Costly Love (Philemon 17-25)

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Well, good morning, church. You want to go ahead, grab your Bibles, you can open up to Philemon. We will wrap up this short book this morning. We’ll be in Philemon 17 to 25 Philemon 17 to 25 As you’re turning there, there’s a familiar but really powerful trope in movies, literature, and the like, where someone is willing to bear a substantial cost. If I can quote from Philemon, to bear that substantial cost on the basis of love, because they’re being motivated by love of different sorts. So, just some examples, you’ll know some of them, at least. I hope mr. Darcy, for example, lays out an enormous sum of money in order to protect the family of the woman he loves from social ruin, so he is driven by romantic love in that case, or switching continents, Jean Valjean risks his freedom to save Marius because he wants what’s best for his adopted daughter, so he’s driven by familial love. One of my favorite characters from literature, Atticus Finch, he endures rejection, social stigma, isolation in order to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who’s accused falsely of attacking a woman, and so he puts his whole family at very real risk in the process as well. He’s driven by a higher love, almost, because it is a love of justice, a love of humanity as humanity, maybe most powerfully, of course, Sydney Carton gives his life, changes places with Charles Darnay, counts the total cost in order to spare his friend, and for the sake of the woman that he loves as well. The point in all of these, we could multiply examples easily, is that love costs, love always costs, and it costs a lot, especially in a broken world filled with broken people, and that’s all those stories I just shared. Two of them, at least, are based on unjust systems, some driven by sexual sin, others by racism. All of this costs, and costs greatly. Someone has to pay the costs, and Paul’s point to Philemon and to us in this letter is that, as Christians, we can pay that cost. We can pay it because Christ paid it for us already, paid the cost for us already, because He took the hit for us should make us willing to take the hit for others, even those who don’t deserve it, because I got news for you, you and I didn’t deserve it either. And he still took the hit for us, plus in dying for us, and then raising us to new life in him, God supplies us with the infinite riches of grace, so that we can go on paying the cost, because you can’t, you know, there’s always an infinite supply, it never runs out, that’s what allows us to keep spending for the sake of others, that’s what we’re going to see in our passage today, we look at three costs that we’re called to pay, and then as we go, of course, we’ll see how the gospel will motivate and sustain us to count those costs, so first cost is the cost of forgiving, the cost of forgiving from verses 17 to 19. I’ll read it for us now. So, if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back, not to mention that you owe me your very self. I love this section because we get the gospel in miniature in it, but what is Paul saying to Philemon about Onesimus? If you weren’t here last couple weeks, you don’t know the story. Paul, the apostle, is sending Onesimus, who’s a runaway slave back to his former master, Philemon. Onesimus has become a Christian. Philemon is a Christian, and so this is a tense moment right here. So, what Paul says in this moment is, look, when it comes to Onesimus, you take the hit, Philemon, you take the hit, you count the cost of love. Now, if you were here last week, this is a nice moment, because we finally get the appeal. You’ll remember last week that Paul was saying things like, I appeal to you on the basis of love. I appeal to you for the sake of Onesimus, who’s my son in the faith.
At this point, and so he keeps saying, I appeal to you, and at a certain point, Philemon is undoubtedly going okay, but what’s the appeal like? What are you asking me to do here? Paul finally answers the question. Welcome him, welcome Onesimus, as you would welcome me. Sounds easy enough, not a huge appeal until we remember the context, because Onesimus is a one. Run away, slave. He is also a thief, it seems. From here, if he owes you anything, I mean, he cost labor, of course, probably stole the fare at the very least, but might have stolen more. So, Philemon is well within his legal rights to execute Onesimus when he comes back, and instead Paul says, ‘Welcome him as you would welcome me, because you see, Philemon, Onesimus is now family, so Paul’s saying God sees no difference between me and Onesimus. What about you, Philemon? Do you see a difference between us, or will you offer the same welcome? Then he says, if Onesimus has done any wrong, if he owes you anything, a good bit of tact here, because he frames it as a hypothetical, if perchance this should happen to be, it’s not a hypothetical, Onesimus very definitely wronged Philemon, again stole from him all the rest, and yet whatever he’s done, Paul says, “Charge it to me. So Paul’s saying, “I’m willing to take the hit, I’m willing to pay what is owed. Now, it’s not unusual for Paul to mention that he’s writing in his own hand. He does it at the end of most of his letters. We saw that in Galatians recently, for example. Usually, that’s just to kind of authenticate the letter to go right, you know, a scribe wrote this, but here I am. Here’s my signature, more or less, but this one is a little bit different. When he says I’m writing this in my own hand, he’s writing it as a promissory note. He’s writing this as an IOU, you know, like here you go, like I’ll write it out, I, Paul, I’ll pay it back. So it’s an IOU, signed, sealed, delivered, would hold up in court if Philemon wanted to sue him. This is every bit as, as real as a parent co-signing on a kid’s first loan that could prove costly, will prove costly to Paul. Paul, who, not famous for being rich, by the way, lived off the generosity of others for the most part, otherwise was a laborer, a leather worker, but of course, if we’re talking debts, Paul points out Philemon should probably remember that he owes Paul his very life. Now, in what sense does Philemon owe Paul his life? Did Paul save him at some point? They’re blood brothers. Now, nothing like that. No, no, no. He is certainly talking about Philemon’s salvation, because Paul invested in Philemon, preached the gospel to him. Philemon now has eternal life. So, how are we quibbling about a few dollars that might be owed in light of the infinite riches of grace that Philemon now possesses. So, Paul clearly expects Philemon to take the hit himself. He’s saying, yeah, okay, whatever is owed, I’ll pay it, but really, you’re not going to do that. I know you wouldn’t do that. You’re going to take the hit yourself, and Philemon is in a position of privilege. After all, this is not a hard cost for him to bear. He can afford it, and he’s got a big enough house that the church is meeting in his home. He’s wealthy enough that he has slaves. Remember, we talked a lot about this last week. I can’t get into it all of it again, but we’re talking about economic slavery, like indentured servitude, but he’s able to have a large force of employees, in other words, and so Paul’s expecting of Philemon what the New Testament expects of the rich on every page, which is that the rich would disadvantage themselves for the sake of the poor, and see that throughout scripture. In fact, I mean, just as a couple of examples, this would be the atmosphere in which Philemon would have been taught about wealth, Ezekiel chapter 18.
We have this little thought experiment the prophet leads us through, and he says, “Suppose there is a righteous man who does what is just and right, and then he paints a picture of the righteous man, couple of different areas, one of them is money, he says. Looks like this. He doesn’t impress anyone, but returns what he took and pledged for a loan. He does not commit robbery, but gives his food to the hungry and provides clothing for the naked, which is interesting, because it’s kind of saying, look, a righteous man, it’s not just about what you don’t do, you’re not a thief, you’re not robbing people, you’re not embezzling money or cheating on your taxes. It’s also what you do, and so, of course, you’re giving generously and even sacrificially as you have means and opportunity. Or Proverbs 327 says, Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act, and so those to whom it’s due, the poor, but it’s interesting, the word due is actually related to the word for owners, like this is theirs, in other words, if God gives you an abundance of wealth that isn’t yours. In some sense, according to the Bible, it belongs to the disadvantaged, and we are privileged to act as stewards of that wealth in God’s name to get it to those to whom it belongs. I love the way Basil the Great said it, one of the Church Fathers from centuries ago, he says, the bread which you keep belongs to the hungry, the coats in your closet to the naked, the gold you have hidden to the needy. Therefore, as often as you were able to help others and refused, so often did you do them wrong. And Basil practiced what he preached. He actually came from a very rich and aristocratic family himself, he, his brother, another of the Cappadocian fathers served the church, served the poor. His sister, Macrina the younger, formed a community of women. It was a community of equals. He had people coming from the upper stratus of Roman society, and then the very poor all gathered together as equals. And so Paul’s kind of saying, right, this is this is what we do, you got money, this is what this looks like, and already this is convicting enough, but it’s easier when we’re talking about helping the innocent poor, but here again, we’re talking about a thief who stole from you, well, what then doesn’t that get a little bit more complicated? Like, what could motivate us to count the cost, not only of generosity, but of forgiveness as well? The answer, of course, is the gospel. The gospel alone is powerful enough to sustain that sort of self-sacrifice. And in Onesimus’ story, we get the gospel in miniature. As I said, we’re Onesimus. We’re Onesimus. I mean, think about it. We have a Master, capital M, God the Father, and we ran away from him, starting in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve left. We’ve all been running away from our master ever since then to welcome us back into his home cost our master greatly, cost him the blood of his son Jesus, who took the penalty for our running away. He took the hit himself. In other words, so what we owe God, He charged instead to Christ’s account, and Jesus assumed personal responsibility for the debt we owed, and He paid it in full. As you know, if you’ve been in church for any length of time, when He cried out from the cross, ‘It is finished, and those are the words that they would stamp on I O U’s in Greco-Roman society to say it’s been paid, this debt is erased now. As a result of that, we can now stand before our master runaways and thieves that we are, without fear of judgment. Instead, knowing that we will receive welcome, welcomed by God our Father, as if we were His very son, because when Jesus died for us, it’s like He said to His dad, ‘Welcome, Brandon, as you would welcome me. And, of course, God the Father was oh so willing to do so. That’s why He sent His son. So that’s our story, Onesimus’ story, it It’s important to see that’s Philemon’s story too, of course.
I mean, just as Onesimus stands before his master, lowercase m, in this moment, so Philemon one day will stand before his master, the seat of judgment, and so, if he keeps his eyes fixed on his master, who took the hit for us, who counted the cost, he’s going to find himself willing to do so also. And so would we. It would be impossible to be unwilling to do so. That would be the parable of the unmerciful servant that we talked about last week, all over again. He’s just had his $10 billion debt erased, and now he’s going, ‘Whoa, you owe me 10,000 though. Like, no, we couldn’t possibly do that. Instead, we would forgive as Christ forgave us. And how important this is for us to hear and remember, because we find it hard to forgive. Forgiveness is hard, it hurts, it costs. Like Philemon, I am confident that some of you have suffered very real wrong and want that debt paid. You will not forgive until you’ve seen just how much you’ve been forgiven or how much you need to be forgiven. Maybe you’re still uncertain about this whole Christianity thing. You’re still checking it out, and all of that. This is the moment to kind of go, wait, I’m not going to be willing to forgive unless I see how much I’ve wronged my master, how much I’ve wronged God. God, but that changes us when we see it. The world today, I mean, look at social media or something like that. The world today feeds our anger and stokes the fires of our bitterness, but the message of the gospel frees us from all of that and frees us to forgive. Is there someone in your life that you need to forgive. Let the gospel, according to Philemon, motivate you to do so. And if you don’t yet believe, just take a good long look at how you’ve wronged your master and how you’ve wronged others, the forgiveness that is available, and the wonder of that love. See if that won’t change your heart to be able to forgive others too, so that’s the first cost, the cost of forgiving. The second cost we need to count is the cost of refreshing, the cost of refreshing verses 20 and 21 I’ll read for us now. I do wish, brother, that I may have 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 ask. So Paul hopes to have some benefit from Philemon, because they’re brothers in Christ. You see that family language showing up there again. I do wish, brother, we’ve seen that from the beginning. So this is all about how we treat one another as the family of God. They’re brothers in Christ, which means the gospel is working in Philemon’s heart and life, and so he should be able to refresh Paul in this moment. Now, not the first time we’ve come across this word, refresh. We saw it back in week one, way back in verse seven, where Philemon’s love gives Paul great joy, because he’s refreshed the church, he’s refreshed the family of God. So Paul’s just saying, look what you’ve been doing, just keep on doing it, do it again here in this spot. Now, what benefit is Paul asking for here? He doesn’t say it, I mean, how exactly is he going to refresh Paul? Well, of course, he said it last section to welcome Onesimus back as a brother in Christ, which we saw last week, forgiving the debt that now has been charged to Paul’s account doesn’t matter, gonna race it anyway. I think there is a little pun here. I will say I didn’t see this in the commentary, so I could be, I could be wrong here. Good news is, if I’m wrong, I don’t think it’s heresy, at least. But he says, here, you know, refresh my heart. And last week we saw back in verse 12, he says, I am sending Onesimus, who is my very heart back to you, so is he actually saying refresh me by refreshing Onesimus, probably because that’s what it would look like, but what I love is that Paul is so confident of Philemon’s obedience.
Now this is not a general obedience, he’s not saying Philemon, I know you’re a pretty stand-up guy and a Christian, so this isn’t just general, like I’m confident of your obedience, I know you’re not going to get drunk, I know you’re going to say your prayers every day. No, he’s talking about the specific obedience of this moment, you could almost say confident of your compliance with my requests here in this moment. Paul’s so confident that Philemon is going to do what he asks. He’s trusting, as I mentioned before, he’s trusting the spirit of God in him, working in him to change him. He’s trusting that the gospel is powerful enough to change his heart. It’s the same confidence, of course, we can have for our brothers and sisters in Christ. All of us are changing a lot slower than we would like, and a lot slower than the people around us would like, but we are being changed, and we can be confident of that change that God is working in us and those around us. When we’re confident of that, when we’re confident that the spirit is working, it makes it easier for us to show forgiveness, to count the cost of love. When you know that God’s going to use that love to transform them even more. And isn’t this why parents go on sacrificing for kids? You talk about costly love, the love of a parent or child is very costly, but it’s because we’re trusting the Lord is hearing all our prayers across the years, that He’s going to bless the time we spend in the Word together as a family, the discipline that we offer our children, formative, corrective, whatever sort, so we’re confident of obedience, confident on change. Paul’s confident of Philemon’s obedience. And then I love that last bit, though, because it’s so challenging. Paul says he’s so confident in the spirit working in Philemon that he’ll know that he’s going to do even more than he’s being asked. Like Philemon is not just going to do the bare minimum, he’s going to go above. Above and beyond, now again, Paul does not spell it out for us, but it is crystal clear what he is talking about. He is asking Philemon to release Onesimus, talking about manumission, emancipation, whatever you want to say, is what we just sang. Thank you, Julie, for giving us, making sure everyone knows where the name of our series comes from, the hymn, O Holy Night, right, chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease. And Paul’s going, let’s see it, let’s see it right here, right now. Give us a taste of it. So he’s going to release Onesimus, maybe to return to Paul, which Paul had talked about earlier in the letter. Be so useful to have him here to continue serving in Colossi, whatever it may be. Paul knows that if Philemon really understood the gospel, it will produce a generous spirit in him that he will count the cost of loving well. You remember back in verse six when he thanks God for the Philemon’s partnership in the gospel, prays that it would continue to be effective, and we talk about that word partnership, that partnership that springs from faith is a generosity toward the people of God, including the undeserving people of God, that’s what he’s expecting to see here, that that would keep on going. Should it be any different with us, though? Means, shouldn’t we go above and beyond what is expected of us, what’s asked of us, once we understand the gospel? Jesus seems to suggest as much in his sermon on the mount, he asks some penetrating questions. He says, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors, notorious sinners? In other words, doing that, and if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Jesus, Paul, I think they’re saying it’s easy to be generous towards certain people. It’s easy to be generous toward people we like, people like us, people who can benefit us when we get something in return as a result of loving them.
You expand your network a little bit in your career, or like I can remember as a kid, at one point I was extraordinarily generous toward a younger neighbor, I let him use some of my toys because I wanted to use some of his older brother’s toys, that’s not generosity, right, that’s selfishness, and that’s what Jesus is saying, like that part’s easy. It’s easy to love people when you’re doing it for selfish reasons. Shouldn’t we expect more from ourselves in light of what Jesus has done for us? Like, what about when it’s pure sacrifice? What about when there’s no earthly return on our investment, just the heavenly, which seems pretty good, admittedly. Let me just give you an example of like what this would look like. I talked money last week, I’m gonna talk money again this week, not because we’re about to do a campaign or something like that, just because that’s what’s being talked about here in Philemon. So let’s kind of stick with the text, like there’s an actual cost being paid, so our obedience, I think we get established pretty clearly from scripture, is a 10% offering we bring to the Lord. What is what is owed to him? 10% but we could say confident of your obedience. I know that you will do even more. I could say that of a great many of you, not all of you, of course. Some of you working up to the obedience, the bare minimum, the 10% still okay. But I look around this room, I know that there are extravagant givers in this congregation, and so, yeah, you get that. We’re like, I’m confident of your obedience. I mean, all that God gave us, we would give even more than is expected of us. You start to look at your funds differently. We go, you know what, I could live on x dollars per year, even a pretty comfortable life, that’s a vacation, that’s, you know, what all, and I make 2x dollars a year, so that means I got all this extra surplus that I can invest in the kingdom of God in different ways, and again, we’ve seen that here, we gave extravagantly just a few years back when we did the city new renovation project, but even here, and I’m not knocking this at all, like I’m so glad we did this. I think it was necessary and will benefit generations to come, but we got some benefit from that giving, didn’t we? Like, I like hanging out in our lobby, it’s nicer than it used to be. The bathrooms are nicer than they used to. We got an elevator. This is, this is good stuff. Like, what happens though, when we’re asked to give extravagantly and we don’t experience the benefit of it? And you know that’s a live issue, right? We’ll be praying about it next week at our prayer reading and stuff. Like, what happens when we start to give extravagantly to a church plant? So that we’re not renovating the space that we’re in, but if we’re building or renovating space that we will never enter, well, of course, of course, we would be confident of our obedience, even then, because that’s gospel refreshing at that point. Again, Jesus, I don’t think he got any personal benefit from his unjust arrest and trial and torture and death. Now he got benefit, sure, for the joy set before him, but it was this. This was the joy set before him. The people of God saved for the glory of his name. Jesus only got spiritual benefit from his sacrifice, and that’s what we would long to receive as well, and so we would count the cost of refreshing others in his name. Third cost, then, is the cost of welcoming. We read the rest of the letter, four hours, verses 22 to 25 And one thing more, prepare our guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. So do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
One thing more, Paul hopes to be released, as indeed he was, and he then plans to return to Colossi when he is released, probably because of the issues that have arisen there, which you could read the book of Colossians to hear all about. He’s gonna need a place to stay by Lehman’s got means. Could you prepare a guest room for me now? There is a lot going on in that one verse 22 Certainly, there’s some added motivation to obey here, like Paul is going to show up shortly. Will Onesimus be back in chains? Will Philemon show him Onesimus’ burial site, because he put him to death? Hopefully not. Paul’s saying I’m gonna be checking in on you. This is like parents saying it’d be home in 10, hope things are clean. That same kind of motivation here, but he’s also asking Philemon to continue counting the cost of refreshing and welcoming others, like forget Onesimus, it’s going to cost Philemon to love and welcome Paul, because hospitality is costly. It certainly is. It costs time, it costs energy, it costs a room in his house. I was going to turn that into a study now. I got Paul staying here instead. It costs actually love. I think Philemon is almost like a commentary on Hebrews 13 eight to 11, which talks about the hospitality that we’re called to show one another as Christians. Ready to Hebrews says, “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. So there’s that family idea again. Do not forget to show hospitality, but even to strangers, he says, for by so doing, some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it, and then continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering, which is a lot of the plight that we were talking about last week, of just entering into what others are going through, like even Onesimus, like what that would mean for him to be in chains. Now, Hebrews takes it beyond what we even hear in Philemon. It’s that same Matthew five idea, like don’t just do this for your own people, and don’t just do this for people who are going to help you. Do it for everyone, your brothers and sisters. Do it even for strangers, because you’re going to treat all people as valuable, because they’re made in the image of God, so they have intrinsic value, and that stuff that you would do for your own family, do that for everyone, and do that especially for the family of God. Can we treat family differently? Know this, like, I’ll just give you an example. So, it’s probably eight years or so ago, my dad had heart surgery. It was, you know, significant, like routine, but heart surgery is heart surgery, it’s a big deal. And so, my mom wanted me to be there. I think she wanted her son to be there. I think she wanted a pastor to be there too, just in case. So, when we got one of those in the family, I went, and it was it. She lost her dad, he went in for heart surgery, and he didn’t come out, and so I think this was on her mind, like, of course, like, of course, I would do that for my mom, she’s family, plus it’s my dad, who’s having heart surgery, he’s fine by the way, he’s still around, so but like that, then means okay, that’s what we should do for others, like when people in this room go in for surgery, we go. Okay, can I be there for you? How can I pray for you? Can I bring you meals afterwards? Like that’s what this looks like. The stuff you do for your own family, do it for everyone. When you were estranged, when you were a runaway, God brought you near and made you family. And that sets the pattern for all of us, and how we treat one another, which sounds good, sounds easy, even, but the challenge is welcoming everyone in the family of God. Again, it’s easy to welcome people like us, easy to welcome people we like, it can get harder. Otherwise, this was actually a problem in Colossi. Elsewhere in Paul’s churches, too.
You know, God’s trying to bring all together, all people together in one church, and they’re kind of going, I don’t know, are we sure we want to hang out all together here? And so Paul says this in Colossians 311 here in the Church of God, there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all. When you notice he mentions a lot of different backgrounds, there we get religious backgrounds, we get ethnic backgrounds, we get socioeconomic backgrounds, all mentioned. All these people are together under one roof, Philemon’s roof. As it turns out, it’s even interesting where this shows up in Colossians. I won’t open it there for you, but Paul has just talked about our new life in Christ. He’s saying, put on the new self, like live like the new creation that you are. Okay, we’re all the same in Christ Jesus. And then the very next verse, a lot of us have memorized in journey groups, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and love, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, love toward everybody, toward the Scythians, even the barbarians, the Jews, the slave, whatever group it is, right, that you struggle with, even toward them. It’s not easy, though. I mean, Onesimus, as I mentioned before, is a Phrygian slave. Philemon is Kalash and aristocracy. Like, how are those people going to get along? So, if we’re going to have a family conversation, I mean, for us here as City View, like, we’re going to have to talk about the diversity of the body. Some of us get a little uncomfortable when that word ‘diversity’ comes up. Like, is this DEI for the church? Well, DEI is a cultural term. Can I tell you, and I think you got this, if you’re here for the politics series. I do not care one whit what culture thinks about this. I care a great deal what God’s word has to say about this, though. And God’s word talks about diversity, like you see God’s heart for all people in the Gospel, Jesus died to save a multi everything people, the same group that just got mentioned there in Colossians 311 Revelation five nine, Jesus Christ is praised, the Lamb who was slain, worthy to be worshiped, because with his blood he purchased persons from every tribe, language, nation, people, you can actually see that even at the end of the letter, verse 23 and 24 this is the part you just kind of skip over, you go, I can’t say those names, so whatever, no, they’re important, you got Epaphras, he’s Colossian, he’s from the hometown, right, you got Mark, he’s a North African Jew, you got Aristarchus, he’s a Macedonian Jew, Macedonia, like northern Greece. Luke, he’s from Antioch, he’s got a pagan background, though. You can just see this is a diverse group right there, and then here they’re all together in the church, but that ups the ante, ups the cost of welcoming others in Christ’s name, we’re not just talking about, well, you know, you have to get a little extra in the fridge, and again, the spare room, and all those, although that costs, again, let’s not neglect that, but we’re talking about getting out of our comfort zone as well, and if you’ve hung around with people from different cultures, you know, there is some discomfort in going outside of it. The food tastes different, usually that means the homes smell different, and like the culture is different. There may be language barriers, like all these things are present, come at things from different angles, and so sometimes that means you smack into each other on the way, and yet, that’s the cost we count, because Jesus died for all. Now, obviously, this happens in community. I mean, I get that. We talk a lot about that. We just talked about community groups and explore our this morning. Even so, like, yeah, we’re opening our homes to each other, even if we got different backgrounds of all sorts going on, but also we open our home to those outside the community. We got opportunities to do this here, and we’ve got some partner ministries like Safe Families. We are welcoming children into your home for a short period of time while their parents are getting different things sorted, of course. If International Friendships Ministry.
International students, I’ve eaten some food I wasn’t going to eat otherwise. Just recently, in fact, because of if we’ve got the opportunity with the Gaias team, which cares for our missionaries. I need a bike for one of our friends of missionaries. I’m getting a text about it tomorrow. Like, this is the kind of stuff we get to do. What a great way to be able to serve to open a home in that way, and can I also say, what a great way to serve as a family, too. And here, I mean, even like your nuclear family. One of the things I love about a hospitality ministry is your kids watch you do that ministry in a way that they might not see some of the other stuff. It will cost. It will cost. It’s inconvenient. You can ask us our story. We had some inconveniences welcoming a child into our home for a six week stint. We’re at six and a half years now. Like I said, it’s a story, all that. Obviously, it’s a cost. We were so grateful to be able to count, but still it will cost. But it costs God so much so more to welcome you into his house, and so won’t you gladly count that cost as well. That’s it. So, just pulling all these costs together, just to give you your big idea, you could probably get there on your own, but it’s this: pay more, pay more, because Christ paid it all for you. So, like, do even more than is expected, pay more, because Christ paid it all for you. Count the cost of forgiving, refreshing, welcoming God’s people and beyond. I would challenge you. This would be the kind of thing you will, of course, talk about in your community groups specifically, but like, what’s one step that you can take, even this week, so that you are a doer of God’s word to Philemon, and not just a hearer of it? Is there a gift of time, or energy, or resources that you can make? Do you need to initiate a reconciliation process with somebody. Is there an invitation you can make into your home? Will you count it? It is difficult to overstate just how powerfully transformative costly love is. We actually see it in the rest of the story, the story that’s not here recorded in Philemon. We learn it from church history. I do have to say that means I’m stepping into a different level of authority here. This is some conjecture, absolutely, but we’ve got pretty good witness here, like what happens in this story. Because Ignatius, one of the earliest church fathers, he dies, he’s persecuted, he’s martyred in 107 he mentions in one of his letters Onesimus, the bishop of Ephesus. I mean, here is a guy who went from slave to brother to bishop, almost certainly, by the way. Why Philemon is in the canon, like why we have this personal letter in the New Testament, the sovereignty of God is the main answer, but the like human cause answer is because what a precious letter this was to Onesimus. There’s actually good evidence that the Canaan was put together, the New Testament canon was first put together in Ephesus, so like Onesimus was going, ‘Whoa, guys, let’s keep this one here next to Romans and Ephesians and Colossians, and all the others, because this one is important, by the way. Also, shows that Philemon listened. Philemon obeyed, which you love to see too. But Onesimus, this bishop of Ephesus, he was renowned. I’m quoting Ignatius here, for his love that surpasses words. Sure, because that’s the love he received, and so he just kept showing it to others. He went from a useless runaway slave to Ignatius, saying, “I pray that you all may be like him. And Onesimus himself paid the greatest cost when he was martyred for his faith. That’s the power of grace, and it’s there in verse 25 I know we think this is just like writing sincerely at the end of our email. It’s not when Paul says, ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. He’s saying this is what you need if you’re going to do what’s being asked of you. That’s the power of grace, God’s grace, of course, but also the grace that is expressed through his people, and how it changes us.
If I can flip back to Les Mis again, I started there, I’ll end there. This is like the bishop early on in Les Mis who bought Valjean’s soul. Valjean is released from prison. He decides to steal the bishop’s silver after the bishop welcomes him into his home, steals the silver, and also knocks the bishop out in the process, and then he gets caught, he gets brought back in, you know, he’s like Valjean, says you gave it to him, and the bishop says, yes, yeah, I gave him the silver, only you forgot to take the silver candle. Sticks too, it gives those also, that’s costly love, at least in like the movie versions of it. He like grabs Val Jean, who’s, you know, eight feet taller than he is, and goes, Do you understand? I just bought your soul for God, because that’s the power of transforming love, right? He paid the cost, and it changed his heart, and it did change Val Jean’s heart, it changed Philemon’s heart, it changed Onesimus’ heart. Like a look down the road, what difference could your costly love make in someone’s story? You see that, and you just think, oh, it would be so easy to pay that, pay more, because Christ paid it all for you. Let’s pray. Father, we remember even now the cost of your great love for us. We remember that you sent your son to take the hit in our place to pay the debt we owed in our place. You charged it to his account, so that then when we stumbled back home to you, only by grace, only because you called us, only because you drew us, you would welcome us as you welcomed Jesus. Love like that ought to transform us, Lord. We know that, and so we pray you would be transforming us even now, make us the sorts of people who so willingly spend all that we have for the sake of others and for the sake of Your great name. Amen.