Encouraging Love (Philemon 1-7)

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Good morning, church. Go ahead, grab your Bibles, open up to Philemon. Philemon kind of near the end, it’s just one page, so check the table contents if you’re struggling with it. It’s before Hebrews, if that helps. I don’t know. We’ll be in Philemon one to seven this morning. We’ll be in Philemon as a whole these next three weeks, but as you’re turning there, it’s Philemon. One, I came home from work on Tuesday, and work is a generous term at that point. You’ll know why for a moment to find my wife decked out in an arsenal kit. Yes, I knew we’d get cheers from certain members of the congregation. Dave, I’m disappointed that wasn’t louder from the balcony, but that’s okay. Because Arsenal won another championship on a Tuesday, first time in 22 years. We’re all very excited, but it was still fun to see Amy in her Arsenal shirt, because Amy is – she’s an Arsenal fan by marriage. She was not an Arsenal fan when we got married. She married into it, but you understand how this works. Once you become a part of a family, the relationship changes, and some of those sports teams, things that happen, those are the smallest, silliest examples of very real and very important changes, kind of the unconditional love and help that comes from being a part of a family. A new wife, for example, might assume her husband’s debt, you know, he’s got student loan debt or something. Come out, like, your debt’s my debt now, because we just got, we got shared finances, or maybe a son-in-law joins the family business, because that’s just kind of what we do, and of course this goes beyond just literal family to a lot of organizations that have those family feels. Sometimes companies, certainly you could think of things like the military as well, you know, no one left behind, we take care of our family. Well, what does that look like in the church though? Because when we come to God in Christ, we are, as Jake just reminded us in his prayer, adopted as his sons and daughters. We are part of God’s family now, and that means we’re a part of each other’s family. If you have God as your father, you got lots of siblings, and some of them need help. Some of them might not have been your favorite person beforehand. You got issues with your new siblings, of course. That happens in real life too. Some of you probably are like, “Yep, he was not the guy I would have chosen as my brother-in-law, but here he is, like this is how it’s just going to go from now on, and that is how it works in the church. So, like, what do we do then? How does the gospel shape the way we treat God’s family? That’s the question that the book of Philemon addresses. Looking at a very difficult situation that we’re not going to get into at all today, you’ll have to come back next week. The suspense is killing you, I know, but that’s where we’ll get the difficult situation. But here in the opening, Paul, as he usually does, he sets the stage for what’s coming. We’re going to see all of the main ideas, everything that’s going to be needed for his appeal from the start, in the greeting, in the thanksgiving and in his prayer. Let’s look at this together. We’ll start with the greeting, verses 123, May read it for us now. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our dear friend and fellow worker, also to Aphthea, our sister, and our hippest, our fellow soldier into the church that meets in your home, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Just pause there. This is a highly unusual beginning to this letter. If you’ve read Paul’s other letters, you know he almost always refers to himself as one of two things: he is either an apostle of Christ Jesus, or a servant of Christ Jesus. So, the fact that he calls himself a prisoner of Christ Jesus is a little bit startling already, but of course he is. He is in chains. He is a prisoner of Christ, and that phrase, you know, prisoner of Christ, it’s so delightfully ambiguous. In what sense is he a prisoner of Christ?
Well, he is Christ’s prisoner in that he belongs to Jesus. So, the of Christ as a possessive sense, but he’s also a prisoner of Christ in that he is a prisoner for Christ’s sake, so it expresses purpose, and he is also a prisoner because of Christ, so it expresses cause, but whatever exactly Paul is getting at here, we know that the fact that he is a prisoner of Christ should elicit sympathy from Philemon, and that’s the main point. It is a terrible thing for a brother in Christ to be in chains. Greetings to be in prison instead of out serving the Lord freely. Thankfully, Paul is not alone. Timothy is with him. This is his protege, his disciple. And so Timothy sends greetings too. Did you notice that Paul refers to Timothy as our brother again, highlighting that family connection, so Paul and Timothy send greetings to Philemon, the dear friend of Paul, gets at the closeness of the bond between them, because Paul almost certainly led him to Christ, and so, yes, there’s a special relationship there, of course, he is not only a dear friend, but also a fellow worker, because he’s part of God’s household, and if you’re in God’s household, then that means you are called to work in God’s household to build up His people. That is true of all of us. We should be able to say of every Christian, as my fellow worker, as my fellow worker, right there. Now, we don’t know why Paul’s writing yet, but we do already see how he’s going to approach this difficult subject that he’s got to bring up, the delicate issue. He’s not leaning into his apostolic authority as he does with heresy so often. We saw this in Galatians, if you’re with us for that series, I’m an apostle. I wasn’t even called by people, I was called by God Himself. You better listen to what I’m saying. That’s not what He does here. He could use his authority, but he doesn’t. Instead, he leans into the relationship that he has with Philemon, the closeness of the bond, and then his present circumstances and sympathy they should bring, Paul greets not just Philemon, but Aphia, who is probably Philemon’s wife, calls her our sister, still highlighting that family connection, and then Archippus as well, perhaps their son, but don’t really know, but a fellow soldier as well, and then he also greets the church that meets in Philemon’s home. There were no dedicated church buildings for several centuries after Christ, and so wealthy families – Philemon would certainly fall into that category. Wealthy families would host the church in their homes, they would have rooms large enough to hold 4060, 80 people or so, and that was what the early church looked like. So this is a huge part of Philemon and his family’s work for the Lord, serving the church by hosting it. If you’ve ever hosted a large gathering of people, you know that that is in fact work, and so they’re giving time, energy, et cetera, generously to all of them, then Paul wishes grace, which is what brings us into God’s family, and peace, which is what we experience as God’s family, only comes from God the Father, and from His son Jesus Christ, the Son that was cast out, the true son, cast out, so that we could be welcomed in as true sons and daughters in his place. Nothing too shocking, so far. I mean, he’s just saying hi, but already we’re getting a sense of how the gospel should start to shape us. Let’s look at it in a little more depth, as we turn to the second section, the Thanksgiving and prayer. So, a second section called Sharing, verses four to six. I’ll read for you now. I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all His holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. So every time he remembers Philemon in his prayers, he feels gratitude well up in his heart. He’s grateful. He thanks God for him, that’s probably not what we do with everybody.
We pray for there are some people that we pray for in part because we feel ingratitude about their presence in our lives, but it is always nice when you’ve got that person, where as you start praying, do you have anyone like this in your life, where you start praying for them, and it almost like catches in your throat, just that sense of I’m so grateful he’s in my life in this way at this time, that’s what Paul has here. Philemon, by the way, if that’s you, notice Paul tells Philemon that he feels that way would be my encouragement to you as well. Great time to shoot a text and say I’m grateful for you, and I remember that every time I pray for you, but what makes Paul grateful for Philemon? Two words, both there in verse five: faith and love. That’s why he’s grateful to Philemon, because he’s heard about Philemon’s faith in Jesus and his love for all the saints. Whole church, it’s important that he brings these two together, because you can’t have love without faith. Because we can be honest here, there are a lot of people that are tough to love. There are a lot of people that are tough to love, even in the church. So, how do we go on loving them? How do we choose to love them? Well, quite simply, we remember the gospel. It is by faith that we love. We have been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, not because of our works. God did not save us because we were so awesome, but because He is so merciful and compassionate. As Julie read for us earlier, the harsh reality that Christianity teaches us is that we are tough to love, and especially tough. If I can say this without stumbling into heresy, we’re especially tough for God to love, considering that we are all in, you know, open rebellion against Him when we come into this world. Yet He loved us still and loved us so much that He sent His son to die for us. God demonstrated his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, Romans five eight. When we remember that, that changes how we feel about others. We love as God loves us, because God loves us. Did someone, maybe somebody in the church wrong you, shared a bit of gossip or slander, made your life difficult in some way? Okay, in Christ you can forgive and be reconciled because you have been forgiven and been reconciled to God, and this is not just for the small things, the peccadillos. I’ll give you an example of what this looks like on a much larger scale. In 2015 many of you will remember that white supremacist Dylann Roof entered a Bible study at a black church in Charleston. He was welcomed by the congregation into this Bible study, sat with them for a length of time, and then drew his gun and murdered nine of those church members. It is tough to love the man who murdered your family. How’s that for understatement? And yet that’s exactly what they did. Again, some of you will remember that at the sentencing hearing, church member after church member, family member after family member stood up and explicitly forgave him, and even voiced their opposition to the death penalty in his case, because they had forgiven him. One sister of one of his victims said, “I acknowledge I’m very angry, but one thing my sister always enjoined in our family reminded us is that we’re the family that love built. There’s no room for hating, so we have to forgive. That’s the idea, exactly. I mean, the church is most truly the family that love built. We are the family that God, who is love, built that matters. That’s what Paul sees in Philemon, that’s why he thanks God for him. Now, no doubt, he’s also getting him ready a little bit for what’s coming later in the letter, because he’s saying, “I’ve seen this love in you, I’m gonna keep seeing this love in you. Right, it’s a little bit like when a parent says, you know, going away for a time or whatever, and they, you know, sit down with a kid and say I’m just so thankful that I know I can trust you while we’re gone.
I think that’s what Paul’s doing here as well, although it is true what he’s saying, but this gratitude then for the love that springs from Philemon’s faith. This gratitude then prompts Paul’s prayer. Remember, Paul says, basically, I thank God when I’m interceding for you. Well, so here’s the intercession: I thank God when I’m pleading for you. Here is my plea. And then he gives us this dense and difficult phrase: I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. We’re going to need to understand the words and grammar that are used here. The first one that is a little bit difficult is the word partnership. This is a word that could just mean fellowship. You actually hear this word a lot, even in this church. One of the benedictions we often use is, may the grace. Of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. It’s the same word. So, is this just fellowship? Is this just your presence in each other’s lives? No, it is more than that. It is partnership here, like what’s needed to get the job done together. This is what Paul thanks the church in Philippi for, as well. Philippians one five, he thanks them for their partnership in the gospel, and we know from reading the rest of Philippians that that partnership includes their financial support, their generosity. I’m sure that’s part of what Paul is saying to Philemon, here too, again, we’ve already seen his generosity, and that he’s willing to host the church in his home. The point is that love costs, love always costs, and so Paul is praying that Philemon would go on bearing the cost. Well, why would he? Well, because the partnership is one of faith, so it reads literally. I pray that your partnership of faith – we’ve already seen that that of something can be confusing. What exactly is it getting at here? And I think almost certainly here, what it means is that it’s the partnership that springs from faith, the partnership that comes from faith. In other words, it is a gospel-motivated partnership. The partnership that comes when you remember what you believe, when you remember that Christ was willing to lay down his life for us, that does something in our hearts, so that we are willing to lay down our lives for others. So Paul is hopeful, then, that all that will be effective, powerful in deepening Philemon’s understanding. And here, understanding is another rich word, it’s not just up here, understanding like his appreciation of, yes, but his experience of the treasures we share as a result of our common life in Christ, like I’m hoping you would savor this, you would just go deeper and deeper, getting your appreciation and experience of every spiritual blessing in Christ that we all share as His family. I mean, our adoption would be top of that list, of course. The fact that we get to be family because He welcomed us into His family. Or how about the peace that surpasses understanding in every situation, what about joy that is unthreatened by circumstances on and on down the list. If you’ve been attending City View for any length of time, you probably have heard me mention that most summers, not this one sadly, but most summers, I get to sit with my family, not just my family, but then my parents, my siblings as well, on the porch of our cabin up in Lake Placid, New York, and at some point, always during our days there, we’ll be sitting on the porch going, can you even believe we get to be here, because it’s our favorite place, and we didn’t earn it, if that makes sense. I didn’t buy it, that’s for sure. I can’t afford to go there. My great grandfather, who bought it, and it’s just been passed down as our inheritance in the family. That’s what Christian fellowship should be. And we should be sitting around the porch in the temple of God, going, can you even believe we get to be here. Can you even believe what God has done for us? But the point is that should then change what we do too. He forgave us, so we should forgive one another.
He laid down his life rush. We should be willing to lay down our lives to serve one another, you think of his patient forbearance with us when we go on messing up and rebelling against him. Well, that should make us patiently forbearing towards others who sin against us. Or his loving initiative in coming to get us, well, that should drive our loving initiative in going after our brothers and sisters in Christ, and really all that takes us then to this last section, the last verse as well, verse seven. Rejoicing here, Paul writes this: Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people. So here it’s not Thanksgiving or prayer any longer, but it is direct address. Paul’s prayer is done, and it’s like he looks at Philemon and says, I know my prayer has been answered. I know my prayer has been answered, because I’ve already seen you doing it. I am rejoicing because. I have seen your love in action already, as you have refreshed the church, the people of God. The word refreshed is an interesting one, really means you’ve given rest to the church of God. We actually get our word pause from one of the related words here, so it’s that sense of pause that comes, the rest that comes when you get to pause, when you get to pause. What I mean, take an example. Some of you probably have lived this, those moments of anxious striving, where you’re not sure how you’re going to take care of the bill that just came in, and it really is like there’s movement there. You’re going to, you’re.. I don’t know what we’re going to do about this, and then the pause comes, the rest comes, because the gift comes. Somebody in the church is aware of what you’re going through, and cash shows up in an envelope, you don’t even know where it came from, and that person has given you rest from your anxious striving. That’s what it means to be refreshed. I’ve seen this, but I’ve seen this in my own life many times. I’ve seen this in the life of the church as well. Philemon has used what God has given him to help his family. Did you actually notice family in there again? This is unusual for Paul, but he says there in the second half of verse seven, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people. Your brother, your brother, we’re family. Remember that Philemon has used what God has given him to help his family. No doubt he’ll go on doing it. That’s why Paul feels encouraged, comforted, even he’s got peace knowing that there in Colossi, where Philemon is hosting this church. Somebody’s got this, somebody’s taking care of the people he loves. This is how parents feel when the kids go away to college and they get hooked into a church that cares on them. I know this because we got a lot of college students here in our church, and every now and again I get to meet the parents when they come in for a graduation or something like that, and without fail they will say, I’m just so thankful my kid’s taken care of, like you guys are feeding them literally and figuratively as well. I hear it over and over again, heard it a lot yesterday at Daniel and Addie’s wedding, he was talking to their parents as well. That’s what Paul’s saying. Somebody’s got my family, and so I feel comforted, encouraged, because Philemon has demonstrated love in concrete ways to the Colossian church, whom Paul loves. Paul knows he’ll keep on doing it, and that’s going to be really important for the rest of the letter, because we haven’t gotten to the big issue yet, but it’s there, and Philemon, no doubt, knows what the issue is, as he’s listening to this first part, like there’s this elephant in the room just sitting over there, will the gospel shape the way Philemon treats his Christian family, even those who have wronged him. Depressing question, but since we’re stopping here today, the more important question for us is, will the gospel shape the way we treat our family, God’s people, the church, maybe even those who have wronged us.
Get our big idea in answering that question, kind of pulling together these key words that we’ve looked at already: faith, love, and partnership, which, as I said, really includes the idea of generosity. Your big idea for the week: let your faith in Jesus produce a love for his people expressed in generosity in the church, for the church, toward the church. The gospel, in other words, should shape how we treat one another, what we believe. Our faith changes our hearts, changes our love, which then changes our actions. The gospel should motivate sacrificial love and generous living. Now, when I say generosity here, I don’t just mean money, yes, that too, that might be part of it, but I’m talking about generosity in the broadest sense. What does it mean to live a generous life? Like, are you willing to spend time and energy on people, or what about spiritual generosity? Are you willing to pardon debts, sins against you? That always involves a cost. We want to be a part of a church where our generosity, springing from faith, gospel understanding manifests in concrete acts of love, knowing the blessings we share in Christ. Christ, we want to share those blessings with others, refreshing them. So, I just want to take a few minutes here, then to work through what that would look like for a few different groups here in the congregation. First, let me speak to us as individuals, those of us who are following Jesus. This is a time for self-examination, looking at the evidence of your life, looking at those concrete acts that we’re talking about. Do you see costly love springing from faith? Now, what are some of the evidences we might look at? Well, on the negative side, stuff that will make us go, we’re not there yet. Of course, we may notice things like the fact that we’re holding grudges against people in the congregation. I’ve never really let that go. We’re bitter or resentful, unforgiving, or this may look not like that, but just apathy. We’re unmoved, unconcerned with those around us, even isolated, so that it’s not really family. This is just the people who are near me in the pew when I pop in and pop out on Sunday mornings, when I can make it, or maybe it’s just simple selfishness, just going to kind of do what I want to do, regardless of the people around me. That would be the negative side, that’s the stuff we’re trying to turn away from. What does the positive side look like? What is the stuff that we’re turning towards as we follow Jesus? Well, active forgiveness, of course, loving the ones that you don’t like, so that over time you’ll find you actually grow to like them, even, and leaning into community selflessly. Maybe that looks like making time to visit someone in the hospital or wherever, someone that you find tedious because you remember that God’s people ministered to you when you were in a tough situation, and you want to pay it forward, and of course you remember what God has done for you, and you’ve been changed by that, so that would be for us as individuals, but what about us as a family? Because this certainly feels like a family sermon, doesn’t it? This is one that should speak to all of us. Let’s talk nuclear family first, then we’ll talk church family. So, nuclear family parents, I would encourage you to let your kids see the cost of refreshing others and actually invite them into it, so they can bear the cost too. They start to see what this looks like. I’ll just give you a very simple example. It’s one that we have in our family a lot. We talk about a lot. I’m gone a lot of nights to minister to all of you. My being gone for my family is a way that my family can serve all of you, like that’s part of the cost they bear, and of course others of you know that as well. Some of you are, you know, you’re leading a journey group or something like that, and you’re thinking, all right, kids, like we’re giving up mom once a week so that she can build into other women in journey group, like that’s that’s how we love the church kids, though.
This isn’t just something for your parents to take on, but you as well. As you see opportunities to refresh others, bring those opportunities to your parents. I mean, you might hear a prayer request in Kid City or City Stew that your parents aren’t aware of, and say, ‘Hey, could we help out here? Better still, even kids. How can you refresh? Don’t make your parents do it. How can you refresh those families? How can you count the cost? Can you go mow someone’s lawn instead of, you know, calling up the care team and getting them to find somebody to do it? That’s us as a nuclear family. What about the church family? What does this look like for us as a church family? I mean, Jesus said they will know that we are His disciples by our love for each other, and so let’s redouble our grace-fueled efforts in this area, can I say, I think that this is true of our community. Like, I think this is an area where we excel by God’s grace. I hear it often from people. It’s a lot of the reason people stick in this church, even. But that’s just reason for us to keep going with it. We could always be doing more, and not only that, I think more of us could be doing it, like that is true of the core of our church, but some of you, some of you in the room right now, probably even know, like, I’m not part of the core of the church, so other people do that for other people, and this is your invitation. To go, all right. I’m gonna start doing more of it, so there’s always more we can be doing. More of us can be doing it. I said before, we are, we’re a wealthy congregation. We can acknowledge that it is very easy to write checks, that is not really counting the cost for most of us. It’s good, that’s a good thing. Let’s be generous there, but it is harder for American suburbanites to spend time and energy, and so let’s spend that as well. Really lean into family, the sense of being family. So, again, some encouragements to some of you. One of you, this just looks like attendance. This means you need to show up more often, or show up, get offline, and show up in person, because you are certainly not acting like family if you are online only, or if you’re online more often than you should be. So, some of this, I’m obviously preaching the choir, you’re all here right now, but some of this is just simple attendance, but then it’s more than that, like not just showing up, but actually involving yourself, have you ever had the experience where, like, a prayer chain request or a meal train request, a birth announcement has gone by, and you go, I don’t have the faintest idea who those people are. Well, they’re your family. Let me help you out there, just so you know. So, get to know them. How are you going to get to know them? You have to meet more people here. So, some of you, this looks like it’s another step. So, show up more often. Maybe you’re showing up for Explore Hour. It’s a great time to meet more people, because it’s a smaller group. You don’t meet people in this room, but you would meet people there. For some of you, maybe it’s another step deeper than that. We got Journey Group interest meeting coming up next Sunday. We got the Community Group interest meeting coming up the week after that. You’re going to show up for those, see how I can get plugged in. I’m just going to start leaning into family, meet more people. We lean into family, and then we act like family. And so this is the hardest one, because this is where we start to get almost intangible, but you know, you open your homes to one another, that’s what family do. I’d say it like this: when you’re family, you don’t ask to open the fridge, you just open the fridge and you take what you want. Well, that’s what we should look like. It should have the mi casa su casa kind of feel, shouldn’t it? We do life together in part because we’re all part of his casa.
We do life together, and here’s the beautiful thing about doing life together, which, by the way, takes a lot of time and energy, doesn’t it? That’s the only reason. How many of you want to do life together? How many of you aren’t doing life together the way you want to do it, because you don’t have time, and yeah, the rest of you are lying also. So, when you do life together, though, this happens naturally. You don’t have to match manufacture loving deeds. If you love somebody, they just go, they just come out. I actually saw this recently, so if you were at recall, you know that I messed up. That’s not unusual, but I messed up because I was sharing about a family that was refreshed by our congregation, and I mentioned the Benevolence Fund, thinking that’s how they had been refreshed. That’s how it often works. Benevolence funds, wonderful thing. I get to write the checks, all that kind of stuff. It’s great, except their need hadn’t even made it to the benevolence fund, because their community group, and they’re both in journey groups, their two journey groups had already taken care of that need. I would love, I would love if we didn’t have to have a benevolence fund. I don’t mind it, like it’s a good thing, but if it was just like with money’s just sitting there, because every need keeps getting taken care of before I can get to it, because you don’t need to manufacture loving deeds when you love somebody. So, I think there’s some room for us to grow as a church, even though I think we do well at this. Let me address one last group of people, and that’s those who are still questioning, still seeking. So, you’re here in the room because you’re checking Jesus out, but you are not following Jesus yet. Can I ask you to think about this, or really encourage you to ask yourself, what is going to sustain costly love like this in your life. The reality is I think we all want to be like this, in part because our values in the West have been shaped completely by Jesus Christ, but what’s going to sustain that, the sort of selfless, generous living. It is not easy to forgive when you have been badly wronged by somebody. Fact, I would go so far as to say, in the flesh, it is impossible to forgive when you’ve been badly wronged by somebody. It’s tough to sacrifice financially when you’re not sure how you’re covering next month’s rent. It, so what’s going to sustain that? It all starts with faith, with believing in the good news of Jesus’s death and resurrection, and what that could mean for you, you who are in rebellion like the rest of us against our good and gracious Father, and yet He made a way for you to be welcomed back into his family, because the punishment that we deserve, his son took on himself, so that the reward that the son deserved, we can take for ourselves by faith in him, and then we get all of those spiritual blessings in Christ, so trusting the God of the gospel can change, sustain, empower you to live with love like that. I mean, just take the money example, it is hard to sacrifice financially, really is, unless you remember that God is your provider, and the God who did not keep His own son for Himself, but gave Him up for us all. How will we not also, along with Him, freely and graciously give us all things faith in Jesus should and absolutely will, if it is genuine faith. Faith in Jesus will produce a love for his people expressed in rich generosity toward the church and beyond, of course. The church may do so in us as individuals and as a gathered people for his glory. Let’s pray. Father, we pause to remember the wonder of the gospel, that those of us who have put our faith in Jesus and his work on our behalf have now been welcomed as your dearly beloved children, that is the wonder of wonders, Lord, and we will celebrate that truth for all of eternity.
God, may that truth transform our hearts, though, so that we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ truly as family with all the generous acts of sacrificial love that that would require and produce, Lord, be softening our hearts, increase our faith, and so multiply our love. May we be known as a generously loving church. May that speak to the community around us, even to those in the room now who are still asking questions about you and Lord, may you be drawing them to yourself with the wonder of that love. Even now we pray for Christ’s sake. Amen.