If you would, turn with me to
Philemon. Philemon. I'm just gonna read the first
seven verses. Philemon. Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ,
and Timothy, our brother, unto Philemon, our dearly beloved
and fellow laborer, and to our beloved Aphia, and to Archippus,
our fellow soldier, and to the church in thy house. Grace to
you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I
thank my God making mention of thee always in my prayers. hearing
of thy love and faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus and
toward all saints, that the communication of thy faith may become effectual
by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in
Christ Jesus. For we have great joy and consolation
in thy love because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by
thee, brother. So we see, first of all here,
Paul giving thanks. At one time I thought, you know,
to thank someone outwardly would make their head begin to swivel.
And it very well could happen. But we are to be thankful and
show affection to those God has given you and put around you.
It's a good thing to do to be thankful. Paul was, and we see
it here, and we see him do it in several of his epistles. He
thanks folks that's helped him out for the cause of the gospel.
First and foremost, being thankful to God as he's the one that gives
them. But there's nothing wrong with
telling someone, hey, I appreciate you, and I thank God for you.
All of our help, all of the gifts will come down from the Father
of Lights. James 1 17 says, every good gift
and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the
Father of Lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning. If those who are around you give
glory to God in the face of Jesus Christ, this is a gift to have
someone who was like-minded with you and around you. If someone
does or is doing things for the furtherance of the gospel, we
should be thankful for that. Even those at other places. We
just experienced this last weekend. We are to be thankful to those
who alongside of us hold up the glories of Jesus Christ and that
by his grace. But Paul here in his salutations
is being thankful. This is not what I want to talk
about, but I just want to, it is important. God help us to
be thankful to all those around us who love the Lord Jesus Christ.
Galatians 6.10 we read, as we have therefore opportunity, let
us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household
of faith. But then we get into this where
Paul's speaking to Philemon. Again, Paul thanking God for
Philemon and mentioning him in his prayers. But he says this,
hearing of thy love and faith. Paul heard what Philemon did
to help those saints around him, and undoubtedly someone had reported
this to him. Now he heard of it. This love,
he says, is toward the Lord Jesus and toward all saints. I know
I'm stating the obvious here, but this love and faith is first
and foremost to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the author and
finisher of faith, it says in Hebrews, so that faith given
to us by Him looks to Him. We also know from Scripture that
we love Him because He first loved us. So this also has Christ
as the cause and not we ourselves. But we also read of the fruit
of the Spirit in Galatians 5.22. which that fruit consists of,
love and faith and other things. So this also tells us this all
comes from him and not we ourselves. Knowing this helps us by his
spirit teaching us these things to know what this is saying.
And keep in mind, this is to the Lord Jesus and toward all
saints. We know if they confess this
same Lord Jesus, he has given them this as well. So that leads
me to what I want to talk about. The communication of thy faith
may become effectual. How? By the acknowledging of
every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. And that says what I previously
said about these things. It all comes from God. And that's
what I want to talk about, the communication of thy faith. I
have communication, effectual, good things come from Christ
Jesus, and then I want to talk about Paul's plea. So communication, and you can
say it this way, the social intercourse of thy faith. And it can also
mean distribution or giving. And evidently, Philemon was very
giving and helpful to those around him. But it's that communication
that is done by believers, those who have been given this love
and faith. And the key word there being
given these things. We do not work this love up ourselves,
and we do not work up this faith ourselves. We're talking about
how these are manifested. And I like what Carol Poole said
about faith. We do not exercise faith, faith
exercises us. The faith given us looks to the
Lord Jesus Christ alone and nothing else. Nothing of what we do. Because he is the source of that
faith. Although we do do some things,
it's mentioned right here in our text. But we get our doctrine
from the preponderate testimony of scripture. If we do anything
good, then it is God that caused it and not us. Scripture says,
for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. This is what we do because He
has ordained it. We do this how? By the acknowledging
of every good thing which is in us in Christ Jesus, and you'll
hear me repeat this. Our Lord did this himself. In
fact, he did it to the extreme. He did this perfectly, and he
did this all for us. Ephesians 5.25, husbands, love
your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself
for it. He did this without even opening
his mouth. His work made all that is given
to us effectual. what he did. So effectual. The word here means active. The
effectual call of God, which includes sanctification of the
spirit unto obedience of the gospel. But he makes what we
have effectual and is made manifest because we communicate his gifts
by his ordination. So the communication, the sharing,
the giving, and whatever else might be involved with this kind
of communication is made manifest. It helps others, it encourages
others, it uplifts others. And I want to point out how this
is done again, by the acknowledging of every good thing which is
in us, in Christ Jesus. It is uplifting to others to
communicate faith and love to others of like precious faith.
Acknowledging that every good in us is in Christ Jesus. We
do communicate our love and faith to one another and we should.
But we do this acknowledging it does not come from within
ourselves or by ourselves. We acknowledge that if there's
any good thing in us, it is 100% in Christ and not of us. So good things come from Christ
Jesus. I've already said it. Every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above. But we know of some
specific things that come from Christ that are a specific result
and the specific reason why he came down. We've read it many
times here. He is made unto us wisdom and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption. We just heard
last week, this last week, and we know the scripture says this,
we're made the righteousness of God in him, and that is in
Christ Jesus, because he was made sin for us. This communication
Christ did for his people, we read that from Ephesians. He
paid the price for us. That price which we could not
pay, else we would be consumed. That we have a type for right
here in this passage. So now, let's look at Paul's
plea. And I call it plea because that's
what I had as a heading in that section on my program. But Paul tells Fleeman, He could
in Christ charge or command Philemon to do this thing. But for love's
sake, he would rather beseech him. He loved Philemon as we
read later. Paul also knew Philemon would
do far more than what he had asked him to do, because he heard
of Philemon's faith. So he would rather call near
or invite Philemon about this thing, to do this thing. There
is one, Onesimus. that has come to know Christ,
to confess Jesus Christ, and that was under Paul's preaching.
Paul was in prison, of course, and as has been said before,
we don't know exactly what Onesimus did, but we do know this, he
was guilty. He was right there with Paul,
impossibly writing all this down. At the end of the book, I don't
know if it's in mine or not, At the end of the book, it does
in my program, it says this. It says, written from Rome to
Philemon by Onesimus, a servant. It says by Onesimus. But this
one thing we are sure about, Onesimus knew he was guilty.
It may have been he just left without permission, and in doing
so, it cost Philemon some money or goods or whatever. Whatever
it was, something had to be paid for. And this is a picture of
us. It's a picture of me. It doesn't
matter what we have done. We've caused a debt we cannot
pay. I have transgressed against God. For that, I must pay, and that
by death. That is the picture we are seeing
here, that which we must pay. But my death in no way satisfies
God. So if I die outside of Christ,
I must die eternally. If we must die for what we've
done, then it will be an eternal death and punishment. We need
someone to stand in our place. Onesimus is experiencing one
standing in his place right here. But this picture is of our Lord
Jesus Christ taking the debt on himself and in himself. We
have that type right here. There is one who stood or took
the place of Onesimus and Paul and us if we are in Christ. That
is Christ himself. What a gift that is, which is
in Jesus Christ. but let's stay with the type
a minute here. Paul was speaking with Philemon on Onesimus' behalf,
acknowledging that Onesimus was unprofitable at one time, but
now he, Paul says, is profitable to them both. Paul did declare
that he was profitable, but scripture says Christ has made us meet. Christ did make us acceptable
to God. Christ also made us several things
in himself. Colossians 1.12 says, giving
thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance in the saints in light. He has made us meet. That is, he has qualified us. not based on our actions or our
works, but he has made us meet based on his works. And because
we are chosen in him, then we are made meet in him. He did
this by blood. He shed his blood on that tree.
And what was the result of that transaction? Second Corinthians
521, I already mentioned it. For he hath made him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. His works did everything. All we have comes from Jesus
Christ. He brought us near to God. Turn over with me to Ephesians
1, Ephesians 1. This tells us all this. Ephesians
1, I'm gonna read verses 3 through 7. Ephesians 1, 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love. Before God Almighty,
we are going to be without blame before him in love. having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, in
whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of
sins, according to the riches of his grace. God gets all the glory. Meaning
we acknowledge every good thing in us is in Christ Jesus. We give him all the honor and
glory. I'm not honoring myself for giving
my heart to Jesus. Jesus does not want our heart.
It's desperately wicked. Who can even know this heart?
But there's much more that we can go into that we have in Christ
Jesus. We have all things in Christ. This he accomplished by becoming
flesh and being made a curse and sin for us, shedding his
blood, the redemption price, and then dying, giving up the
ghost. But then he arose to life and we with him. We see this
in type in verse 18, verse 18 of our text. If he hath wronged thee or oweth
thee aught, put that on my account. Reckon this to my account, Paul
says, I will repay it. Immediately we see the son doing
the will of the father and going to that hour that he was ordained
to go to. It has been said before and it
could be the case that Onesimus carried the very letter that
he wrote as Paul spoke it to him. The note at the end, as
I said, written from Rome to Philemon by Onesimus, a servant.
But this seems to be the case that he did carry it, that Onesimus
carried the letter, because Paul says in verse 12, whom I have
sent again, thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own battles. I would expect that he probably
protected that document as he was going back. It was his only
proof that shows Paul had spoken for him. You know, we have that
very letter right here with us. But we have more. We have this
book, the whole book. It certainly speaks of our guilt. We know by the truth of God and
his spirit that we are guilty. It's all right here in this book.
If God opens your eyes or has opened your eyes, we can see
by the words written that we are guilty. But thank God, that
is not all. It also has words of someone
who has taken my place. Words that say to the Father,
I have taken their debt unto and upon myself. Jesus Christ
has said, I will repay. And he did. I know he already
has paid the debt. You know why? He said it and
he wrote it down in this letter. You know what he said? It is
finished. Paid in full. Paul said this
to Philemon about Onesimus. He said, thou therefore receive
him, not based on his works, he was guilty, but how, that
is in my own bowels. In me, Paul says, I love him
as a brother in Christ. Everything we have, if it is
any worth to God, did not come from us and can never come from
us in and of ourselves. But Jesus Christ is worth everything
to the Father, and His people being chosen in Him, and He dying
in their stead, paid what was owed. Then Him representing them
was raised to life by God the Father, being totally satisfied
with His sacrifice. Him raising to life, we are raising
to life in Him. We are made acceptable to God
the Father. As we see and type here, Paul
speaking of Onesimus, Jesus Christ our Lord spoke up for us, and
he did this without opening his mouth, other than to say this,
it is finished, paid in full. Now quickly, I just want to go
back to the text where it says, the communication of thy faith
may become effectual. This is not saying when you communicate
your faith and love, it becomes effectual. It is manifest, in
other words, of what I'm trying to say. It does become effectual
in that sense. We do this by acknowledging anything
good in us comes from God. This is not something we set
out to do. It is God that works in us both
the will and to do of his good pleasure. When He does, as we've
said it before, it leaks out on us. When this is done, then
it refreshes the saints to hear what God has done by Himself,
and we give Him all the praise. Everything we have comes from
Christ, and I thank God for that. Because I'm guilty, and I need
a substitute. Thank God for sending His only
begotten Son to take away the sins of His people. Totally gone. even though I see them all day
and every day. Thank God he gave us this letter,
a book that says so. That is good news to me. We can
read it right here in this book, this book of Philemon. The guilty
are no longer guilty. They have been made something
they are not by nature born of Adam. We are made, the book says,
we are made the righteousness of God in Christ. Because of what he has done,
we have done the right thing before God. All in him. The prisoners are set free, the
servant becomes a brother. Set free to worship him who has
done all things to secure my salvation. May he give it to
me to communicate this love and faith that he has given me to
Christ and to all the saints. Uplifting them, acknowledging
that everything good in me is in Christ Jesus, amen. Dear Lord, may it be that we
see what you have done, dear Lord, that you've paid it all.
May it be that those here that already been
revealed to you, Jesus Christ. May it be that we just continually
see this over and over again. It's refreshing. It's refreshing.
But if there's others out there that maybe they haven't seen
this, maybe they haven't been revealed, may it be that if you're
pleased that you'll reveal this to them. All these things we
ask in Christ's name. Amen.