one another. That we might look upon one another as ones who are the object of your love and we would love them, too. We would look upon one another as objects of your forgiveness and your patience. We would be patient and forgiving to them as well. Father, give us strength and give us faith to walk in the path of obedience before you. We pray that you'll heal relationships that are estranged here this morning. That you will knit up and bind up this congregation that we might each part doing what it's supposed to do, that we might see the reality of building ourselves up in love. Oh, God, bless us to this end. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.