As preached by Zach Thompson.
The gospel compels us to work for peace among the saints...
1) Because of brother love.
2) Because of fellowship in a common Lord.
3) Because withholding forgiveness is a serious offense.
4) Because your faithfulness will edify the church.
Philemon 1-7
Good morning Christ Fellowship. This morning we will start a two-week series through the book of Philemon.
You’ll notice that we are doing Philemon one to seven today. If you are familiar with Philemon, then you know that this is not a seven-chapter Sunday. Philemon is a very short book. There is only one chapter. For our public reading, we will read the entire book, but for our time today, we will only focus on the first seven verses, and next week we will finish out the book with verses 8 to 25.
When I was a freshman in college, our entire building had an uncommonly good relationship. Someone with the last name “Grey” made a generous donation to the college, so their name was plastered on the side of the building where we lived. So we took to calling ourselves the Men of Grey. A few of us had the idea to make an informal fraternity. We made founding documents. We made T-shirts that said Gamma Rho Eta (which makes the sound “grey” when you sound it out). And as the culmination of our endeavor to mimic a fraternity, we put on a social in the courtyard in front of our building. We had music. We wore suits. We had dates (Courtney was my date. She wore a really cute pink dress). And right around sunset, when the evening was starting to wind to a close, a couple of guys dressed in black with ski masks on their faces ran through our event and threw water balloons at us. Several of the ladies were hit. My roommate and I made eye contact and immediately took off at a sprint after these terrorists.
Long story short, on the other side of campus, we knew they had stopped to hide in a certain area, and we finally found one of them. My roommate shouted to me that he found one, so I ran over and saw this guy with a mask on his face hiding behind a bush. My roommate was absolutely furious. Threats, red face. I didn’t know what was about to happen. All I knew was that there were two of us and one of him, and if he threw punches there would be punches thrown back.
It was tense.
My roommate was yelling at him to take off his mask.
And he finally did, and at that moment, I was shocked to see a guy who I had known for years. He was a friend. And my roommate was about to beat his face in.
At that moment, what do you do? Seeing my friend’s face sobered me out of my redneck anger. But my roommate didn’t know this guy. He was still furious.
These guys are both friends–both followers of Jesus.
And in that moment, I was confronted with this tension in a way that I couldn’t ignore. And for 10 minutes following that moment, I had to engage with that tension.
I recognize that with the advantage of looking back at that, it was a petty thing, and we worked it out without coming to blows.
But as followers of Jesus, what does it look like for us to navigate conflict in a righteous way?
When we have been legitimately wronged– I’m talking about things far worse than a water balloon– When things like that happen, what does it mean to live as one who has been reconciled to God?
What does it mean to forgive as we have been forgiven?
These are the types of questions that the book of Philemon forces us to deal with.
The book of Philemon is a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to a man named Philemon to exhort him to receive back into his home a man who had dishonored and stolen from him.
That man was named Onesimus. When he fled from Philemon and stole from him, this was a serious legal offense. Philemon has been legally wronged, and he would have been well within his rights to take legal action against this man who had broken faith and stolen from him.
But since running away, Onesimus had become more than a former slave to Philemon. He had become a brother in Christ, and more than that, he was willingly walking back to his former master to submit to whatever consequences that might hold for him. So Paul is acting as a mediator between these two parties, seeking reconciliation and forgiveness.
And with that context in front of us, let’s look at the text.
If you’re able, please stand in honor of the reading of God‘s holy, inspired, and inerrant word.
Philemon
1 Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,
To Philemon our beloved fellow worker 2 and Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, 5 because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, 6 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. 7 For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.
8 Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, 9 yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you—I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus— 10 I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. 11 (Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.) 12 I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. 13 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, 14 but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord. 15 For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, 16 no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.
17 So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. 18 If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. 19 I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it—to say nothing of your owing me even your own self. 20 Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ.
21 Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. 22 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.
23 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, 24 and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.
25 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
Let’s pray.
There was a time in the distant past when I made time to watch international soccer. Back in those days, a guy named Landon Donovan played on the United States Soccer team. He was a leader on the team, and he was renowned around the world for his skill. If you followed the US soccer team at all, you couldn’t help but know his name during the years that he played. He retired in 2014, and the next year, The Guardian named him as the greatest player that the U.S. soccer team had ever had.
But Donovan hadn’t always been the player that he grew up to be. I remember reading an interview from someone who was talking about Landon Donovan as a child. This person said that he couldn’t remember a time when Landon wasn’t serious about being a professional soccer player.
He recalled a time when Landon was only 8, and he was at a party with friends, and as is pretty normal at an 8-year-old’s party, they served pizza. But Landon wasn’t eating, and when they pressed him to take the pizza he said, “That’s not the kind of food that professional soccer players eat.”
Now you and I might both agree, that tiny little Landon was being a bit prudish. But he understood something.
Who we are will compel us to live a certain way.
He knew that his identity was intimately wrapped up with every single piece of his life.
And for us who are in Christ, how much more true is this?
In the moment that we trust in Christ, he embraces us, and we are brought into Christ. And our old self passes away, and we are made into new creations. We are enemies transformed into ambassadors. We are slaves made into Sons. Sinners made into the very righteousness of God.
Our identity has been changed. This is the gospel.
But throughout the scriptures, we see a certain tension. It’s this.
Your identity has been wrapped up in Christ, therefore, live like Christ.
Your new identity actually becomes the grounds for a holy lifestyle. Why should despise the greed in your heart?
Because you are a new creation. The old has passed away, and the new has come.
Why should you despise the lust? The anger? The divisiveness? The gossip? Why should despise every kind of sin?
Because you are a new creation. The old has passed away, and the new has come.
This is the fundamental reality behind our text today. The gospel changes our identity, and because we are new creations, we are compelled to live in a certain way. In our text today, I want to draw out two specific points related to this reality.
The Gospel compels us to work for peace among the saints
In the church, a quarrel between brothers is an opportunity for harm to the entire church.
When we see conflict between brothers, we have a responsibility to engage. We have a responsibility to enter into the conversation.
Now, this doesn’t mean that we put on our boxing gloves or warm up our voice for a shouting match.
It means that we get ready to throw our hands into the quicksand and pull out our brother before he suffocates.
It means that we help one see the other as a worthy image bearer of God who has been bought by the same blood of the same savior.
We’ll spend the rest of our time today fleshing this out by give four reasons that support this claim that the gospel compels us to work for peace among the saints.
The Gospel compels us to work for peace among the saints:
Because of brotherly love
Don’t think that Paul is writing out of mere obligation. Paul is writing because he loves Onesimus, AND he loves Philemon. He loves them both. He has a special fatherly love for Onesimus that we’ll talk more about next week, but look at verse 1. Look how he addresses the recipient of his letter. “To Philemon our beloved fellow worker.”
That term fellow worker was a title of honor among those who labored with Paul. And Paul doesn’t only address Philemon. He addresses the entire family. Most interpreters believe that Apphia and Archippus are Philemon’s wife and son.
And he addresses them with respect and honor. Apphia our sister–Archippus our fellow soldier.
In one way, I think that I could just point to the fact that this letter even exists and it supports my main point that the gospel compels us to work for peace among the brothers! Paul could have just let Onesimus go to Philemon without any interaction, but he didn’t. He intervened. He wrote the letter, when he could have just remained silent!
Love doesn’t just leave people in their mess. Love is proactive. Love looks ahead and seeks to be a peacemaker, not just an obedience enforcer.
But maybe, in that quiet place in your heart, you are skeptical right now. What wisdom is there in engaging in someone else’s fight?
Isn’t Paul ignoring the wisdom of Proverbs 26:17? “Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears.”
That seems like a fair point. Doesn’t it? I have myself thought of that exact verse as two brothers were in the middle of deep conflict, and I passively let it ride out its course because it wasn’t my fight.
But that wasn’t love. That was cowardice. That was self-preservation masquerading as wisdom. It was a dozen things, but it wasn’t love.
God help us!
Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears. There is wisdom in this. It’s a biblical truth.
But if you think that this justifies your watching brothers fight and fall away from each other, then you are wrong.
But maybe you don’t feel any brotherly love? I would argue that you should still engage simply because of the fact that brotherly love should be there.
Hebrews 13:1-3, “Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3 Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.”
1 Peter 1:22-23, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.”
Brothers and sisters, the moment that you become aware of that conflict, the obligation of brotherly love should weigh heavy on you, and maybe there is nothing you can do. Maybe you have no idea what to say. But regardless of those things, brotherly love demands that you engage.
Second, the Gospel compels us to work for peace among the saints:
Because of fellowship in a common Lord
Because of brotherly love
Because of fellowship in a common Lord
Paul isn’t only writing because he feels a brotherly love and affection for each of these men. He’s writing because he shares a common fellowship with both of them and both of them do with each other.
They are united in Christ. One Lord, One faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.
It’s what he refers to later when he says that Onesimus is returning as more than a slave— he is a brother in Christ.
I think that Paul is referring to this down in verse 6 when he prays that the sharing of Philemon’s faith would become effective. That word “sharing” is koinonia. When Paul uses that word, it’s always packed with meaning.
It’s a word that he usually uses to talk about the common fellowship that we share in Christ.
Paul shares a faith with these men, and it compels him to engage. It compels him to write this letter. That faith that Paul had is the same faith that compelled Onesimus to walk more than 1,000 miles to repent of his sin.
He walked 500 miles, and he walked 500 more just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to knock on Philemon’s door. He walked 1,300 miles as a tangible act of repentance from his sin.
And Philemon had that same shared faith in the same Lord. Paul is writing to make it clear. We are brothers. We have the same Lord.
Have you ever seen two fans of the same sports team who have never met have a full conversation as if they were old friends? I feel like every time I go in public with Timothy, he ends up talking to a Cardinal’s fan. There is common ground there. Common experience.
You grow a long beard, and you’ll start getting head nods from other guys with long beards. Welcome to the brotherhood.
Moms who homeschool. Guys in the trades. Kids on the honor roll.
We are so drawn to tribes. And most of these things I’m mentioning are fine.
But my point is that we have a tendency to be more gracious and forgiving with someone who happens to root for the same sports team than we are with another brother for whom Christ died.
The next time that you feel tempted to be enduringly angry with a brother or sister in Christ, try just saying this outloud. Jesus, you are my Lord and you are her Lord. Help us, please.
We have a common fellowship. We are adopted by the same Father. We worship the same Lord. We have the same Holy Spirit in us.
Third, the Gospel compels us to work for peace among the saints:
Because withholding forgiveness is a serious offense
Because of brotherly love
Because of fellowship in a common Lord
Because withholding forgiveness is a serious offense
What if Philemon didn’t receive this man as a brother? What if he rejected forgiving him?
Onesimus was clearly repentant. He had the testimony of a faithful brother vouching for a changed life along with the testimony of a 1,300 mile journey from Rome to Colossae to face the consequences of his sin.
What would Philemon reveal about himself if he didn’t forgive?
Jesus taught so clearly about this.
In Matthew 18, Peter thought that he was being over the top generous when suggested that we should forgive someone up to seven times. Then “Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” And he tells the parable of the unforgiving servant who was forgiven several lifetimes worth of debt then he goes and throws a guy in jail because of a comparatively small sum.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that “if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” When Jesus said that, he wasn’t saying that you should ignore sin so God will ignore your sin, but he was saying that it is the clear and unavoidable expectation that the people of God will be a people who forgive.
As far as we can tell, this conflict isn’t even Philemon’s fault up to this point. The situation is simply thrust upon him. He was wronged, and now, he is being asked to receive as a brother the very one who wronged him.
We started to talk about the list in verse 2 earlier. That Paul addresses Philemon and his family, but there is another inclusion there that is even more strange to our modern mind. Look in verse 2. Who else does Paul address?
“The church in your house”
Paul is writing a personal letter to an individual, and he includes the church that meets in their house. Why?
Because the entire community knew about this man’s sin. Onesimus was a servant in the house where the church gathered.
And whether Philemon rejected Onesimus or received him with forgiveness, the church would know about it.
Paul is not breathing out threats against Philemon here, but there is definitely a weight to what he says.
The weight of Christ’s teaching was clear, and the church was watching.
If you are entirely unwilling to forgive someone who has genuinely sought your forgiveness, what does that reveal about your soul?
And beyond that consider another reality here. Withholding forgiveness is weighty because it will affect the entire church. Do you think that this will only affect you?
If you think that you can hold that conflict in your hand without it affecting anyone else, you are deluding yourself.
That’s like if you turn on a garden hose spigot and try to stop it from flowing with your thumb. That water isn’t going to stop. It’s going to spray in every direction, and everyone close to you is going to be touched by it.
The gospel compels us to work for peace among the saints because withholding forgiveness is a serious offense.
And finally, the Gospel compels us to work for peace among the saints:
Because your faithfulness will edify the church
Because of brotherly love
Because of fellowship in a common Lord
Because withholding forgiveness is a serious offense
Because your faithfulness will edify the church
In verses 4 to 7, Paul takes an opportunity to simply thank God for Philemon and offer some encouragement.
Have you ever heard of the affirmation sandwich? It’s when someone tries to tell you something difficult, and instead of just telling you, they the hard thing with nice things on either side. They say something like this. You have excellent taste in music, but your coworkers hate working with you, but you have really nice shoes.
That’s not what Paul is doing here. Instead, he’ss reminding Philemon of how his life has been characterized by Christ-like love and sacrifice so that Philemon will see his reception of Onesimus as a continuation of that same manner of life.
Paul isn’t rebuking Philemon. He is saying, brother, you have always been faithful, and you are about to have another opportunity to be faithful.
In verses 4-5, He thanks God for Philemon. In verse 6, he prays for Philemon. And in verse 7, he simply tells Philemon that he has been a source of joy for him.
I want to focus in on verses 6 and 7 for the rest of our time.
We referenced verse 6 earlier. Look at the full verse.
“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.”
Paul is praying for Philemon here. We already talked about the word sharing here. This is that Greek word koinonia. He is talking about a life style of faith shared with fellow Christians being lived out.
That’s what he means when he prays that it would become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.
He is praying that this would continue to be a lived faith, not merely an understood faith.
Brother, you have always been faithful, and you are about to have another opportunity to be faithful.
Brothers and sisters, it may be that you have an opportunity coming up to be faithful in some way that you would find incredibly uncomfortable. It might be that you are already in the middle of that thing. Maybe you’ve been there for years.
Or in line with the specific theme of Philemon, maybe there is a conflict that you are in, and you need to seek peace. Maybe you have been quietly watching one, and you need to help them make peace.
But listen to what Paul says to Philemon in verse 7.
“For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.”
Brothers and sisters, when you walk through the difficult things of life, and you continue to look to God in faith and walk forward trusting his wisdom rather than yours, that is refreshing to the souls of the saints.
I’m going to veer away from the topic of conflict and reconciliation and just dwell on this reality for a few minutes.
What does this mean in vese 7? This refreshing of the saints?
I all of us who have covenanted with this body have felt this.
I feel this when I see brothers and sisters doing the simple things to serve each other. When I hear about Sophia going to a doctor appointment with Ellie. When my wife gets a phone call from someone who proactively asks to watch our kids so that we can go on a date. Someone outside of our marriage proactively seeking the good of our marriage.
Ms Pam coming here for 3 months with the sole purpose of serving the church here. I could go on and on and on. The set up crew showing up early every single week. The Sunday school teachers. Andrew and John teaching during kids time. Everyone who helps with Nursery. When I stop to consider the depth of service and love in this church, my heart is overwhelmed with refreshment.
Or I think of last year, when I went through a short season where I felt deeply discouraged. It was one of those seasons where it felt like you can’t see beyond the frazzled busy-ness of each moment, and you find yourself far too often asking, “What’s the point?”
I told Courtney how I felt. I told Timothy how I felt. I told my small group how I felt.
Then one day, I was working in my office at home, and Courtney said that someone was here to see me. And as I walked into the kitchen, I saw Jessica Alsup with a small gift bag and a big red scrapbook filled with letters that many of you wrote along with pictures of us together. Jessica’s not even in my small group!
And as I worked through that scrapbook, tears streamed down my face, and I was refreshed. There was something about that moment that helped me feel the truths of the gospel and to look up past the melancholy that had gripped me.
I could go on and on. I see confession happen between members of our church every week. I hear about gospel relationships and gospel conversations happening constantly. At our church prayer gatherings, my household has the privilege of being filled with songs and the prayers of the saints in this church. I get to sit under the faithful exposition of God’s word every single week.
And in all of these things and more, my soul has been refreshed by this church.
The Lord is the giver of every good gift. He is the one who works brotherly love among us. He is the object of the faith that we share. He is the one who has forgiven us and given us an example to follow in forgiveness. He is ultimately the one who refreshes our souls.
And that brings us to a regular means of soul refreshment that we partake in every week.
Let’s pray as we approach the table together.
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