I'm not smart enough to be saved. God forbid that we would preach
that way. My desire this morning is that
the Lord would enable me to give such a clear, simple declaration
of the gospel that the answer to this question is unmistakable. Is there hope for a sinner like
me? Is there I think everyone here
is probably very familiar with the story of Philemon and Onesimus.
Let's read the first 21 verses. Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ,
and Timothy, our brother, and to Philemon, our dearly beloved
and fellow laborer, and to our beloved Appiah, and Archippus,
our fellow soldier, and to the church in my 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 a one
as Paul the agent, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I
beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I 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 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 shouldest 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 If thou count me therefore a
partner, receive him as myself. If he hath wronged thee or owed
thee 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 vows in the Lord. having confidence in thy obedience
I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou would also do more than
I say. Now that is, my heart is warmed
every time I read that story. But you know the key to this
story is it is a picture of redemption by our Lord Jesus Christ and
his intercession for his people. All right, that's how that story
affected Onesimus. How does that story affect you
and me today? How does that story tell me is there hope for a sinner
like me? How does it tell me? Well, let
me give you four points I see here. Number one is this. Is there hope for a sinner like
me? None of us have any hope of eternal life in ourselves.
In our story, Onesimus is a picture of you and me. He's a picture
of all men and Adam. Who is Onesimus? I'm telling
you, Onesimus was a mess. This fellow was a mess. He was
a slave. He belonged to a man named Philemon
who lived in Colossae. Philemon was a wealthy man. He
was a kind and generous man. Philemon was a believer. The
church there in that town met at his home. He had entertained
Paul there a number of times. Paul had traveled through and
they had a meeting like what we're having now. They had a
meeting. Paul would preach. Philemon was a good master. He
was a man who was known for communicating the love and the faith he felt
in his heart by showing kindness to others. Onesimus had a good
master, but Onesimus was a bad slave. He was a bad worker. Paul
called him unprofitable. Here Philemon had to slave, and
Philemon got no profit by employing Onesimus. Onesimus cost Philemon
more than he produced. Really, Philemon got more profit
when Onesimus ran away. Well, what does that tell you?
You know, the company's better off without you. They make more
money if you don't show up. That's you and me. And then,
if that wasn't bad enough, Onesimus stole from his master, from Philemon,
and he ran away. He had to steal something. If
he didn't have some resources to go very far, he had to steal
something. He stole valuables and money and things from Philemon. So Onesimus stole from Philemon
twice, didn't he? He deprived Philemon of his property
when he ran away. He belonged to Philemon. And
then he stole Philemon's money, too. Now, Onesimus is a picture
of all of us here this morning. I'm not just talking about, you
know, mankind, people out there in the world. I'm talking about
you and me, people who gave up their Saturday morning to come
to a Bible conference. How many days it is, shopping
days till Christmas, you gave it up to come here to... But
don't make any mistake. Onesimus is you and me by nature. Philemon, he's a picture of God
the Father. And you and I are God's property.
We're his property. It's he who made us, not we ourselves. In the same way, a hammer is
the property of Rick Williams. He's a carpenter. He owns a hammer.
Rick, in the same way that hammer is your property, do whatever
you want with it. You and I are God's property. He does whatever
he will with us, and it's right because we're his property to
do with as he pleases. He has every right to do that.
He's God. And you know, God is good. He's
gracious. He's kind. But you and I are
unprofitable servants. By nature, we don't add anything
to God. We can't do anything to add anything to God. We can't
do anything to make God happy with us. And by nature, we don't
want to either. We have no desire to do that.
We don't want to serve God. We don't want to worship God.
All we want to do is take from Him. We'll take His food and
His air and His water and the blessings of this life and don't
even bother to say thank you. We're unprofitable. Hold your
finger there, look back at Romans chapter 3. I'll show you this.
This is what we are by nature, unprofitable servants. Romans chapter 3, verse 10. As
it's written, there is none righteous. No, not one. There's none that
understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. They're all gone out of the way. They are together become
unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no not one. So not only are we unprofitable,
not only do we not please God, try to serve God, we do what
Onesimus did. We try to get others to rebel
against God with us. That's why false religion is
such big business. They're trying to get other people
to rebel against God with them. That's what Onesimus did. Not
only was he just lazy and he wouldn't work, he set a bad example
for others, but he actively tried to get others to rebel against
Philemon's authority with him. That's what he tried to do. He
just caused nothing but problems for Philemon. Unprofitable. That's the only word Philemon
could use to describe Onesimus in mixed company. He may have
had some other words, but mixed company, that's the word he used.
Unprofitable. And you know what? Even after
we're converted, after the Lord saves us, we're still unprofitable servants,
aren't we? In Luke chapter 10, the Lord
told his disciples, when you've done everything that's commanded
you, this is what you say, we're just unprofitable servants. We've
just done our duty, what God told us to do. We're unprofitable.
And the only way we can ever be made profitable is by God's
grace. We need God's grace. We need
God to make us something we're not. We need Him to make us profitable
in His Son. And just like Onesimus, I'll
tell you what we've done. We've run off from God. We've
rebelled against Him. We've stolen from Him. And we
have run and tried to get as far away from God as we can. Look at Psalm 58. When is it
that we start running off from God? How long ago has this been?
Psalm 58. Verse 3. The wicked are estranged from the
womb. They go astray as soon as they
be born. Speaking lies. I tell you when
we very first started running off from God, we first ran off
from him in Adam. When Adam rebelled against God,
we fell in him. We ran off from God in him. And
that continued in our experience from the womb. From the womb. We've been running away from
God. That's a good long while living. Running away from God.
So here's my first point. Here's the first part of the
answer. Is there any hope? for a sinner like me. There's
hope for a sinner like me and like you if you see yourself
in Onesimus. If you see that I am more guilty
and more unprofitable before God than Onesimus was before
Philemon, my dear friend, there's hope for you. Christ died for
sinners. Christ Jesus came into this world
to save sinners of whom I'm chief. Christ died for sinners. There's
hope for salvation for sinners. I just got one question. The
same question Gabe asked. Are you thirsty? Are you a sinner? There's hope for salvation for
sinners. But there's no hope for salvation.
hope at all for salvation from our sin if we think we're not
sinners. If we think that we are just
fine in our own selves, then we're sinners, having no hope
and without God in this world. All right, here's my second point. Is there hope for a sinner like
me? If God elected you unto salvation, you have a sure hope of salvation. Now, to you and me, we heard
the story of Onesimus. If we were living in Philemon's
house at that time, and he ran away, we'd think, that's the
end of the story. That's the end of hope for Onesimus.
We think that's the last Philemon's ever going to hear from Onesimus.
I bet that morning they discovered Onesimus ran away. The other
servants came to Philemon. He's there drinking his coffee,
reading the paper. Oh, they hated to tell him, but
they had to tell him. One of the slaves has run away. Philemon said, all right, who
is it? They said, it's Onesimus, and
we're getting a search party up to go look for him. Philemon
said, don't do it. Don't do it. I don't want him
back. The whole house is going to be
better off without him. He's unprofitable. Just let him
go. And Almighty God, in his providence, sends Onesimus straight
into the arms of the Apostle Paul. Onesimus ran off to the
big city, Rome. He thought, I'll get lost in
the crowds there, nobody will ever find me, nobody will ever
see me again. Just like us, somebody run off to New York City, get
lost in those crowds, we think, I'll never find them, they're
gone forever. And they thought back there at
Philemon's house, they thought, boy, we know, Onesimus doesn't
know, Lord. They thought, there's no hope
for him now. He's run off. He won't be here
to hear the pastor preach. He won't be here next time Paul
or Timothy or Titus comes through. There's no hope for him now. But who did Onesimus run? He
went to that big city. Of all the people in that city,
who did he run into? The apostle Paul. Now, Paul was
in prison at Rome. He was in his own higher house,
yes, but he was still in prison. Paul could not come and go as
he pleased. He couldn't go out and find Onesimus out there in
the city dragging him to the service, could he? No, he couldn't
do that. But somehow, for a reason Onesimus
never could explain, he felt drawn to go hear the apostle
Paul preach. He could have easily avoided
him, but he just couldn't. He had to go hear Paul preach.
And I'm confident Onesimus had heard Paul preach before, but
he never heard him preach until here in Rome. I bet Onesimus
had hung around the house when Paul and these other men preached.
You fellows who preach, you know him. He's sitting back there,
he's scowling, he's sullen, he's sighing. He's a discouragement
to preach to. He's not encouraging to you in
any way. He'd heard Paul preach before.
Paul was there preaching in Rome, And he saw that back door, he
saw Onesimus come in, and he thought, what on earth is he
doing here? Hope this ain't gonna be a problem,
you know. And Paul preached, he's faithful to preach. And
he watched, he watched Onesimus' face. He thought, something's
different there, something's different. Is there a light going
on there? Paul kept preaching. And he watched as God gave faith. He gave a new heart. He gave
a heart of faith and love to that runaway slave. And we think, wonder why the Lord just didn't
do that back at Philemon's ranch? I mean, it seemed like that'd
be easier, wouldn't it? Why didn't he do that? Well, I don't know, but look
at verse 15. Paul says, for perhaps, perhaps,
he says, he therefore departed for a season that thou shouldest
receive him forever. Maybe that's so. Want me to tell
you why you and I ran off from God? Why did we run off from
God? Why did we fall away from God
and Adam? Why did we fall into death and sin and Adam? Why from
the womb did we run away from God? So that God, in His infinite
mercy and sovereign grace, could bring us back to God forever
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's exactly why. So the next
time you think about giving up hope for someone you love, I
think it was Chris last night, he said, all of us have somebody
we love, don't we? They don't know the Lord. We invite them
to come to service, we give them a CD, we give them a link to
sermon audio, they won't listen. And we think, well, there's no
hope. There's just no hope for them. They refuse to ever listen
to the gospel of God's grace. There's no hope for them to be
saved. Don't you give up hope? Don't you do it? Don't do it. God's able. Oh, with us, it's
impossible, isn't it? But not with God. No. Don't you
give up hope? You keep praying for them. Sinners
have a sure hope. They have an expectation of salvation
because God elected sinners unto salvation. And I don't care what
happens. He will send His Spirit and miraculously
bring that person to hear the gospel. And He's going to perform
a greater miracle than that. He's going to give them an ear
to hear. He's going to give them a heart that believes that gospel.
When we think about those we love that don't know the Lord,
you just remember this. All of God's elect were lost
causes. We are completely lost causes. But the God of providence
does miraculous things for his people. He arranges all the events
of providence to bring his people to hear the gospel of his son.
And he grants them repentance and gives them a heart of faith. Why is it that you're here this
morning? I promise you this, it's no accident. It was God's
eternal purpose for every one of us who are here this morning
to be here. Not one person's missing. That God purposed to
be here this morning. It's God's purpose. I pray it's
a purpose of mercy and grace, don't you? Because God elected
us unto salvation. We have a sure hope of salvation. All right, third. Is there hope
for a sinner like me? If Christ shed his blood for
you, you have a sure hope of salvation. Look at what Paul
says here in verse 18. If he hath wronged thee, or owed
thee aught, put that on mine account. I, Paul, have written
it with mine own hand. I will repay it. Now, I can imagine
Philemon, the first time he read this letter, he got to that sentence
and he thought, Paul, if he's wronged me, It's all he's, that's
all Nessim has ever done. It's all he's ever done is wrong
me. If, if he owes me anything, Paul said, yes, whatever it is
he owes you, you put it on my account. You take it off his
account and you file him and you get out your books. You get
out your ledgers and you take it off his, you blot it out of
his account and you put it on my account. I will repay it. In reality, I'm confident of
this. Paul never gave Philemon any
money. I'm sure of that. But that's not salvation. In order to save God's elect,
the Lord Jesus Christ paid it all. He said, Father, blot out
their sin. Get out the account book. Get
out the book and you blot out their sin and put it on my account. I've written it with my own hand.
I'll pay it with my own blood. You see, Paul's not asking Philemon
to overlook any debt that Onesimus has, is he? No. He's saying,
Philemon, you accept Onesimus in justice because the debt's
paid. It wasn't paid by Onesimus. It's paid by me. And that is
how God saves sinners. by Christ, paying the sin debt
of God's elect as the sinner substitute. The Lord Jesus Christ
paid the debt by making the debt His. He hath made Him sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. Christ took the sin of His people
into His body on the tree, and He put it away. so that it does not exist anymore
by the blood of his sacrifice. He paid it all. Well, how far does that go? You
just take that as far as you want to take it. The Apostle
John said this, the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth
us all from all sin. The blood of
Christ put away all of the sin charged to him at Calvary. Now,
I love the pictures and types we see throughout the Old Testament. I see this as a picture of salvation
in Christ. But I love this even more. Christ
himself is always better than the picture. You know, the law
of a runaway slave in Colossae was this. If that runaway slave
was to be caught, the law required that slave be put to death. Now
you'll notice, you read this, Paul didn't ask to be put to
death in the place of Onesimus, did he? But Christ did. He did that for his people. He
died. He suffered untold agony to put
away the sin of his people, and then he died. that justice might
be satisfied. The law demands death for sin. So Christ died to satisfy the
law's last demand. And because of the death of Christ,
do you know what God's justice says now? God's justice demands
God's people go free because the debt's paid. Justice is satisfied. So when God's justice demands
eternal damnation because of our sin debt, Christ pleads his
blood before the Father. He says, Father, don't put them
to death, but let them live because my blood has paid their sin debt. Father, don't make them pay a
thing because they don't owe a thing. The debt's been paid. If Christ shed his blood for
you, you have a sure hope of salvation, because the Father
will never reject the blood of his precious Son. God always
accepts sinners in Christ, not because that sinner did anything
good, but because the blood of Christ paid their sin debt in
full. Jesus paid it all, all the debt
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain.
He washed it white as snow. That's a sure hope of salvation
in the blood of Christ. And then fourthly, is there hope
for salvation for a sinner like me? If the risen, exalted Savior
makes intercession for you, you have a sure hope of salvation.
We know that at this very moment, the Lord Jesus Christ, there's
a man who sits upon the throne of glory, ever living, to make
intercession for his people. And as he intercedes for his
people, there is a sure hope of salvation. I'll give you a
couple reasons why. One, we just looked, it's because
of the blood. When Christ pleads for his people, he always pleads
his own blood. The Savior never ever asked his
Father for a favor when he intercedes for his people. When he intercedes
for his people, he always pleads justice. Let me show you that
from our text. Onesimus ran off, didn't he?
He heard the gospel. God saved him. Paul knew he could
not keep Onesimus there with him in Rome. He'd like to. Onesimus
would have been helpful to him, but he couldn't do that. Onesimus
had to go back to his master. God saved him, but he still was
Philemon's property. He had to go back. But he didn't
send him back empty-handed, did he? He sent him back with this
letter of intercession. And here goes Philemon, or Onesimus,
excuse me, walking back to Colossae. Philemon's out there one morning,
he's working on his farm, checking something, you know, he looks
up and he sees down the road, he sees Onesimus coming. He thinks,
oh no, No, I don't want him back. What's he doing here? And Onesimus,
he's humbled. He's afraid. He comes up and
hands that letter to Philemon. Philemon takes it and looks at
it. He's pretty skeptical. He opens that letter and he sees
Paul's handwriting. What are you doing with a letter
from my friend Paul? And he began to read that letter.
And this is another thing I'm confident of. By the time he
got done, his heart was softened. His heart was softened. How could
it not be? This is a letter from the Apostle
Paul. Finally, he even thought, you're
right. I owe you my own life besides. Imagine, Todd, imagine
if you got a letter from Henry. And he said to, he said, Todd,
he said, I'm Henry the aged. Here, would you do me a favor? I'd be honored. Any of you, you
wrote me a letter and said, Frank, should you do me a favor? I'd
be honored. I'd just be honored to be able to do you a favor
for you. That's not what Paul's doing here. He's not asking for
a favor. He's pleading justice. The debt
is paid. And when Christ makes intercession
for his people, he never asked the Father for a favor. He always
pleads absolute justice for his people. We've just seen that. If Christ shed his blood for
you, the Father's going to accept you. There's no reason for him
to damn you. Christ took all your sin away.
So he pleads for justice, that you be given eternal life. Second,
Christ pleads for love's sake. The Savior pleads for his people
for love's sake. He's not saying, Father, ignore
their sin because you love them. We parents, we do that, don't
we? God can't do that. Not to be God, he can't. So here's
how the Savior pleads for love's sake. He says, Father, accept
my people. Accept the people that I died
for. Accept the people that you loved and gave to me in the covenant
of grace. You loved them, Father. You gave
them to me. You chose to set your love upon them, not because
they were holy. They weren't. You set your love
upon them to make them holy. And Father, I've done it. I've
made him the righteousness of God in me. And you always accept
holiness. Father, accept them. And here's
another way Christ pleads love when he intercedes for his people.
He says, Father, accept my people because you love me. And they're
one with me. See, that's the key to salvation.
It's always for Christ's sake. Here's the third thing. When
Christ makes intercession for his people, he pleads union with
him. Look here at verse 12. Paul says,
Whom I have sent again, thou therefore receive him that is
mine own bowels. He said it again, verse 17. If
thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself. Philemon received is no count,
unprofitable thief of a slave. as if you were receiving me,
the Apostle Paul. When Christ pleads for his people,
he pleads unity, union with him. Christ and his people are one.
You can't separate Christ and his people. So when the father
sees his son, you know what he sees? He sees Christ. He sees the body as one. He doesn't
see Christ and then my people. No, he sees them all as one because
Christ is one body. Christ is the head and we're
the body. So when justice comes looking for God's left, Christ
pleads, Father, don't let them die. They already died in me. Justice is satisfied. If Christ
died for us, we can never die again. because the Holy God will
never allow a sinner to be punished for the same sin twice. If we've
been punished for our sin in the person of our substitute,
we can never die. And then last, when Christ pleads
for his people, he pleads the new birth. Paul said that in
verse 10, I beseech thee for my son, Onesimus, whom I begotten
in my bonds. That's true by nature. We're
runaway slaves. We're born with the nature of
Adam. It's the nature of a slave. It's
the relationship of a slave. But when God's elect are born
again, they're born with a new nature. They're born with the
nature, not of Adam, but the nature of our Heavenly Father.
We're born with the nature of sons and daughters. And those
who are born of God in the new birth, cannot sin because they're
born from different seed. They're born from incorruptible
seed. They've been made partakers of the divine nature. So anyone
who's been born again can never die because there's no sin to
condemn that new man. He's born of God. He cannot sin.
Now that's the gospel. And in that gospel, in the Savior,
that that gospel declares There is a sure hope. And when I believe,
and I understand when I say hope, I don't mean, well, hope this
will happen, or hope no. This is an expectation. There is a sure expectation of
salvation for sinners like you and me in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is my earnest prayer that
the Lord will enable each of us to leave here this morning
with faith in Christ, leave here with that sure hope of salvation
for sinners like us. May the Lord bless you.