You know, as we think on these
things of the birth of Christ, we always should need to remember
what the Lord told through the angels that he sent there on
that night. Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace and goodwill towards men. But we must never
get the order of that backwards, because All of those things that
the Lord did, he did for his glory. We are the beneficiaries of all
that he did, and certainly what a great benefit we have to be
called sons of God, to see and understand who it actually was
that was born that day so many years ago, but always remembering
that it is His glory that we seek, not our own, not even the
glory or lifting up of other men. Now we desire to see other
men lifted up as the Lord is pleased to lift them up, but
our desire is always first and foremost to magnify His name.
And may that ever be upon our heart, in our mind. Today I want
us to look at the book of Philemon, Now this is a small book, one
of the shortest in the Bible. It is only one chapter, and we
don't really know a whole lot about Philemon, nor even this
one who Paul writes to him concerning, whose name was Onesimus. Now
you could read over this and just say, well, you know, that's
a nice little letter that Paul wrote to Philemon, and we can
gain some things from it. But I believe that in the book
of Philemon that we learn what the gospel is, and we see the
unfolding of the truth of the gospel in Paul's letter to Philemon. And so we'll read it. It says,
Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ and Timothy, our brother, unto
Philemon, our dearly beloved and fellow laborer, and to our
beloved Aphia and 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. Wherefore though I might be much
bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient, yet
for love's sake I rather beseech thee, being such in one as Paul
the aged, and now also the prisoner of Jesus Christ. I beseech thee
for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds, which in
time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee, and
to me, whom I have sent again, thou, therefore, I have sent
again, thou therefore receive him that is mine own bowels,
whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might
have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel. But without
thy mind would I do nothing, that thy benefit should not be
as it were of necessity, but willingly. For perhaps he therefore
departed for a season, that thou shouldst receive him forever.
Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother, beloved
especially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh
and in the Lord. If thou count me therefore a
partner, receive him as myself. If he hath wronged thee, or oweth
thee any aught, put that on mine account. I, Paul, have written
it with mine own hand. I will repay it. Albeit I do
not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides. Yea, brother, let me have joy
of thee in the Lord. Refresh my bowels in the Lord. Having confidence in thy obedience,
I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I
say. But withal, prepare me also lodging,
for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto
you. There salute thee, Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ
Jesus, Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow laborers, the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with your spirit. Amen. Now, this, Philemon is one whom Paul had
great respect for and obviously was a spiritual man and a man
who was a great benefactor of many. Evidently, he must have
been a wealthy man, or at least a man of some means, as Paul
thanks him for the good that he did for the brethren. And, of course, he greets him
as his dearly beloved and fellow laborer. We're all, by the grace
of God, fellow laborers in the gospel of Christ. If we've been called by His grace
from darkness to light, we've been called to labor in the field
that He has given us to labor in. Now, not all laborers perform
the same task, but all are working towards the same thing, and that
is working towards seeing that the name of Christ is exalted.
And the Lord gives different men different means whereby to
carry that out. And he gives different gifts
to that end also. And we're never to be envious
of the gift of others, nor are we to belittle the gifts of others. But we are to as brethren to
be reminded that any gift, any ability that we have comes from
the Lord. I mean, there's nothing we can
boast in. There's not a thing in the world that you or I have
ever gained in this world that is not in the greatest measure
been given to us because of where the Lord put us. the situations
that have arisen in our life that brought us to the place
where we are. And so we have nothing to boast of. Our boast
is in Christ. And may that always be as it
is. And so this is kind of one of
the underlying themes, I think, that the Lord is using Paul to
bring to Philemon because he says, you know, remember where
you were. Now you've been, you're in such
a position that there is a church in thy house. Now we, you know,
when we think about the early days of, after the Lord had left and the
brethren were called out in various places, And, of course, in our
present time, men think about churches, they think about a
place. They think about a house. They would look at this building
and say, well, there's the church. Now, I know it's colloquially
okay, and I'm not against somebody saying, well, there's the church,
but this isn't really the church, this building here. It's just
a meeting house. It's just a place that is convenient
for us. And a church has nothing to do
with the building in which it's in, whether it be a fine building
or whether it be just a hut or a tent or whatever. And of course,
in those early days, there were no meeting houses. But they did
have houses in which they lived, and so it was very common for
brethren together in homes to meet together just as we meet
here. In fact, when this assembly began, that's the way it began
years ago, was meeting in homes. And then this building became
available. And of course, you know, there's
things, there's advantages and things that are good in meeting
in one another's homes. But then there are also things
that are, that make that inconvenient. And so while we say that we don't
have to have a building to meet in, it is a matter of convenience. And it is helpful to us in many
ways. Now, of course, there are some
who think that it's harmful. And if it is, that men grow to
depend on it. on these physical things and
say that this house somehow or other is a holy place or something
that is other than what it is, just a house that we meet in,
then that's possibly true. But there's certainly good things
about having a place that we can come together that does not
put an undue burden on a particular family or whatever to meet in
their home because it is somewhat of a burden. Now it may be a
burden that somebody bears gladly, and I'm not saying that it wouldn't
be a blessing in some ways, but it does put a burden more so
on a person for when people gather in somebody's house. So over
time, I think that's what happened, is that the logistics of those
type things took place and men began building houses specifically
to meet in. The sad thing is that You know,
many have taken on the concept that those houses are something
special, which they are not other than just for the benefit of
those that gather in there. But in those days, there was
a church that met evidently in Philemon's house. Evidently,
that's why I believe he probably was a man of some means. He had the physical ability to
provide a place, and he willingly did that. And as Paul says, hearing
of thy love and faith which thou hast toward the Lord and toward
all the saints, that he has indeed opened his house up to them,
and he has ministered to them of the abundance that he had. And so I would mention also that
when Paul's writing to Philemon, our dearly beloved and fellow
laborer, and then he also mentions, we believe this to be Philemon's
wife, he does not say that so, but that is a feminine name,
Ephia. And so he says, well, I'm writing
also to our beloved Ephia, and Archippus, our fellow soldier,
and to the church in thy house, perhaps. that Archippus was one
who was used of the Lord, even as Paul was, to minister among
those in the ministry of the word. Now when we think about
the ministry of the word, and I've mentioned this before, all
of God's children are to be ministers one to the other. we minister
to one another of whatever things we have, whatever we are given. If we are given the ability to
take the scripture and to expound upon it and thereby be useful
to the brethren, then that is a form of ministry. But undue
harm has been brought to the church of God over the years
when it's considered that the only ministry that there is,
is the ministry of taking the Bible and opening it up and commenting
on some verses of it. And people say, well, he's a
minister. Well, we're all ministers. And we minister to one another
of the gifts that the Lord's given. Every joint supplies that
which the body's in need of. And so it is that he mentions
these things or sets them forth, or we learn these things as we
read this. Huh. The meat of the book, of course,
is Paul, in some ways, I guess you could say he's buttering
Philemon up. I mean, he's not really, that's
not necessarily a bad thing, and of course, Paul is not trying
to build Philemon up in his own eyes. What Paul's doing is causing
Philemon to realize that he has everything because of the grace
of God towards him. And as he mentions here what
his purpose in writing this book of course is concerning Onesimus. Now we don't know a lot about
Onesimus and we have to kind of read between the lines to
get the gist of what's going on here, but it seems pretty
clear that Onesimus at one time was a servant of Philemon. Now whether that was a servant
in the sense of being a slave who was captured in war or whatever
and brought into servitude, whether he grew up that way or whether
he was a servant who was paid to watch over the affairs of
Philemon. We don't really know exactly
what that servitude what was, but we do know this, that at
some point in time, Onesimus had left that servitude of Philemon,
probably on not very good terms. Now it's possible that Onesimus
had maybe embezzled some funds from Philemon. We don't know exactly what it
is. We don't want to cast aspersions on Onesimus, but obviously there
was not a good relationship between Philemon and Onesimus. At least
Philemon didn't have fond memories of Onesimus. And so Paul's writing
to them because Onesimus, by the grace of God, had been brought
into under Paul's ministry of the Word, Paul's teaching, and
the Lord had caused Onesimus to become a believer. And so
it is, isn't that an amazing thing, how a man who runs away
from a servitude to a gentleman and goes off into a far country,
maybe, evidently he went to Rome, evidently that's where Paul,
because that's where Paul was and he said, you know, that Onesimus
was of great service to him there, but so he's writing about this
man and Philemon, I'm sure when he first
heard the name Onesimus, that we didn't go over real big with
him, probably. He probably thought in his mind,
oh, that's sorry, Joker. But Paul, in his, what I would
say, buttering Philemon up, he kind of softened the heart of
Philemon to remember what it is that gave him what he had. and how he was as much a bond
slave to Jesus Christ as was Onesimus. And so he asked Philemon
to take Onesimus back. And the amazing thing about this
is that obviously Onesimus must have confessed all of these things
to Paul. When he came to know Paul, when
the Lord moved in his heart, and he came to a place of repentance,
and he says, I have wronged this man. I have not done right. And so he probably, more than
likely, I can imagine, I mean it seems to me, that he probably
asked Paul if he would write this letter to Philemon because
he wanted to make it right. See, he wanted to come back,
but he felt like he probably couldn't come back because Philemon
probably would have been mad at him. But the Lord in his mercy
and his kindness, he sent Paul or he used Paul to write this
letter to send to Philemon that he might be reminded that it
is the grace of God that brought him to where he was. And so he
pressed upon him the necessity as a brother in Christ to be
forgiving to this one who had wronged him. And he said, if
he hath wrong thee or oweth thee anything, put that on mine account. Now I told you that this was
about the gospel. And here it is. Because is that
not what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us? Whatever has
been laid to our account, he has taken it upon himself. I'm
reminded of the Good Samaritan, what he told the innkeeper, he
said, take care of him. And he said, whatever else is
owed, when I come again, I'll pay it. He paid a debt he did
not owe. I owed a debt I could not pay. and the Lord Jesus Christ came
into the world to pay that sin debt. Know that we might be ever
reminded as Paul writes to Philemon concerning his willingness to
pay his brother's debt that that's exactly what Jesus Christ did.
And so What a glorious thing. Number
one, we learn that where the gospel is and where men are given
hearing ears, that they are brought to repentance. And Onesimus was. And Onesimus desired to make
things right with Philemon. And he wanted to go back to the
very servitude that he left. Remember in the Old Testament,
in the year of Jubilee, when the servants were turned loose
or let free from their bondage, whether that be whatever sort
of bondage it was, most times it was that they had become indebted
and were trying to work off their debt. Well, when the year of
Jubilee came, then their debts were were canceled. But if a servant loved his master
so much that he didn't want to go away Then the servant was
taken to the doorpost and they took an awl, which most people
don't even know what that is probably, but it's a little thing
that used to be used quite regularly in leather making, like an ice
pick, to punch a hole in it. Well, they pierced his ear and
they put a ring in his ear. And what that denoted was that
he was going to be a servant of that person forever. And the
Lord in his mercy has brought us to that mindset. See, they didn't take a man and
put him up there and four or five men held him while they
did this. But he willingly did it because
he wanted to be the man's servant. And so it is in the mercy of
God that he does indeed make his people willing in the day
of his power. You know, that's the glorious
thing. That's one of the things that's the hardest thing for
those that love to talk about the free will of man. That's
the one thing that they can't really get their grips on. Is
that the Lord's the one that makes a man willing in the day
of his power. Because if he doesn't, no man
will come to him. That's what he told Pharisees.
He says, he will not come to me. that you might have life. And every one of us sitting in
here the same exact way. We will not. A man will not bow
his knee to Christ. He will not serve God, except
that the Lord, who's full of mercy, does make him willing
in the day of his power. And let not a man boast of that
will. But may we ever be, even as Paul
reminded Philemon, that we owe everything to the grace of God,
the mercy of God, and His great kindness toward us.