Book of Philemon - Vs. 4-5

All righty, guys, good morning. We will jump right into it because we have been moving nice and slowly so far, so we need every second we could get apparently.

We spent the last two weeks talking about a subtopic to help set the context a little bit more for the rest of the letter as we move through it, and so we're done with that.

It was certainly not exhaustive by any means for, in my opinion, a very important topic, but hopefully it was enough to kind of set the tone and get the ball rolling and to help remind ourselves of some important historical factors again as we go through this.

And so we're done with that, and today we'll start picking it up verse by verse officially.

We covered the first three verses Sunday before last, just the kind of the salutation of the letter.

So we're beginning in verse 4 today of the book of Philemon. Again, we were segueing now kind of from the historical context of slavery in the time of the

Roman Empire at the time that Paul was writing this letter, but now we're honing back in on Philemon here.

And we've talked about this before a couple of times, but to the contrary of what a lot of commentators say, this particular little book is not an attack on slavery, the institution, but rather Paul telling a slave, that being

Onesimus, to go back to his master and to be better at it. But he doesn't leave it at that.

He gives him this message, and he tells him that this is how he needs to live his life, but he doesn't send him back without sending an exhortation to Onesimus' master as well.

So Paul doesn't just tell the slave what to do, but he also sends back instructions for the master.

So the theme of this book then takes us right back to our first introduction, which at this point

I believe was like a month ago. It's not about an attack on slavery, but rather this is a book about forgiveness.

That's the message of Philemon, which is made abundantly clear by the story itself as we go through it more and more.

Now, to get back to the situation that Paul was in here a little bit, keep in mind he had led

Philemon to the Lord some years prior to this letter being written, Philemon owned a slave named

Onesimus, and their relationship is the core context of the entire story, which again is used to give us a very practical real -time example of how forgiveness should be.

In our introduction, we looked at some parables. We discussed the fact that in principle, obviously, the

Bible covers quite a bit in regard to the principle of forgiveness, but Philemon as a letter is a real -time, real -life example of what that looks like.

One thing that Dad mentioned in his introduction to Colossians that I thought was interesting that I had never heard before,

I think I wrote it down, the prison epistles. There are four prison epistles, and commentators apparently refer to that as the anatomy of the church.

Y 'all remember Dad talking about that? And then Dad broke it down, and he said that Ephesians is focused on the body of Christ, Colossians is focused on the head, that being

Christ, Philippians is focused on the Christian walk, and then Philemon, which is the fourth prison epistle, is

Christian walk in action, quote -unquote. So again, what we're about to get here is a real -life example, this being practically applied and lived out, not just in principle, but practically.

So again, Onesimus here, at some point after Philemon's conversion, decides that he's going to take the opportunity to leave his master and become a runaway slave in the city of Rome.

We're not really given any reason as to why, perhaps. At the time,

Onesimus had not been converted yet. So perhaps there was, you know, maybe some pride going on, or for whatever reason, despite the fact that he was living in a house with a very loving family that treated him well, and in fact, perhaps treated him above and beyond, like he was part of the family, not so much like a master and slave distinction like we would normally consider it, but more so he was part of the family.

For whatever reason, he decided that he would be better off as a runaway slave, which was not a good situation at the time of the

Roman Empire. You were far better off at the time this is happening. According to a lot of the secular historical accounts of slavery at this time, you would be far better off to be a slave rather than a runaway slave, and in many cases, even better than a free man that was in poverty, which would have been his case.

It would have been one of the two options for him. So perhaps he was going to go be some vagabond on the streets or something like that and see what would happen, where things would take him in the city of Rome.

We don't know all that, but he took the opportunity. He left, and he left for the city of Rome. But not only did he run away, and this is an important key as well, he stole from his master.

He stole from Philemon, as Paul seems to indicate later on in this letter.

And so he ran away, which was a capital crime by Rome standards, but he also stole directly from Philemon, perhaps some provisions for the journey.

And so that would have, not only did he commit capital crimes, but he also betrayed

Philemon's trust as well, because this is someone that Philemon would have trusted, that he would have counted his family, and here he is stealing from his master and running away.

So at the time this letter is being written, these are capital crimes that were committed by Onesimus here.

And as you can imagine, these actions not only committed those high crimes against Rome, which is a very important aspect of all the context here, but he also completely abandoned what was essentially his family.

And again, betrayed the trust of Philemon and let him down. Now, in our introduction, we covered the fact that a lot of commentators, well,

I don't know about a lot, but certainly some believe that the main kind of thrust of Philemon, the main theme is more so the providence of God than anything.

Again, I believe that forgiveness is the biggest theme here. However, there's certainly a great example of God's providence in this letter, because in God's amazing providence, in a city with approximately 900 ,000 citizens, maybe even pushing a million in that single city,

Onesimus goes to that city, into the circus, just like just absolute crazy stuff going on, and he ran into none other than the apostle

Paul in doing so. So obviously that's not a coincidence. That was the

Lord providing for Onesimus and getting him exactly where he needed to be in order to hear what he needed to hear and to be witnessed to.

It was by this meeting that he was witnessed to and saved ultimately. As much as Paul loved

Onesimus, so at this point, Paul has now converted Philemon, the slave owner, and Onesimus, his slave.

He's converted both of these guys. He now has a relationship with both of them. Paul is the middleman between them at this point, because their relationship has been fractured, but they have a relationship with Paul, the apostle.

And Paul indicates that he loved, and we'll get into this in more detail as we move along too, but he tells us that he loved

Onesimus and actually declared his desire. He will declare his desire to keep him with Paul.

So Paul wanted Onesimus to stay with him, but Paul knew that things were not right between Philemon and Onesimus, and that his relationship with his master had been severely damaged.

Paul knew all this at this point, so there was no doubt that Philemon was holding on at this point about the whole situation because he was betrayed by a close friend, someone that he had cared for, educated, provided everything that he could for.

Again, he stole from him, he betrayed him, and he ran away, and it was by a close friend, no doubt.

So you have to keep in mind that in the context of this master -slave distinction at this particular time, it was more like the prodigal son parable than a slave escaping an evil master.

So remember the parable of the prodigal son, which we talked about in our introduction. It's a father -son relationship.

Despite the fact that he was raised well and in a loving home with a loving father who left him a great inheritance, he decided to go blow it all anyway and to spend his life in debauchery and all these things until he repented of those sins, realized how ridiculous it was, and was going back to his father in the hopes that he could just be a slave.

And of course, we know the rest. How does the father react? With eagerness, he goes and he accepts his son and doesn't even need an apology.

He's forgiven on the spot. The relationship between Philemon and Onesimus is more like that than it would be when you think about the movies of an evil slave owner and a slave escaping that and needing some help along the way.

That is not what's going on here. Again, this is more like a father -son dynamic than anything.

But legally, from Rome's perspective, it was a master -slave dynamic.

And so, it's more like the prodigal son parable in that sense, what we're going to be seeing as we go through that.

It would be kind of like me betraying dad back there, deciding that, you know what, he's treated me well, he's raised me great, but I'm going to steal some of his money, and then

I'm going to flee to Dallas and hope that he'll never find me there because I'll be in a big city.

I can go do whatever I want. I'm going to betray his trust and steal from him, but I'll get away with it because I'm going to Dallas.

That is kind of what was happening between Onesimus and Philemon. He stole from him, betrayed his trust, left his ownership and the sphere of his ownership, and then fled to the biggest city in the world with a million people in there, thinking, surely

I'm never going to be found. Of course, again, he runs right into Paul. Onesimus in this situation was at fault.

Philemon was a good Christian master. Philemon had been greatly wronged, and Paul knew all of this and knew what he needed to do in the situation he found himself in, the apostle

Paul. Again, kind of being the middleman at this point between these two individuals, he needed to help set things straight.

He had a responsibility, especially given his friendship to Philemon, and at this point, his friendship to Onesimus.

He knew that Onesimus needed to go back with an attitude of repentance and to ask for forgiveness.

But in addition to that, Paul was going to send him back to Philemon with a letter imploring

Philemon to actually forgive. So it was a twofold thing that Paul was trying to accomplish here.

And it's kind of neat because in Colossians chapter 4, we actually hear in a separate prison epistle of the time that Paul sent

Onesimus on his journey back with the letter. In Colossians 4 verse 7, it says,

All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother and a faithful minister and fellow servant in the

Lord, whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate and comfort your hearts, with Onesimus, his

Philemon slave, a faithful and beloved brother. So at this point, Onesimus was converted, was a faithful brother in Christ, who is one of you.

They shall make known unto you all things which are done here. He's sending these two guys back with letters and is explaining to the church at Colossae that this is what they're delivering.

So this is the moment when Paul sends a couple of guys to the same place with multiple letters.

One personal to Philemon, but also intended to be read to the church at Colossae, interestingly enough, and also the letter to the

Colossians. They were both sent in tandem by two different guys to the same place because the church at Colossae was in Philemon's house.

So all that is just some neat overlap. And so with that being said, so all of that was kind of like an introduction.

The last four Sundays were introduction. So now we begin kind of the first natural section of the book, if you will, which is going to be discussing what the spiritual character is of a person who has the capacity to forgive.

In other words, what does a person's character look like? What are the needed character traits for a person who has the ability to forgive someone that wronged them and perhaps even wronged them greatly?

That's what the verses that we'll be covering will be talking about. It's very important for us to remember as we progress through this further that we live in an anti -God society.

Kind of getting back to the theme of forgiveness here. We live in an anti -God society, and to be anti -God is to also be anti -godly attributes.

If you're going to be anti -God, by necessity you are, and by default, you are anti -godly attributes.

Attributes that not only flow from God himself, but that we as Christians are, by mandate, needed to emulate, needed to imitate.

Our society hates all of it. They hate God, but they also hate his attributes. In other words, anything that expresses glory back to God, okay, anything that expresses glory back to God, and not just a way for an individual to gain for his own sake, that's the key there.

Anything that a person does that is intended to put glory back to God, and not merely for the gain of them as an individual person, is despised by our culture.

They hate God, and they hate any person, and any attribute of that person that is a godly attribute, and by which that attribute throws glory back to God, and not just the person themselves.

Because of this anti -God society, the people around us at large do not care about forgiveness, which of course is the main attribute under our spotlight for the next few weeks.

They do not care about forgiveness. In fact, to the contrary, we see the opposite of forgiveness celebrated around us all the time.

This is done through the display of quote -unquote rightful retaliation. In other words, if someone does something wrong to you, you now have the prerogative, you now have the right to do something wrong back to them to get even.

Taking out vengeance on the wrongdoer. These are things that are celebrated, not only in our culture, certainly in our movies.

You can't have a good action movie unless it's about going and getting vengeance on the bad guy, right? It's entertaining, no doubt.

Everybody loves Rambo and can enjoy Rambo, but our culture is so permeated with that idea of vengeance, and making things right, and rightful retaliation, and all of these things that we absolutely wholesale forget about the importance of forgiving in general, like the majority of the time.

Not to mention the concept of absolutely losing sight on vengeance being the

Lord's prerogative, not ours. So we live in a society where vengeance is celebrated, the opposite of forgiveness.

Even secular psychology and secular counseling says that it's not healthy to forgive in many cases.

If you have been wronged, it would be better for you to keep an account.

You have every right to keep an account of those evils because they were done to you. There's a particular book that I just heard an excerpt from a couple of days ago, and unfortunately, it's slipping my mind at the moment.

I should have written it down, but I want to say it was a parenting book, but in the book, it talked about how if you grew up with parents that were less than ideal, perhaps there was even maybe some verbal abuse or something like that involved, it would be unhealthy for you to forgive your parents in that particular scenario because of what they did to you.

You need to hold onto that in order to kind of keep in mind the direction you should be going or something like that.

It was very silly, the point being that it was encouraging non -forgiveness rather than forgiveness itself.

And so whether you're looking at the culture at large, the movies, the TV shows, celebrating vengeance, whatever it may be, or even psychology, forgiveness is an attribute that has totally been ignored and is mocked in some cases, which we actually talked about a few weeks ago in detail.

Of course, this is completely unbiblical because the Bible teaches that a heart of unforgiveness is a harbinger for extreme bitterness, which bitterness, when it gets a foothold and grabs onto you, can be a very, very slow and painful death.

Now, contra our anti -God culture, for the Christian, for us in this room, for anyone that would bear a testimony of Christ, for the

Christian, the desire not to forgive should be absolutely unthinkable in the large, large majority, if not all situations.

Why is that though? Why should it be unthinkable for us to not want to forgive or not have the desire to forgive?

Well, it's because a failure to forgive is a blatant act of disobedience toward God himself.

Remember, we've been told that we need to forgive our transgressors 70 times 7. We're told this because our

Father in heaven has forgiven us past tense. You can think of the most evil thing, most evil act that could be committed against you as an individual, and that would not be worse than what you did in your rebellion and what

I did in my rebellion as an affront to the very Son of God that put him on the cross.

If we were forgiven for that, if we were forgiven for being responsible for putting the eternal

Son on the cross, then there is no evil act committed to us no matter how much it would hurt and no matter how, especially being immersed in the culture that we are, how rightful feel to do everything but forgive.

That's not the right frame of mind to be in because if we were forgiven, the motley crew that we are, then we should be quick to, again, emulate that, to imitate it in every way that we possibly can.

We were forgiven. We have been forgiven past tense. Now, what happens if we find ourselves stooping down to the lower plane of our culture that ridicules divine forgiveness is that we'll be in for a world of internal hurt, hurting ourselves far more than the person that did us wrong hurt us.

If we, again, if we decide that we're gonna go with the cultural norms, we're gonna end up hurting ourselves far more internally than not.

When we opt not to forgive, what we're doing is we are voluntarily chaining ourselves to the dungeon wall of our past.

What we're doing is we're grasping, which is kind of ironic when you think about it, we're grasping to the very thing that upset us in the first place.

So you would think if you're upset by something and if something or something was done to you that was very upsetting, you would think,

I kind of want to forget that ever happened and move on and put my focus back on the right things or whatever it may be.

But rather the human tendency, and I'm speaking to myself as much as anybody here, like I told you all a couple of weeks, by God's providence, we're doing this at this particular time because these are messages that I certainly need to be hearing myself.

What we're doing is we have that tendency to grasp onto the very things that hurt us and to not let them go and to feed off of that for whatever reason.

The reason of course is our nature, but it's still very interesting and very ironic.

We grasp to the very things that upset us in the first place. We're constantly reminding ourselves of the offenses done to us, but not forgiving those offenses.

Rather than forgiving, we'd rather hang on to the offenses. But a heart of forgiveness is kind of dreadful as that all sounds.

A heart of forgiveness provides us with the key to those bonds. So we may voluntarily chain ourselves to our past, but we are also given the capacity for an attribute, that being forgiveness, that unlocks those very bonds, that unlocks those very chains that will set us free not only from the harmful accounting that we play back and just keep adding to the account of the person that did us wrong.

Not only does it set us free from that, but it also sets us free from the bonds of bitterness, which is something we absolutely have to be freed from, full stop.

Now, the more time that you dwell on the past, feeding that bitterness, the more you recite things in your mind that are upsetting, the things that upset you, the more you accumulate these offenses and play back these moments in your mind, kind of like a highlight reel from hell, which is exactly where bitterness comes from, by the way.

I believe that bitterness is an acute form of spiritual warfare, as Brother Rocky always said, and that dad has said my whole life, consider the source.

If you have bitterness in your heart, you may be able to rationalize your way into thinking it's justified.

And I'm speaking again to myself as much, if not more than anyone else. I mean, that is what we do.

We rationalize our way into justifying the action, the thought, the feelings, whatever is going on in your heart.

You can do that, but if you really want to think about it and go above your rationalization and think, what is the source of these feelings though?

What is the source of this bitterness that is making me angry, that's making me upset, that is perhaps even affecting my attitude, my mood to others that haven't hurt me?

The ones that love me and are in effect trying to encourage me, but I'm kind of being a bummer to them too.

What's the source? The source is spiritual warfare. It literally, it's coming from a very low place and it's an attack, but it's an attack that we can fend off, that we can resist.

It's an attack that we can, it's a little battle that we can win, even though it feels pretty hopeless depending on how far into it we've gone.

Bitterness will occupy your every thought, ultimately shaping your very personality. We all perhaps have, maybe not know, but have encountered people, even if it's just out in public, where you can look at them and you can see how something in their life has just morphed them into a completely, a completely different person.

But, you know, I'm not, in some cases, you may not have known what they were like before, but you can just tell they're kind of a bummer to be around.

I'm just waiting in line at the grocery store and this person seems particularly miserable. I have no idea what happened to him, but there's something there.

There's something that caused that. And in many cases, it's very likely that it was bitterness because of things that happened in the past that they're holding on to and that they're feeding off of.

So bitterness can literally shape your personality. I heard MacArthur put it once that bitterness is not just a sin, which it is, but it's an infection.

But here's what forgiveness does. So again, that all sounds really bleak. It sounds just like, blah,

I don't even want to think about it. It's terrible. The great news is that forgiveness, this attribute of forgiveness, it replaces that bitterness with every other fruit of the spirit.

So it's a singular attribute, that being forgiveness. But when you can plug forgiveness in and when you can genuinely, from the heart, forgive a person or people or situations or whatever happened in your past that is causing whatever bitterness may be in your heart, that forgiveness cleanses that bitterness and it opens up the door for every other fruit of the spirit.

So it exponentially increases the good direction, for lack of a better term.

Love, joy, kindness, meekness, these are all things that will flow from the starting point of forgiveness. And it's really hard to have those fruits of the spirit when bitterness has a stronghold because it's so strong.

It's strong enough to shape your very personality if you hold on to it long enough. How are you going to be joyful? How are you going to have genuine love and kindness and meekness and all these various things?

It's really hard to do that if you're bitter. But it's actually easy, from God's perspective, for us to get rid of the bitterness.

And that's the great news. Like it's not something that has to be all that bleak. It may be something that we need to think about and consider and be like, well, is that something that I've struggled with before?

Maybe so. And if so, think about the good news. The good news is that through this attribute of forgiveness, which is a divine attribute, something that God himself has that he gave us as regenerated creatures, the capacity for, as soon as we do that, it cures us from that infection.

And it's an absolutely beautiful thing. So in this little letter of Philemon, we find that the spiritual duty, this is a mandate, this is an imperative, this is a duty to forgive is emphasized greatly, not merely in principle, not merely in a parable, like we've covered in our introduction, not even as a metaphor, but in a very personal, true story between friends.

So let's take a look at verse four of Philemon. It says, I thank my God making mention of the always in my prayers.

I thank my God, this is Paul talking to Philemon. I thank my God making mention of the always in my prayers.

One quote, I quoted MacArthur saying, one more that I heard him in kind of the context of forgiveness,

I believe, if I'm remembering correctly, I honestly can't remember, but I jotted it down. He said, praise itself, praise itself becomes a nourishing food for virtue.

Praise itself becomes a nourishing food for virtue and a strong antidote against sin.

What he's saying here is that when we are talking to a brother or sister and we are throwing praises on them and by praises,

I believe what MacArthur would be talking about. Certainly what I would intend is genuine praise for the best parts of them.

In other words, not flattery, not just trying to make them feel good and maybe even bluffing a little bit just to make them feel extra special.

I don't mean that. I mean, throwing genuine praises that they legitimately earn for lack of a better term by being who they are, by the good parts of them, their positive characteristics.

When you do that, that is a nourishing food to them to live virtuously. You are literally giving them manna that replenishes them, refreshes them, makes them feel good and nourished again, perhaps for the first time in a while.

It nourishes, it gives them this need for virtue and it gives them a strong antidote from sin.

Think about dad, how many times he's told us how he would go spend time with brother

Otis at breakfast, maybe a couple of times a week, as many times as he could. And when he would do that, after that meeting, he would go home not wanting to sin.

Like just in the fellowship he had with brother Otis and the conversation they had and thinking about higher things, it was an antidote against sin for dad.

And that's kind of what he's saying here in this quote. When you throw genuine praises on someone, it not only gives them nourishment, it not only wants to help them live virtuously, but it gives them an antidote to go and do whatever sins they may have trouble with.

Because they're thinking about the good. They're thinking about the good aspects of them, of their character.

And hearing that from somebody else goes a long way. So think about that MacArthur quote in what

Paul is now about to do with Philemon here. He says, I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers.

This is how Paul sets the foundation in his appeal to Philemon. What is Paul about to do?

What's the purpose of this letter? He already gave Onesimus, he exhorted him to repent and to go ask for forgiveness.

But remember, he's doing the same thing for Philemon here. He's exhorting him to be a forgiver.

He's about to make a plea for him to do that. But before he makes that appeal, he's setting a foundation here.

And he's doing this to set a strong foundation in his appeal to Philemon to express forgiveness later on in this letter.

He's reminding Philemon that he does in fact have all of the character traits of a forgiving person.

He's reminding Philemon of his own identity like Dave talks about. The importance of remembering what your identity is.

Sometimes you need to be reminded of it. As Dave has told us before. And that's exactly what

Paul's about to do. He is reminding Philemon in these next few verses of his own identity to remind him that he has the capacity to be a forgiving person regardless of the transgressions that have been made against him.

Paul makes mention that he's continually praying for his friend Philemon, but in such a way as to be thankful for Philemon in doing so.

He literally gives thanks to God. In other words, this speaks a lot about Philemon himself as a man because when

Paul thanks of Philemon, he thanks God for Philemon. So this says a lot about Philemon and Paul is telling him that like he's letting him know how much

I care about you. I give thanks to God and mention thee always in my prayers. Verse five says, again, here's where we start getting into the characteristics of one who forgives.

Hearing of thy love and faith, whose love and faith are we talking about here? Philemon's.

Hearing of thy love and faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus and toward all saints, not just his local body, not just his family, not just his local church family, all saints, every brother and sister he would ever run into.

He has love toward them. So in this verse, Paul begins to break down the attributes of Philemon.

Okay, so we're talking about Philemon's character traits here. He's breaking this down. One of which was an ever present concern for the

Lord Jesus. For the Lord Jesus. In other words, the Lord was at the forefront of Philemon's mind always.

He was truly a faithful man and Paul knew that his plea for Philemon to go forgive would not fall on deaf ears because of the fact that Philemon was a faithful man.

So Paul wasn't concerned that he would send this and that it may be rejected.

He knew all along because of Philemon's faithfulness that this message would not fall on deaf ears. And yet, even still, what's the structure of this letter?

He's reminding Philemon first of his own capacity to be a forgiver. He knows he's faithful, but he's going to remind him anyway of that reality.

Again, it's not going to fall on deaf ears because Philemon does have a genuine concern for the

Lord. He was a genuine Christian and therefore, because of that, he had the capacity and the ability to forgive.

The little phrase there in verse 5 when it says thou hast, thou hast toward the

Lord love and faith thou hast. That is in the present tense, meaning that this was an habitual attitude toward the

Lord all the time. It wasn't just, you know, you're a good guy at the moment. I've heard good things.

You've had, past tense. No, he's saying present tense. You have love and faithfulness toward the

Lord and towards all saints. This is a part of who Philemon is as a person. Now, what we can learn from this commendation is that the first characteristic of one who forgives, the first characteristic of one who forgives is that he or she is a

Christian. Now, you might think for a second, now, hold on, we, you know, I get what you're saying, but I know some people that don't identify as a

Christian. They don't, they don't, you know, in fact, they're atheists or, you know, they're, they're kind of religious, but they're into some weird stuff.

You know, they're not really like biblical Christian. And I've seen them forgive before. We need to remember something though.

Only Christians, only believers, only people that have been regenerated can really forgive, can truly forgive from the heart.

Now, if you need some proof, let's turn to Romans 3 for a second.

And let's contrast the believer to the unbeliever, which by the way, was all of us at some point as well.

So I'm not saying, I'm not like touting our greatness as men and women in this room.

I'm saying I'm making a very important contrast because what we're going to find out in a minute is where these attributes actually come from.

Okay, so before y 'all think I'm getting boastful up here, just bear with me for a minute, set a little bit more context and you'll see what

I'm talking about. Romans 3, let's start in verse 10. And this is what unbelievers are capable of, okay?

As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth.

There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way.

They are together become unprofitable. There is none that do with good, no, not one. Their throat is like an open sepulcher.

It's like a grave. With their tongues, they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips.

Let me ask you a question. If that is true, and we believe that what Paul is telling us is true, of being an unbeliever, and that unbeliever goes and they says,

I forgive you. Where is that actually coming from? Is it coming from a place of true forgiveness?

Or is it coming from a place of deceitfulness? Or perhaps they are quote unquote forgiving for their own personal gain, for their own sake, rather than for the sake of actually forgiving the person and absolutely, totally forgetting about the evil that was done to them.

Well, Paul is telling us here that they're deceitful. Their throats are like graves. Their tongues, they use deceit.

Only filth protrudes from the unbeliever. And again, I'm not sitting here saying, thank

God, you know, we're not being the Pharisees saying, thank goodness we're not these people. This is exactly how we were before we were regenerated as well.

Paul is about to make a point, by the way, in verse six of Philemon. As we get back, I'm going to go ahead and jump to the kind of jump to the chase.

What's the phrase? Jump to the chase? Is that it? Cut to the chase. Thank you. I'm going to cut to the chase a little bit and just say the good attributes that Philemon has, they're not actually

Philemon, but well, okay, they are, but he's not the root source. So just keep that in mind too as we continue with this contrast.

Deceit, the poison of asbestos under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Bitterness, that sounds like a problem. That sounds like the result of not forgiving.

So if that is true, if their mouth is full of cursing and their mouth is full of bitterness, perhaps even when we sign

Christians say they forgive, perhaps they're not actually forgiving. They're certainly not imitating

Christ's divine forgiveness. They may be forgiving according to the cultural norms of our day, but by what standard is that based on?

It's based on everyone's feelings and what they deem to be good. And then 15, their feet are swift to shed blood.

These are unbelievers. These are, this is the contrast to the kind of man that Philemon is and was.

So the first thing we learn about Philemon's capacity to be a forgiver is that he was a

Christian. You absolutely cannot truly from the heart forgive a person of all of their wrongs and literally burn the account that you had created in your brain, your spreadsheet of all of the line by line items of everything they've ever done wrong.

And you can take that spreadsheet, you can throw that in the furnace, you can take the highlight reel from hell and all of the things that you remember and are reminders of how upset you are.

You can put all that in the furnace and totally let go. That is supernatural. That is not anything that a man can do in and of himself.

That is supernatural. And therefore it's only possible for a

Christian to be able to do that because unbelievers don't have that ability. They don't have that right.

And by ability, once again, it's something that comes and flows from Christ in his spirit.

It's not in and of ourselves. It's coming from a higher place. Let me end with this because we're pushing the clock to kind of continue the contrast a little bit.

You have to be a Christian. Only Christians can really forgive from the heart. But Philemon also has love and concern for people.

He has love and concern for the Lord, but we learn in verse five, hearing of thy love, which thou hast toward the

Lord Jesus and toward all saints. Where does that come from? First of all, that word love in verse five, it is agape.

So this is agape love that Philemon has for his brothers and sisters. Just as forgiveness is supernatural, so is that.

That is absolutely out of the question for anyone that's not regenerated and that has the

Holy Spirit's power living within them. 1 John 3 .14,

we'll end with this verse, just to round out the contrast between Christian character traits, the fact that being a

Christian is a prerequisite to being able to legitimately, genuinely from the heart forgive versus non -believers.

So is the truth regarding agape love as well.

And as it says in 1 John 3 .14, we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.

We love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. There's the contrast.

The love for the brethren, if you don't have that, you abide in death, which is exactly what Paul was talking about in Romans 3 as well.

You immerse yourself in a culture of death when you don't have these divine attributes that you can tap into.

When I say you tap into it, I mean, as they are given as a gift by grace, it's all by grace, of course, from the

Lord himself. So we'll end it there. We only got to verse five, but that's okay. We'll pick it up at verse six next week because we're still talking about the character traits, the needed characteristics of a person who has the capacity to forgive since it is a divine attribute, there has to be a divine originator of these attributes that give us, again, the ability, for lack of a better term, to do so.

Y 'all have any thoughts or anything you'd like to share before we close it out for today?

Oh, we're a little earlier than I thought, but it's still a good stopping point. Y 'all have anything you'd like to share?

Well, I can put it out a couple of lessons ago with the effect on the worldview of slavery versus how these attributes that, like you said, are only supernatural.

A man in his natural state can't, from his heart, fully exhibit fruit.

It leads to rotten fruit and death. So one who is converted, that is, in and of itself, an attack on any kind of institution that displays the very opposite of that fruit that you were just pointing out.

I just have my notes from that lesson a couple of Sundays ago. One, basically, the maintenance of relations and, yeah, you know, all that stuff, all that really interesting, and it continues to tie into how people who try to point something out in believing on slavery, if you really understand the fundamentals of this, it could be more opposite and more against what they would think.

Right. Well, a very prominent feature of our culture, speaking of that, and going back, it's been my entire life,

I don't know how far back, probably a good several decades, you could go back within the American culture, and you see the focus on self.

And sometimes we can look at people talking about self -care and blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff, and we think it's silly.

Well, it's actually not trivial by any means because the way the devil works and the way he's deceived people at scale to believing that the focus on the self is what is most important, to the point where we now have psychologists saying that forgiveness is unhealthy and that you need to isolate yourself from everyone to focus on your mental health, perhaps, is another angle someone might take with it.

And all of the stuff that you'll hear regarding that, all of it is the route to dispatching ourselves from any of these attributes.

So again, it sounds kind of like, okay, yeah, that's cute, they'll grow up, they'll realize that being sacrificial is actually built into us, it's how we were created, and that we do have mandates that go far beyond ourselves.

We shouldn't necessarily write it off as just something that the culture will cure itself from.

It will take work of the Holy Spirit at this point. Secure our culture from that. And the devil, by working through people in focusing on their self more than anything else, is exactly what has removed us from the ability or from the desire to forgive, to exhibit forgiveness, to exhibit the kind of love that Philemon had, a sacrificial love, not just love because I'm really feeling it right now,

I'm feeling great, so I love you and everything's bubbly for the moment. But that is not the same as the sacrificial agape love that Philemon exhibited and that all

Christians can. Meekness, kindness, all of these things that you will do at the drop of a hat as a

Christian, all of those are removed and the importance of those are removed when we replace family and church community and community at large with self.

When you sacrifice teamwork, think about the way it's even infiltrated sports for yourself, we lose sight of all of those needed attributes to be an actual spiritually healthy person because without those attributes, you hold on to the bitterness, you hold on to things like that.

And like we said, that's gonna be a slow and painful death because we're all marching toward our final days.

Some people will get to that final day having cultivated bitterness to such a degree that that is the state in which they die and that is a very painful way to go.

An interesting concept is while it needs to be focused on helping the other person through your own forgiveness, there is an element of it that it actually helps you as well.

That's a good point. You bring up the sports analogy, right? Like if you don't play as part of the team, you aren't as good yourself.

When you, I liked what you said earlier about the man from heaven, it is a good analogy that you're actually feeding that person the ability or the capability to not sin in order to get through.

But at the same time, what you're doing by verbalizing good things is you are framing your own perception of that person.

So when you hear yourself say good things about the person that you would otherwise be bitter towards, you begin to see that person through the lens of those good things you're saying.

And in doing so, you take out the very thing that you are suffering from, which is the bitter taste or feeling that you receive when looking or thinking or being around that person.

It's an interesting word, bitterness, because we use that to describe yucky fruit.

You know, we wouldn't want to bite into yucky fruit. We don't tend to think of bitterness towards another person as the way we actually feel when we look at that person or think about that person.

We think of it more of how we act towards the person. But really it has more to do with how it's affecting your own mind.

And so in sacrificing the ill feelings and actually doing what you don't want to do and heaping praise on the person and forcing yourself to look at the good things about them, even if you don't fully believe it, you know, you don't fully believe it at the time because your brain wants to think about the bad things.

If you force yourself to look at the good things, eventually your own perception of that person changes and you don't think or feel badly or bitterly towards that person that you want.

Yeah, a couple of things there. Number one, Dave pointed out that actually when you're being selfless and you are focused on lifting up those around you rather than yourself, you actually are helping yourself.

And that is a great point because in Go Figure, the way God designed it is when we are completely selfless and put ourselves last in our own mind and in regard to, you know, it's a kind of hard thing to articulate because it's not like you actually put yourself last.

There are obviously needs that every person has. Their own walk with the Lord, for example, comes to mind as well as like physical nourishment and things of that sort.

But you kind of know what I mean. In regard to, in contrast with where our culture is taking it, the way

God set it up is when you are a selfless person, you are actually helping yourself and you are being filled with all of your needs as you are doing that.

And so you don't have to ignore everyone else and isolate yourself and only think of yourself to get that nourishment.

The nourishment will come by you being selfless and then in turn, others will reciprocate. And so you'll get nourishment through that way as well.

So that's a great point. And then, yeah, as far as the praises and things like that goes, it's absolutely not only an antidote for sin, like you said, and not only is it nourishing to that person, but if you are the person that is perhaps struggling with the bitterness, because that's a different angle than we even mentioned earlier.

If you're the bitter person and you think I'm going to go above that and I'm going to go talk to this person that is a brother or sister, and I love them,

I'm having issues with them, but I know them and I love them and I know these good quality, these good character traits,

I'm going to go tell them about that. It starts framing your mind into a more positive light.

And perhaps that helps kind of turn things around to open up the door for true, genuine forgiveness, make it a little bit easier, especially if you've been struggling with it for a long time, it can be a tough hurdle to climb.

But that's one way that you can make it a little bit easier, perhaps. Right. Yeah.

As Jesus said, putting others before yourself, I mean, what is the greatest commandment?

Loving God, loving neighbor. It's all summed up right there. And true greatness can be achieved in doing that.

Yes, ma 'am. I think what we see too often in today's society and it's a lot of psychology is that we're being taught acknowledge how you feel.

It's OK that you've been, you know, you've been wronged and your feelings are not, it's not wrong for you to be angry or hurt or whatever.

And so they just expand on that. Acknowledge your feelings and not acknowledge your feelings.

But you can't stew in that. And I think that's where psychology today leads people to stew in it and to justify how they feel rather than learning how to overcome that and how to get out of that.

It's going to leave you in there because you're right. You're right to be bitter. You're right to be angry.

Right. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

The whole concept of expressing yourself, you know, what does that mean exactly? Well, to Mimi's point, what that has translated into is giving people the right to stew in their own bitterness, anger and all of these these terrible things that actually are degrading the person over time, more and more over time.

And so you got to you got to keep that in mind for sure. And, you know, the opposite is should be true.

So to your point, the bitterness, that anger, that it's symptoms of something. And so there's a reason you have those feelings and the

Lord uses. Things, I believe the spirit uses things to get us thinking about,

OK, what's going on right now? You have these symptoms, perhaps it's bitterness or anger or whatever. And through those symptoms, you you drill down and realize what the root issue is, the problems you have with that particular person.

And then that is when the word gives us all of the all of the medicine, if you will, all of the antidote for get for for curing ourselves from that bitterness and knowing exactly what we need to do next to approach the issue.

If it's bitterness toward a particular person, we need to repent, confess that bitterness as sin in our own heart.

We need to ask, we need to confess to the Lord and agree with him that the bitterness we have in our hearts is wrong.

And once you do that and you make things right with the Lord, that then opens up the door for you to genuinely forgive the person for their wrongdoings that they committed against you.

And this kind of goes back to something we talked about in our introduction. You know, at what point is it appropriate to literally go to the person?

Like, you know, dad mentioned the thing, the Otis quote. It's not like if there's a person that did you wrong and they know they did you wrong, they don't care.

Like, they're glad they did you wrong and they get out of there. It's not like you go track that person down and turn around and say, you know,

I forgive you. I mean, they don't want it. They didn't ask for forgiveness or anything like that.

So it's not like you track the person down in that context. What you do is you forgive them in your heart and you be prepared for the moment they do realize what they did and they repent of their own sin and come back asking for forgiveness.

And at that point, you're like the father in the parable of the prodigal son. With eagerness, you go toward that person and you don't even need the apology.

You just embrace them. If they're a brother and sister in Christ, that's all that your greatest desire is to have that fellowship restored.

And so you embrace them eagerly. You don't even really need the apology. You don't even really need them to verbally say, will you forgive me?

That wasn't necessary, at least to the dad in that parable of the prodigal son. And at that point, relationship restored and everything is good to go.

And so, yeah, I mean, it's totally antithetical to what you said,

Mimi. Like the modern approach, the psychological approach to dealing with your bitterness and your anger, stewing in it, degrading yourself slowly over time.

We might note that seed of bitterness as a symptom of something that we need to get right between us and the

Lord and us and another person. But that doesn't mean we need to let that seed grow. We want to take care of it sooner rather than later.

And again, the Bible gives us all of the answers for how to do it. We're not just left in the dark. So I've talked way too much.

I believe we're over time. Pop, would you mind dismissing us? And then we'll move on to the next service. I'm sure.

His ability to share that word and dive in deeply. Just ask, bless every family here.

Go to the service. Pastor, in the words that you have in us here, thank you for all that you do.