Good morning, church. You get me for another week.
Hope that's okay. We're going to be in Philemon
again. I'm going to finish it up. I'm going to read starting in
verse 8 through the end of the letter. Paul writes, Accordingly, though
I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required,
yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you. I, Paul, an
old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus, I appeal to
you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment.
Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to
you and to me. I am sending him back to you
and sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep
him with me in order that he might serve me on your behalf
during my imprisonment for the gospel, but I preferred to do
nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might
not be by compulsion but of your own accord. For this, perhaps,
is why he has parted from you for a while, that you might have
him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave,
as a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you,
both in the flesh and in the Lord. So if you consider me your
partner, receive him as you would receive me. If he has wronged
you at all or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I,
Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it. to say nothing of your owing
me, even your own self. Yes, brother, I want some benefit
from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. Confident
of your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do
even more than I say. At the same time, prepare a guest
room for me, for I am hoping that through your prayers I will
be graciously given to you. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner
in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you. So do Mark, Aristarchus,
Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
be with your spirit. So we spoke some last week about
how this is a very small letter. how this is short and sweet compared
to the dense and rich theology of Romans and the almost perpetual
rebuke of the Corinthians, right? I want to motivate this letter
for you a little bit more because this is not an instructional
letter, right? Romans has lots of instruction
in theology and 1st and 2nd Corinthians have lots of instruction in right
living and living as the body and relating to one another.
1st and 2nd Thessalonians have lots of instruction in theology
and encouragement to continue in that faith. Philemon is short
and There's not much theology here,
at least on the surface. We have to dig a little bit to
find it. So what we're going to do today
is going to be a little bit different. I'm more or less going to teach
you what Philemon does not say. Because there's a way to read
this situation with Onesimus and the church in Philemon's
house that might lead you to believe something that you should
not believe. So what I'm going to do is I'm
going to teach you what scripture teaches about this in order to
demonstrate that that's not what this letter says. this letter sort of dealing with
something entirely different. In order to motivate that, we're
going to look at what Paul says about scripture in 2 Timothy
chapter 3. Remember, I'm going to teach
you something that this letter is really not concerned with,
and I'm going to teach against some heresies that might arise
from misunderstanding this letter. So flip over to 2 Timothy chapter
3. I just want to motivate our objective here. 2 Timothy chapter
3 verse 16. We hit this a little bit last
week when we were talking about Paul and his apostleship and
the authority by which he writes to the church. 2 Timothy 3.16
Paul writes, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable
for teaching. for reproof, for correction,
and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent,
equipped for every good work." So because of what Paul tells
us here in 2 Timothy 3, that is that scripture is profitable
for rebuke and for correction, I think it is appropriate for
me to rebuke and correct any error that might arise from misunderstanding
Philemon. There is a place for this. Scripture
is profitable, useful. It is good for correcting errors. So we're going to do a little
bit of that today. But not before we get through
the first first little bit here of Philemon. So first, in Philemon,
verse 8, Paul says, accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ
to command you to do what is required. This is an interesting
statement. This is Paul making a statement
about his authority, right? Remember, we explored last week
who Paul was and what his purpose was, what his job was in the
church. Paul was an apostle, right? An apostle appointed by Christ. Paul says, I am bold enough in
Christ to command you. This is a statement of Paul's
apostleship. Right? This office of apostle
is something that no one today holds. This office of apostle
is a position of authority over and above the elders of the local
church, yet still subject to scripture. I mean, it takes something
pretty spectacular to become appointed an apostle, right?
You had the eleven disciples who, you know, followed Jesus
around for several years. They were apostles. Then you
had Paul, who was you know, on his way to murder Christians
and Jesus knocked him to the floor and said, you will proclaim
my gospel. Right? Those circumstances aren't
really something that can happen today. They're not around. Right? No one has followed the incarnate
Christ around for three years. Christ has not appeared in a
radiant light and said to anyone, you are my apostle. And so Paul says this from a
position of authority higher than any position of authority
that exists today. He says, I am bold enough. to
command you in Christ. This word bold, we might read
it as confidence. I have confidence in my own authority
in Christ to command you to do what is required of you. Paul has this authority from
God himself. And yet he does not exercise
it, right? He says, for love's sake I prefer
to appeal to you. Paul has this authority to command
the church, and yet he says, I appeal to you, brothers, for
love's sake. I, Paul, an old man, now a prisoner
for Christ, appeal to you. This is almost 1 Timothy 5 in
reverse. In 1 Timothy 5, Paul instructs
Timothy, he says, do not rebuke an older man. Do not rebuke an
older man, but exhort him as you would a father. I say this is 1st Timothy 5 in
reverse here because Paul is the older man. Paul says it,
I'm an old man in Christ, a prisoner for Christ. Paul has the authority
to rebuke this church. He is confident in his authority
and yet he does not do it. Here Paul sets an example for
the elders of the church. Paul sets an example for mothers
and fathers. The elders of this church may
be confident in Christ to rebuke you for your sins. I may be bold
and confident in the authority afforded me by scripture to rebuke
you for any errors that you might be holding on to and don't get
me wrong there is a place for that if you come in here spouting
off heresy you might hear a little bit of a rebuke but Paul sets
an example here for how elders should approach the church in
general how fathers and mothers should approach their children
in general. We may be confident in our authority
to rebuke you, yet we prefer to appeal to you as a brother
in Christ. For love's sake, I would be gentle. in my teaching. I mean, isn't
that what is required of an elder in 1st Timothy chapter 3? An
elder must be gentle, self-controlled. Paul sets this example here that
while we may have authority to rebuke your errors, your sins, for love's sake we
appeal to you. This is important to keep in
mind because in a little bit it might even sound like a rebuke. And I don't mean it to sound
that way when we get there. Paul goes on, he says, I appeal
to you for my child Anesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment.
In verse 11, and this is where we're going to focus, he says,
formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to
you and to me. And this is where I'm going to
teach you what this is not talking about. This is where we are going
to examine what scripture says, And it's not the concern of the
verse here, which might seem a little backwards. But I think
it'll make sense when we get through it. So we're going to
talk about the assurance of your salvation. And it might not be
readily apparent why that has anything to do with Philemon
verse 11. But it will get there. We will
see it. We're going to talk about the
assurance of salvation. How do you know you're saved? And to do that, we're going to
jump off from Ephesians chapter 1. I'll read verses 3-5. In Ephesians
chapter 1, Paul says, Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places. Even as he chose us in him before
the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless
before him. In love he predestined us for
adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose
of his will." So right here Paul establishes the assurance we
have in Christ. Paul establishes the confidence,
the boldness that we have in our faith in Christ when he says that God has blessed
us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. Christ's work, Christ's
person, what Christ did for his people is inseparable from this
blessing. If you have been blessed in Christ,
you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly
places. Meaning, if Christ's work was
accomplished on your behalf, then every spiritual blessing
is to be expected for you. You have received these spiritual
blessings. Now, throughout history, this
is where we're going to get to correction. Throughout history,
man has invented many false gospels, many errors, heresies, false
teachings that oppose this truth. And this should not be surprising,
right? The teacher says in Ecclesiastes 729, God made man upright, but
they have sought out many schemes. And so here as we talk about
the assurance of our salvation, as we seek to understand where
our salvation comes from and who is responsible for upholding
it, I have an opportunity to rebuke one of these schemes of
men. And scripture is profitable for
this purpose. There's a false gospel taught
in evangelical churches. Maybe a word that I shouldn't
use when I'm talking about this. Evangelical cults, as James likes
to call them. The false gospel of prevenient
grace. Prevenient grace says that Christ
died for all people. And because of this, there's
some measure of grace, some spiritual blessing that all people receive. And that blessing enables them
to respond to the call of the gospel. This false teaching It
takes the work of Christ and says it is for everyone and everyone
receives the blessing of it. But the blessing of the work
of Christ is only that you can choose for yourself. And I think it's certainly divine
providence that just yesterday Tim was asking about something
very similar in one of our group chats. He asked about Joshua
24 verse 15 where Joshua is speaking to the people. He says, choose
you this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord. That is one of the primary proof
texts for this error of prevenient grace. These false teachers will
point to Joshua and say, look, Joshua told them, choose. That
must mean they're able to choose, right? No, read the rest of Joshua
24 and the whole book of Judges. They didn't choose. Joshua tells
them, you know, choose to serve the Lord or choose to worship
pagan idols. And the people say, OK, we'll
worship the Lord. And then right at the end of
the chapter, a few verses later, it talks about them worshiping
pagan idols again. This idea of pervenient grace, it is explicitly rebuked here
in Ephesians chapter 1. So let's examine a couple of
the things that are wrong with this as they are taught against
in scripture. So if it be the case that all
people are actually able to respond to the gospel in this way because
of this prevenient grace, then Romans chapter 3 verses 10 through
18 does not have any meaning, right? What does Paul say in
Romans chapter 3? Essentially, we're using scripture
here to contrast this false teaching. Prevenient grace says that all
men have a measure of grace to seek after God, to choose God,
Paul says in Romans 3 verse 10, quoting the Old Testament, none
is righteous. No, not one. No one understands and no one
seeks for God. Man says anyone can choose God. God says no one seeks for God. Further, Paul gives a description
of the state of every man in Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter
8, speaking of those who do not have the Spirit of God, those
who are not in Christ, Paul says, those who live according to the
flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those
who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things
of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh
is death. but to set the mind on the spirit
is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the
flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.
Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot
please God." If prevenient grace is true, if it is true that every
man has some measure of grace in himself to believe the gospel,
who is Paul talking about here? What's the point? Why would Paul
tell us this about people who do not exist? Romans 8.8, it says that the
one who does not have the spirit of God cannot please God. But surely it pleases God when
man obeys the call of the gospel, does it not? So, prevenient grace
implies that all men have the Spirit dwelling in them. If all
men have received some measure of grace such to be able to please
God, then they must have the Spirit of God in them. Romans 8-9 says that anyone who
does not have the Spirit of God does not belong to Him. Or we
can turn that around, anyone who does not belong to Christ
does not have the Spirit. This idea of prevenient grace
runs contrary to the teaching of scripture. And so, we can teach the truth here from
Ephesians 1. Why is prevenient grace wrong, other than all the
reasons that I just gave you? It says that those who have been
blessed in Christ, that is, those who Christ died for, have been
blessed with every spiritual blessing. This false gospel of prevenient
grace says that those who have been blessed in Christ only receive
this one spiritual blessing, this one measure of grace. This false gospel and every false
gospel separates the work of Christ from what it accomplishes. It separates what Christ did
on the cross from what Christ accomplished on the cross. It
separates Christ from the blessings found in Christ. Those whom Christ died for have
been blessed in every spiritual way in the heavenly places. Their sins have been forgiven.
God's wrath is satisfied against them. Christ's righteousness
is their own and they've been declared holy in Christ. Every spiritual blessing. What does this have to do with
assurance? You cannot receive God's grace in part. God is not in the business of
pouring out partial or incomplete measures of grace. I mention this from time to time,
there's a very popular preacher who had actually influenced me
a lot in my younger, more immature days. Which is funny, I'm only 27. There's this one preacher who
divided God's grace into like 15 different categories. Saving grace, justifying grace,
financial grace. I think he might have said medical
grace. And then he tried to tell me that you could receive some
of these measures of grace and not others depending on how strong
your faith was. You'll even find divisions like
this in systematic theologies. You'll have a chapter on this
kind of grace and you'll have a chapter on another kind of
grace. That's why we must be careful
with the books we read that are not the Bible to understand what
they're doing and how they relate to scripture. Scripture teaches
us that there is one grace and that is the grace of God. And
that through that grace Those who are in Christ have received
every spiritual blessing. So we must not make this mistake
of dividing God's grace so that we can receive regenerating grace,
the grace for faith, without receiving the grace for assurance
or the grace for maturity. Paul is clear that God's grace
is given fully in Christ. So this gives us the answer to
the question about our assurance and our works. What role do good
works play in the life of the Christian? What is the point? Romans 8, Paul contrasts the
man who has not the spirit and the man who does have the spirit
that apart from God's grace, man is only able to imitate the
man described in Romans chapter 3, the one that hates God. Apart
from the grace of God, in our paths are ruin and misery and
our feet are swift to shed blood. That is who we are apart from
Christ. We can only hate God. We cannot
do good. We cannot seek God. But in Romans
chapter 8, Paul says, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus
from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from
the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through
his spirit who dwells in you. The grace of God having been
given to you for salvation, for your justification, for the forgiveness
of your sins, is also given to you to bring life to your mortal
bodies. The very same grace, the only
grace of God that has saved you, empowers you and exhorts you
into serving and pleasing God. Where does it come from? Ephesians
2 verse 10, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. God has not given grace to save
you and then left you to your own devices to please Him. God
has created us in Christ through the full blessing of His grace
to serve Him and working good for Him. And God has prepared
these good works for you in Christ. Now I mentioned the difficulty
of dividing God's singular grace into distinct categories. And I mentioned that sometimes
systematic theologies do this. Some do it right and some do
it wrong. We're gonna attempt to do this right now. It's funny,
probably 90% of good theology, good systematic theology at least,
is making up words and then sort of giving careful rules about
how you should use them. A poor systematic theology is
one that makes up all the words, but doesn't make it clear what
categories go where. We can make up different names
for the ways in which we're blessed in Christ, and we must be careful
not to separate these blessings from the full dispensation of
grace given in Christ. So that's 90% of good systematic
theology. Making up words and then just
keeping track of things and keeping everything in the right place.
The other 10% is finding good reasons to break the rules. The
other 10% is finding these exceptions to the words that we've made
up. Which, if this seems like too much of a dance for you,
it would be perfectly appropriate to stick with the language of
scripture and do what we call biblical theology. Systematic
theology is not for everyone, but it has its place and it has
its usefulness. But we're going to find a reason
to sort of break this rule, at least in how we talk about it.
So we must be careful not to confuse the different ways in
which God's grace has shown us. particular applications of God's
singular grace given us in Christ, that we have to keep distinct
in their function. This is why it's important to
keep things straight. While there is only one grace,
while we are blessed with every blessing, we must be careful
not to confuse the various applications of that blessing, even though
they are given in the same dispensation of grace. So we spoke of God's
grace in empowering us, in exhorting us, and preparing for us good
works. This is a function of God's grace
that we must keep distinct from the function of God's grace in
giving us assurance of our salvation. Okay? The grace God gives us
for maturing our faith, the grace that God gives us for encouraging
us unto good works, encouraging us unto loving the body, unto
serving one another, we absolutely must keep this separate, at least
in our minds, from God's grace for assurance of our salvation. Your good works are not your
assurance. The measure of grace given for
good works cannot be your assurance, because then your assurance is
in those good works, even if God has prepared them for you.
God's grace gives us assurance in a manner independent from
God's grace in stirring us up to good works. They are one blessing,
the same blessing, the same dispensation of grace. You cannot have one
without the other. But we must understand that our
assurance is not found in the works that we do. Where is it
found? The infallible assurance of faith
is founded on the blood and righteousness of Christ, revealed in the gospel
and the testimony of the Holy Spirit to our souls concerning
the promises made to us in God's word. Jesus promised in John
6 that he would never cast out those who are his. Paul declares
in Romans 8, for I am sure That neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation
will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus
our Lord. These promises are part of the
spiritual blessings that we have been blessed with in Christ.
We can be confident in these promises if we have any measure
of faith in Christ. The word of the Lord found in
the gospel of Christ is the assurance of your salvation. Not your works. Not in the good things that you
may do, but in the good work that Christ has done. In this way, God's grace for
stirring up our hearts unto good works is distinct from God's
grace in the assurance of the word of the Lord in the gospel
of Christ. And why is this important? Scripture
gives no standard by which we might measure our good works. You can read the entire Bible
And the only standard for good works that I will find will tell
me that they're not good enough. Right? The only standard of scripture
for good working is the righteousness of God. I can never measure up to the
standard of God's righteousness. Scripture never tells me how
I can have assurance in my good works. Scripture never gives me anything
that I can measure myself against in order to say, this is how
I know I am saved. Except that I look to the righteousness
of Christ. Except that I build my house
on the rock. and not on the sand. Jesus teaches this in Matthew
7. What is the rock? What house do we build our rock
on in order to have the assurance of our salvation? The rock is
Christ, the cornerstone. We build our house on Christ
and His righteousness. And we stand bold. Bold to proclaim this gospel. On the contrary, if we build
our assurance on our works, we build our house on shifting sand. And this should be apparent to
anyone who is honest in examining themselves, right? You might
do good works one day. You might do good works one moment.
You might have even the smallest fleeting sense of sin in your
soul in one moment, and the very next you might offend
God with everything you have. Your works are shifting sand. Even if I stand before you now
qualified to teach this word to you, I may go and disqualify myself even just a few minutes from
now. Maybe nothing you can see, but every day I continually put
my flesh to death, and yet, in this body, my flesh is still
very much alive. In this body, your flesh still
lives even as you work through the power of the Spirit to put
it to death. We still sin, right? Even though we have the power
of the Holy Spirit working in us to exhort us unto good works,
to empower us, to enable us unto good works, we still sin. So we cannot build the house
of our assurance on those works. We must build the house of our
assurance on the rock which is the Christ. What was it that
Christ told Peter? On this rock I will build my
church. And what is that rock? The confession
that Jesus is the Christ. It's not Peter. There's nothing
rocky about Peter, except that his faith was on the rocks. I
like to think that when, right, remember the Roman Catholic Church,
that's their, that's their, they've got it on a poster, right? You
know, on this rock, I will build my church. Well, Peter, Petra,
Petrus, rock, he must be the rock. We shall call him Pope.
No, Jesus is, you know, it's almost that Jesus is making fun
of Peter. You know, it's irony, right? Peter, I will name you
rock and you will deny me. Yet aren't we all like Peter?
Right? We deny Christ every day. Even
though that we have been called sons and daughters of God, yet
we still deny Christ. But it's okay. Because we have
an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ, the righteous.
And we build our house on the rock of His obedience. The error in placing your assurance
in your works is that you shun one function of God's grace.
That is, God's grace in granting you assurance. If you look to
yourself for your assurance, you are shunning God's grace
because God's grace would just give you assurance. We look to Christ for our assurance. If your assurance comes from
your works, you have taken your faith and made your works its
object. You put your works above the
testimony of Christ in the gospel, yet Christ alone is the object
of our faith. the fullness of the blessings
found in Christ are given us. Grace for good works and grace
for assurance. Salvation is found in Christ
alone, righteousness found in Christ alone, and assurance found
in Christ alone. What does this have to do with
Philemon verse 11? Paul says, I'm in Ephesians still,
back in Philemon verse 11, formerly he Onesimus was useless to you,
but now he is indeed useful to you and to me. The assurance of your salvation
is not found in your usefulness to the church. The assurance of your salvation
is not found in your good works. The assurance of your salvation
is not found in your usefulness to the church. And we might read
here in Philemon, you know, oh, Philemon, he was, you know, useless
to the church. He was lost. And they got it
together. And now he's useful to the church.
Now we can use him for something. I've seen it done that people
find the assurance of salvation in how useful they are to the
church. I mentioned last week that we
don't really have any programs. We don't have anything interesting
for you to do except be here and love one another. In many other churches, people
might look upon you and say, y'all are not useful. The evangelical
cults of this world might look upon our church and say, what
are you doing? You just show up and you listen
to the teaching and then you hang out with each other and
then you leave. But what are you doing for one another? What you are doing today, beloved,
is the first calling we have. After the call to love our God,
right? What is the greatest commandment?
Love the Lord your God. And the second greatest commandment?
Love your neighbor as yourself. The evangelical cults of this
world will tell you to you know, find the assurance of your salvation
and how you serve the church. And then if you are, you know,
just sitting there consuming teaching that you're lazy, praise God if you sit there and
you consume the word. Praise God if you hear the teaching
and you take it to heart. Praise God if you come to an
intimate knowledge of his word. The church needs, it's gonna
sound weird, the church needs lazy Christians. I've always heard it taught,
you know, you sit there and you hear the word preached, you're
lazy, you need to get up and do something. This is coming
from a church where nobody knows the word at all. One popular preacher said of
his church, we only do evangelism. If you want to sit there and
be taught scripture, you need to go somewhere else. He is absolutely
right. You need to go somewhere else
if that is what you're being told. Because ironically, he
didn't do evangelism either. The church needs Christians who
will sit and be fed the Word of God. Because the evangelical cults
of this world will tell you you need to get up and do something. all the while they do not know
the gospel that they say they know. If you are here to learn the scripture, and if
you are here to love your brothers and sisters, you are useful to
God. You are useful to the church. no matter what enemies of God might tell you. But praise God for Onesimus,
that he went from being useless to
being useful, that we might see that we are all useful as long
as we learn the scripture and we love one another. Paul continues, I am sending
him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad
to keep him with me in order that he might serve me on your
behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel, but I prefer
to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might
not be by compulsion, but of your own accord. And so Paul here continues to
set that example for the elders of the church. Right? I said there is a place for rebuke. If one of you comes to me and
starts telling me about how great, prevenient grace is, I probably won't appeal to you.
I will be bold to command you in Christ. But if one of you comes to me
and has a question, right? I've encountered this before
with some less friendly teachers. Simply asking questions gets
you in the hot seat. Simply asking questions about
things can get you rebuked. We've had people in our church,
your brothers and sisters, who have dealt with this. Asking
questions receives a rebuke from the elders. If you come to me asking a question,
what is this about? I heard this on the radio. I
saw this on YouTube. What is this teaching? I will
most certainly appeal to you. Because you should be asking
questions. And that's what we talked about last week, right? Sharing
with one another what we've been learning and studying. For what
purpose? That we might correct one another,
right? That's what Proverbs talks about. Iron sharpening iron. If you come to me with some dull
idea, I'm going to sharpen it right off. But I will do it in love. I'll
follow the example of Paul to appeal to you. We can also see this modeled
in church discipline, right? Church discipline's not a punishment. Church discipline is an appeal
in love. Right? When your brother sins
against you, go to him. And if he repents, you have won
your brother. And we see that as we follow
through these steps of church discipline, each of these steps,
our goal is grace and unity. It is an appeal. to the spirit that we claim to
share. If you sin against me and you
do not repent, yet we still claim to share the same spirit, the
spirit of God, it is an appeal in love to your spirit, from
my spirit to your spirit. The last thing I want you to
see here out of Philemon is just the humility of Paul and how
he treats this church. Paul's really the top dog. He wrote half the New Testament.
He spent, from the time of his conversion, he spent the rest
of his life walking around Asia, declaring the gospel, building
churches, appointing elders, until he got thrown in jail and
he died. Paul has all authority to tell
this church exactly what they're supposed to be doing. And yet he says, I prefer to do nothing without
your consent, in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion,
but of your own accord. He goes on, for this, perhaps,
is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have
him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave,
as a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you,
both in the flesh and in the Lord. So if you consider me your
partner, receive him as you would receive me. If he is wrong to
you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I,
Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it, to say
nothing of your owing me, even your own self. And then Paul
gets just a little bit selfish here. Just a little bit. And
it's okay. Yes, brother, I do want some
benefit from you. Right, he spends all this time
with this humble language and then there in verse 20, I do
want some benefit from you in the Lord. He says, refresh my
heart in Christ. I see this in James when he asked
me to teach. Yes, brother, I do want you to
teach. And it's not that James doesn't want to teach you. I'm
sure James has something that he could
teach us this morning. Your elders have the spirit of
Paul here. Yes, brother, I want some benefit
from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. This is sort of almost the one
thing that we can ask of our brothers and sisters, right?
We should be all about serving one another, asking, what can
I do for you? And if we were to follow Paul's
example here, there is one thing that we can ask of each other.
Brothers and sisters, refresh my heart in Christ. Refresh one another's hearts
in Christ. Because that is our first calling
after our calling to love God, right? To love one another. to
serve one another, to refresh one another's hearts in Christ. And Paul gives an encouragement.
He says, confident of your obedience, I write to you knowing that you'll
do even more than I say. And I can stand before you having
this same spirit I can be confident in your obedience, church. I can be confident that my heart
will be refreshed in Christ through my fellowship with you. And I
can be confident that you will do even more than I ask of you. Paul closes the letter. At the
same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that
through your prayers, I'll be graciously given to you. Paphris,
my fellow prisoner in Christ, Jesus sends greetings to you. And so do Mark, Aristarchus,
Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
be with your spirit. And remember, what is that grace?
Every spiritual blessing. Let every spiritual blessing
be with your spirits, beloved. Let's pray. God, I thank you for the church
that you have built upon the rock of your own righteousness. Thank you for these brothers
and sisters that they refresh my heart with their love. that the love of Christ is shown
to me through them. God, I thank you for your word
that it is unchanging, that your truth is steadfast, that you do not change, and that
you are faithful to fulfill your promises. the promise of salvation, the
promise of maturity, the promise of assurance. Lord, we thank you that you were
pleased to justify us in Christ. In whose name we pray, amen.