Turn back to the book of Philemon. I've been looking at this for
a couple of weeks. I thought, what an interesting...
I call it a book, it's just a letter. It's in the Word of God, which
tells me there's some real lessons for us here. It's very important.
You know, when you think of the book of Revelation, the Gospels
and the epistles that Paul wrote, and here is a letter from a believer
to a believer, over another believer. I titled the message, The Gospel
That Changes Lives. But then before coming down here,
reading over it again, I thought maybe the appropriate title might
be The Gospel of Reconciliation. Because that is what's happening
here in this letter. Paul is writing to Philemon about
this runaway slave coming back home. He's going to send him
home. Onesimus ran away, he rebelled,
but God saved him and changed him. The gospel makes a great
change. when it comes in power. Here is a servant who was unprofitable. That fits every one of us, because
I can see me and you in Emnesimus. Unprofitable. But now he says
profitable. What made him profitable? What
made this unprofitable slave, a servant, what made him profitable? the Lord Jesus Christ, the grace
of God, the work of the Holy Spirit, salvation that made Him
profitable. Now He's useful. We're useless. We're useless until God saves
us. We really are. A gospel that does not change
lives, it's either not the gospel, or has not been received a genuine
faith. There's not been a real work
of grace done in the heart. Because the gospel cannot come
in power and you and I remain the same. You can't be born of
God. Think about that. Born from above? Born of God? You know what a
powerful change that is? Could you imagine in your mind,
if you'd been standing there when God created the heavens
and the earth, what great changes were taking place, day after
day, and God speaking, and something happening, and all these changes
being made. Well, the same creative power
happens when He saves a sinner. The same creative power. Someone
said this, it's an interesting statement. He said, when God
created the heavens and the earth, there was no resistance. When
He saved us, there was resistance. Someone said, God saved me against
my will with my full consent. But anyway, a gospel that does
not change lives is not the gospel. Now Philemon, the one he's writing
to here, was converted under Paul's ministry. Probably while
he was at Ephesus, preaching there, that's probably where
Philemon came across Paul, that's where their paths crossed, and
he heard the gospel, and God saved this man. And he seems
to be a wealthy man, a well-to-do man. And God saved him. And there was a church meeting
in his house. When God saved him, he opened
up his house. He opened up his house to God's
saints, and the church met there. That's the way they usually did
back in that day. They didn't have the buildings we have right
now. That didn't happen until hundreds of years later. They
started building their own buildings. But back then, they would meet
in someone's house, and they met in his house. Paul says, "...the church in
thy house." What a blessing! How blessed
is that home that can be called a church, or where the church
meets. Because he may have been speaking
of his household family and some of the servants there being saved. I don't know. But the church
met in his house. That was a real blessing. But this man Onesimus, He is
a servant and he steals from Philemon. And I have no doubt
that when God saved Philemon, there was a real change in that
man. But there was no change in Onesimus. He was still Onesimus. And he stole some stuff and he ran
away to Rome. And the reason I think he stole
something is because Paul said, if he hath wronged thee or owed
thee aught, put that on mine account. So no doubt he took
some stuff. He was probably a house servant.
And he probably took some money to pay for his trip to Rome.
And he headed out to Rome so he could fulfill the lust of
his flesh and get lost in the crowd. If you can go to Rome,
you can get lost in the crowd. It's not easy to find you and
bring you back. So he heads off there. You know,
the Scripture says that all we like sheep have gone astray,
all of us. All of us like Onesimus have
taken off and gone our own way and served our own self, every
last one of us. We were so lost. I thought about
this today. We were so lost at one time,
we didn't know we were lost. Now that's lost. When you don't
know you're lost, you're lost. That's lost, spiritually speaking.
You don't even know you're lost. We were once unprofitable, but
in the Lord now, in the Lord we are now profitable, we're
fit. This is what they're saying, we're fit now for the Master's
use, aren't we? Would I be fit to stand here
and preach to you tonight if God hadn't saved me? I'd be as
unfit as could be. We'd be unfit to sing the praises
tonight. We wouldn't even know what we
were singing about. The Scripture teaches us to sing
with understanding. You understand. When you stand
to sing, you understand what you're singing. You understand
who you're singing to, don't you? You understand it. The Lord
has to make us fit to enable us to even worship Him. It's
not possible to worship God until God saves us. It's not possible. It's not possible to believe
God. Now listen, it's not possible to believe God until He saves
us. He has to save me in order for
me to believe Him. In order for me to repent and
believe God, He's got to give me life. He's got to give me spiritual
life from the dead. And now I'm teachable. And now
I can learn. Now there's something to put
the truth in. You see, you can't put the new
wine into old bottles because that old bottle is going to break.
You and I can't handle that new... We can't handle the truth. We
can't handle the new wine. But that new man can. That new
creation can. And God has to do that first
before He can ever teach us. We're not even teachable to them. The whole work of salvation is
of the Lord. Now I want you to notice this,
in Paul writing this letter, most of his letters started out
with Paul the Apostle. He speaks of his apostleship
when he's writing to the church. But here he addresses himself
to Philemon as a believer to a believer. As one believer to another believer.
As one brother to another brother. One who shares the same faith,
same spirit, same love, same God. He addresses him as a brother. And listen here. Paul is acting,
and I thought about this right before coming down here, now
the study. Paul is acting in the same spirit
he was Philemon to act in toward Onesimus, in love. He says, I could command you,
but I'm not. I don't want you to do this out of necessity,
I want you to do this out of love. Out of love. Because if you do it out of necessity,
you two guys are going to have a problem. You're going to have
a problem down the road. If the only reason you take him
back is out of necessity, and I'm putting pressure on you,
you're going to have problems. But if you receive him out of
love, you're not going to have any problems. All is well. Love covers a multitude of sins,
doesn't it? It does. It covers a multitude
of sins. Now, Paul starts out like this.
Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ. He counts himself a prisoner
of Jesus Christ. Not a prisoner of Rome or Nero,
but a prisoner of Jesus Christ. Not a prisoner of the Jews, but
a prisoner of Jesus Christ. Whose prisoner are you? Whose
prisoner am I? I'm somebody's prisoner. I'm
His prisoner. A bond slave. A willing bond
slave. That's what we are. Every believer
here is a willing bond slave of Jesus Christ. You're glad
to be called a servant of the Lord. To be a servant of the
Lord. If we are the prisoners of Christ,
then we recognize that He's our Master. He's making a good point
here. If I'm a prisoner of Christ,
if you're a prisoner of Christ, do you know what that means?
He's our Master. He's our Master, and I want you
to notice You may have not picked up on it when Curtis read it,
but I think the name of Christ is mentioned here like nine or
ten times. The Lord Jesus, or in the Lord,
He establishes everything in the name of Christ. What He's
going to say in this matter of reconciliation between these
two, He's going to establish it in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's our Master, and all that comes our way, is according to
the will of our Master. How easy is it to take something? Especially you experienced believers,
how easy is it to accept something when you really understand and
are resigned, this is the Lord's will. This is the Lord's will. That makes taking whatever comes
our way so much easier. It's just so much easier. When
we resign ourselves to the will of God, we're His prisoner. Now, was Paul imprisoned by some
fluke? Was he there because God wasn't
able to deliver him? He was there by the will of God.
You know, while he was in that house, God gave him favor with
the guards, and he was able to receive people as they were coming
and going, and he preached to them. God controlled that prison. That's
his prison. When Bishop Rutherford was in
prison in Aberdeen, he would write to his brethren, And he
would sign his letters at the top, from the Lord's palace in
Aberdeen. That's the way he signed his
letters to his brethren when he wrote to them. From the Lord's
palace in Aberdeen. I tell you, wherever the Lord
is, with us, wherever we are and He's with us, that's a palace.
John Newton said, and I can't quote the whole poem, but he
said, a prison, a palace would prove if Jesus would dwell with
me there. Oh, God, give us that attitude.
Give us that attitude. Let us live out our lives like
that. And there's something I want
you to notice as we go along here. The providence of God in
salvation. Onesimus steals from Philemon. He runs away thinking he's going
to be free to live as he pleases, not realizing he's still a slave,
but he's a slave to the lust of his flesh. He's still a slave
to sin. Sin is his master. That sinful
nature that he was born with is his master. It's controlling
him. He steals, he leaves, he runs,
and the reason he's going to Rome is to fulfill the lust of
his flesh and of his mind. That's what he's going there
for. Rome was the place to do just that. But God, God who is
rich in mercy, Ralph Barnard said that means He's got plenty.
He's rich in mercy. He directed Onesimus' steps right
directly into the apostle Paul. And I have no doubt that he knew
something of Paul through Philemon and that situation. And whatever
God used, I don't know, but whatever God used, He brought this runaway
slave right into the prison to speak and sit and listen to Paul
preach the gospel. Now someone may ask, like myself,
because I wrote it down, it came to my mind. Why didn't God save
him while he was with Philemon? When God saves Philemon, the
church is in his house and the gospel is being preached there,
why didn't God save him then? What an opportunity! That's what
the Armenians would say, what an opportunity! The honor of
meanings would say that God sure missed an opportunity there,
didn't He? No, He didn't. No, He did not. God saves a sinner
when it's time. There's a time to be born, a
time to die, a time to plant, in that same verse, a time to
plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted. And it was His time. And this
is going to be a blessing to Paul as he sits in prison in
his bonds. He said, I begotten him in my
bonds while I was in prison. So God uses this and he makes
it a real blessing to Paul and to Onesimus. And we, you and
I, are going to get a real lesson here on reconciliation and on
forgiveness. This is what we're going to see.
If you read this, read it several times. It's short. It's amazing
what you get when you go over it and over it and over it, what
jumps out at you. But God saved him when it was
time. And listen, He saves a sinner when it best suits His glory
and the good of His church. This best suits God's glory here. We're reading about it right
now, aren't we? You and I are going to learn something if we
want to. If we have an ear to hear and a heart to receive,
if we are interested, we might learn something here tonight.
We just might do it. Here's another reason why God
saved him when he saved him. It's that the faith and the grace
that's in Philemon is going to be exercised before the church. This grace of forgiveness, this
matter of reconciliation, the church that's in his house that's
meeting there, at Colossae, that's where it's at, the Colossians. They are first-hand going to
get to see this. They're going to watch this happen
between two believers. Now there's two believers. One
of them was offended, one's the offender. And I can go off, boy,
I mean, you're talking about charityship, You're talking about
going off on the gospel here. Paul says, if he wronged thee
and owes you anything, you put that to my charge, I'll be surety
for him. I'll stand as surety for him.
You be reconciled and forgiving. Wow, I'm interested so much in
this short little letter. But anyway, back to my thought. have Philemon, move Philemon
to exercise his faith before the church. And this letter, he said, was
read before the church. So, if that letter was being
read right now, and that was between, say, me and Curtis,
this situation between me and Curtis, and this letter was read
before the whole church, you know, I guess all eyes are on
me and Curtis. Now we are going to see the grace
of God in action, we're going to see the grace of God in power,
but we're going to see somebody lost. Somebody has not tasted
of the grace of God. But they're going to see it,
they're going to get to see it. Now as I said, Onesimus' conversion
was a real blessing to Paul while he was in prison because he says
in verse 13, Paul said, I would have retained him, I would have
kept him with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered
unto me in the bonds of the gospel. He's a blessing to me. God saved
this runaway slave and made him a blessing to Paul, and one of
the evidence that God saved this man is that he served Paul. I
mean, it's evident he didn't like to serve, that's why he
ran. But now here he is serving Paul. He's a real help to the
Apostle Paul and a real blessing, and that's why God's sitting
there for a while. He's got a ministry there in helping Paul for this
little window of time. I mean, who knows what tomorrow
brings for you? There might be just a little
window there of you serving in a situation, and then that situation
moves on. Then God brings another one.
And that's what happened here. He became a real blessing to
the Apostle Paul. Grace makes us a blessing to
others. You know, when someone thinks
of you, you who believe, when someone thinks of you, they ought
to think of you as a blessing. What a blessing he or she is.
And they ought to think that way of me. I mean, that's the
work of grace in us. That's of God. So now Paul here,
even though he'd like to retain him because he is such a blessing,
he now intercedes for Onesimus. and we can see the intercession
of Christ. We can go off so many directions with the gospel here,
but let's stay with what we're doing. Paul intercedes for him
and he says here in verse 10, I beseech thee for my son. He doesn't say, I beseech you
for your servant, this runaway slave. I beseech you for my son. Boy, that's powerful. That's
a powerful statement coming from the Apostle Paul to Philemon.
This is my son in the faith. He called Timothy that. This
is my son in the faith, whom I have begotten in my bonds.
The Lord saved him under my ministry, and he's a blessing to me. He's
my son in the faith. And Paul intercedes for him to
Onesimus. You know, it's evident the Lord
really saved that man. It's evident because Paul would
not have called him a son. And he would not have interceded
for him if he had any doubt whatsoever. If Paul had any doubt concerning
this man, he would not have asked Philemon to do what he's asking
him to do. He heard the gospel. He heard
the Lord. He heard His voice. He was called
by the grace of God, and He heard the Master's voice, and He came
to the Master. The sheep came to the Master.
He ran away, but God knew where He was. He knows where we are.
He knows where all His sheep are, doesn't He? We can run away
from each other, run away from where we are, run away from home.
I ran away from home one time when I was a teenager. I was
an idiot. I'll be the first to admit that.
Rebellious idiot. And this man was a runaway. But
the master, the master knows where his sheep is. I heard Henry
tell a story. I don't know if I could not tell
this right. I didn't write it all down, but
he told a story. of a man, the preacher was named
Clifford. He heard him preaching up in
northern West Virginia. And when he was a young one growing
up, young boy growing up, they raised sheep. And when he was
about 16 years of age, his dad gave him some money and told
him to go buy a ewe. That's a female sheep, to go
buy a ewe. And so he went to this man who
sold sheep and He started looking at them, different ones, and
he saw this one sheep. One-eyed sheep. It had one eye.
And the man showed him the sheep. He spotted that one. Then he
took him and showed him some other ones. But he said, I just
kept coming back to that one sheep. He said, I was just drawn
to that one-eyed sheep. Ugly as can be, but I like that
one-eyed sheep. So that's what he wanted. He
told him, I said, I want that one. He said, really? You want
that one-eyed sheep?" He said, yes. So he took that one-eyed
sheep home and he said it was produced and was just one of
the greatest sheep, but ugly. He took his other sheep to the
fair and he entered them into those contests you have in the
fair, but he couldn't enter Queenie. He named her Queenie. He couldn't
enter Queenie into there because she's too ugly. The other sheep,
but he liked her so well, he took her to the fair when they
went to the fair. Well, since he couldn't enter
her in the fair and he had the others in the fair in competition,
he asked this hog man to watch his sheep. And so this hog man
was watching Queenie and he went to do something and Queenie got
loose. And so Queenie took off and went
out to the fairground out in the midway, and with all the,
you know, the Ferris wheels and the people, and she was running
all over the place. And the guy comes back for Queenie,
and he says, the hogman said, she got away. And he's like,
where's she at? And he heard all this commotion
out in the midway, and people trying to help, trying to help,
you know, catch the sheep. And she was just running all
over the place. She was running all over the
place. And he said, he yelled out, Queenie! He said, she stopped
dead. She stopped dead. And she came back and got right
between his legs. And he took her home. That's what he did to Onesimus.
There he is in Rome. There he is in all that commotion,
and all that stuff going on in Rome, and God hollers, Onesimus! And he stops dead. And God saved him. And he came to the Master's feet.
And he did the same thing to me, and he did the same thing
to you. Oh, I tell you, when God calls
His sheep, they come. They come. Wasn't anything about Onesimus
any good, was there? We don't read anything good about
Onesimus. All the good is about the Lord
Jesus Christ. I'm not even going to get to
the main points of this message if I don't move on. But Paul here, and listen, let
me get back to this. In verse 11, Paul lets Philemon know that
his servant is now useful, he's profitable. The Lord has saved
him. He saved him. He says here in verse 11, "...which
in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and
to me." Oh, this is beautiful, isn't it? He was useless, but
now he's useful. He's useful now to you. I know
it's hard to trust someone who's stolen from you. I know that. And then receive him back with
open arms, and then open the house up to him again, and trust
him to take care of things again? Absolutely. You receive Him back
with open arms. Paul said, it may just be. Philemon,
it may just be. Perhaps He departed for a season
that you should receive Him forever. Here's God's purpose. He let
us depart in Adam for a season that He might receive us in Jesus
Christ forever. That's why He let His sheep fall
in Adam. He let us depart for a while,
that He might receive us forever in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
from here on, in this letter, Paul establishes
everything on Christ, in Christ, by Christ, as the reason for
what He is saying to Philemon, for what He is asking Philemon
to do, this matter of reconciliation. Listen, in verse 3, Grace to
you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The
Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation He's the reason, He's the basis
for all grace and peace that you and I will ever have. He's
it. The foundation for all the grace
and peace that we have and ever will have will come to us through
Jesus Christ. See, Paul is going to establish
this grace and peace and this mercy and this salvation in Jesus
Christ, not in any other person or any other way. It's in Christ. It's good to start the foundation
on Christ, because that's the only way you can come up with
grace and peace, because you can't come up with grace and
peace apart from Christ. Before the foundation of the world,
we were blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. We
were blessed in Him by the grace of God, and it's through the
Lord Jesus Christ that grace and peace continues to flow. It continues to flow through
us through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then secondly, Jesus Christ
is the basis for all love and faith in the believer. God is the one to be thanked
for you and your faith and love to Christ and the brethren because
we are His workmanship in Jesus Christ. Listen to verse 5. Paul
said, "...hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast, First,
toward the Lord Jesus and toward all saints. The very basis of our love to
one another starts with Jesus Christ, doesn't it? Peter, do you love me? You know, I've learned over time
that for me to love you more, will be a direct reflection of
my love to Jesus Christ. If my love to Christ grows, my
love to you will grow. I promise you, it will grow.
If my love does not grow toward Him, it won't grow toward you.
And that will become evident. Oh, our love to Christ. Our love to Christ first. And
from Him, it flows. It flows. Listen to Romans 5, 5, And hope maketh not a shame,
because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost, which is given to us. The love of God is... And I like the way that it's
not trickling into your heart. God does not trickle His love
in. It's shed abroad. It's just cast abroad. It's cast abroad. It's hard to find words. It's hard to find words. That God's love is so overwhelmingly
cast upon us. that we can't even begin to imagine
it. It's beyond our understanding.
It's beyond our comprehension. And if that love is shed abroad
in my heart, it's coming out. It's going to come out in acts
of love and kindness, just like it did with Onesimus. Look here
in verse 6. We see here that Jesus Christ
is the cause of every good work in us. He says here in verse
6, "...that the communication of thy faith," and he's saying
this, "...that the exercising of your faith may prove to be
true." This is what proves faith to be true. It's our works. It's our deeds. Love not in word
only, but in deed and in truth. It's what we do. That proves
the genuineness of faith. And here Paul is saying to Philemon
that the communication of thy faith may become effectual by
the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in
Christ Jesus. He didn't just say these good
things are in you, but they're in you by Christ Jesus. The exercise of your faith is real, because your faith is
real. Your faith is real. It is sharing what God's given
him. He opened his house. He relieved,
as it tells us later on here, he relieved, there in verse 7,
he relieved the suffering and the pressure that some of the
saints were under, evidently he was a major part in relieving
them of those problems, helping them through it. And glad to
do it. Through faith you share what
God's given you, knowing that the Lord will provide. When we give, we give willingly,
Henry used to say hilariously, we ought to give hilariously,
knowing, here's faith, now here's faith, knowing the Lord will
provide. Knowing He will provide. And
he says this, that every good thing in you is by Jesus Christ. Every good thing in us is by
the work of Christ in us, isn't it? We know that. If we do anything
that's worth anything, it's Christ in you, Christ in us working
through us. And we give Him the glory and
the praise for it. We praise Him for it. And he says here what a blessing,
as I said in verse 7, we see what a blessing he is. He says
here in verse 7, For we have great joy and consolation in
thy love. Great joy and consolation in
thy love. Because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by
thee, brother. This rejoices my heart. You know,
when I hear And I do hear. I hear when this one and this
one, you know, you do something out there and you give. It rejoices my heart. It thrills
my soul. It does. It thrills me. It's a thrill to a pastor. When the church, the members
of the church are doing doing things that are honoring to Christ. You're doing things that are
just what you ought to do because God saved you. What a blessing
that is. Love must show itself in acts
of kindness and acts of love. It will. It has to. And then he says here, and he
points out a new relationship now between Philemon and Onesimus. Paul says to receive him, but
this man Onesimus in verse 16, he's not now a servant. He said, don't look at him like
a slave. He's not your slave. He's your brother. He's not your
slave. He's your brother. Yes, there's
still that relationship now. There's still that relationship
of Philemon being the boss and him being the servant. But he
said, but now you look beyond that. You two are really brothers. You're really brothers. You know, my brother worked for me when
I had a machine shop. And that was different. That
was different than the other man that was working there. My
two sons worked for me. That was different. It's a brother. He says, not as a servant, but
a brother, listen, a brother beloved. For Christ's sake, beloved. Here's a new relationship. It's a relationship of love begotten
in Christ. Onesimus, you be a good servant. Philemon, you be a good master. And you all deal with each other
as believers. Philemon, you forgive Onesimus. You forgive him, just like you
would your brother. Just like you would your brother,
because he is your brother. You and I are the real... Now
listen, I know this is still harder to grasp that what we
have in Christ, our fellowship in Christ, our brotherhood in
Christ is closer than our fleshly relations. It really is. I don't
think we'll really understand that or really I mean, it takes
real maturity to get to that level, to where you really understand
it and see it that way. Because that old saying, blood's
thicker than water, is still pretty true. It's still pretty
true, even among believers. But I pray that we grow in grace
and in knowledge of Christ to the point where our relationship
in Christ is the most important. It is the most important. You're
going to have to spend eternity with me, and I'm going to spend
it with you. I said, you're going to have to spend it with me,
but we get to spend it with one another
forever. And all our fleshly relationships
are going to be gone. They're going to be dissolved.
My sons won't be my sons no more. My mother and father, they won't
be my mother and father no more. Those fleshly relationships are
going to be dissolved. But our relationship in Jesus
Christ will be forever. And our true joy in one another
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is where we have our true
joy with one another, isn't it? It's in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 20. Yea, brother, let me have joy
in thee in the Lord. This is where we have real joy
with one another, in the Lord. And Paul knew Philemon would
be obedient because of his relationship to the Lord. He knew he'd be
obedient, he had this confidence, because he said in verse 21,
"...having confidence in thy obedience." This is the reason
I wrote to you, knowing that you'll do, you won't do just
what I say, you'll do more than I say. You know, I can say this as a
pastor, I'm confident, if I'm standing
here preaching the Word of God, I'm confident that you who believe
will be obedient. I'm confident you will submit.
You will submit. He knew Philemon would submit. He knew Philemon would forgive.
He knew he would. Because he's one of the Lords.
You're not rebels. You're sinners saved by grace.
You've been reconciled. And there's one thing here I
want you to notice that I didn't notice it until, I mean, I didn't
give any real attention to it until the end of all this and
before coming down here. It's amazing how many times you
read this and look it over, it's like you get a new message out
of it every time you start looking at it. But notice the very small print
at the last end of the letter. written from Rome to Philemon
by Onesimus, a servant." You know, Paul said in one place,
he said, if he has wronged thee or oweth thee, I put that on
my account. I, Paul, wrote it with my own hand. I think Paul
wrote that statement with his own hand, because he wanted to
get across to Philemon, I will pay for whatever this man owes.
I will stand as his surety. But the rest of this letter,
some say he dictated it to Timothy and then Onesimus carried it
back home. But whoever wrote it down as
Paul dictated it, it says here, Onesimus, but here's the blessing
I got out of this whole thing. I got a lot more than just this. Onesimus carries his letter of
acceptance back to the one he offended. And this is the thought that
just blessed me. We have the Word of God. We have our letter of acceptance,
His Word. Let us take it before God, whom
we've offended, in the name of Jesus Christ. Here is our letter
of acceptance. Take it before Him in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, You said, You said, He
that cometh to Me, I will no wise cast out. That's what you
said in your letter. Come unto Me, all ye that labor
and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Lord, you said that in
this letter, in this book. Here's our confidence. Our confidence
is not that we repent and we quit doing what we thought was
sin and we're going to go before God. No. You know what my confidence
is? First is Jesus Christ, which I would know nothing of except
through the Word of God. My confidence is in God's Word.
God's given me His Word that He will accept me in Christ.
He will accept every sinner that comes to Him in Christ. Isn't
that a blessing? That little old statement, who
was going to pay any attention to that little old statement
at the end of the letter? That's powerful. That's powerful.