Forgiveness Matters #1 - "What Kind of Person Forgives?" (Philemon 1-7)

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We are beginning a sermon series this week that will take us for the next three weeks through this letter that we're entitling,
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Forgiveness Matters, Forgiveness Matters. And so the letter of Philemon, if you grabbed one of the red
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Bibles that we give away, that's on page 1060. Page 1060, the letter of Philemon.
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And because it's such a relatively short letter, what we're gonna do each week in this series is we're going to read the letter in its entirety.
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So if you are able, can I invite you to stand as we read this portion of God's word? We like to do this here at Redeemer out of respect for God's word as we come to the preaching of it.
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So the letter of Philemon, page 1060 in the Bibles that we give away. And I'm going to read the entire letter.
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So the letter of Philemon, brothers and sisters, these are God's words to us this morning.
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Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our dear friend and worker, to Aphia, our sister, to Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the church that meets in your home.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my
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God when I mention you in my prayers because I hear of your love for all the saints and the faith which you have in the
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Lord Jesus. I pray that your participation in the faith may become effective through knowing every good thing that is in us for the glory of Christ.
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I have great joy and encouragement from your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother.
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For this reason, although I have great boldness in Christ to command you to do what is right, I appeal to you instead on the basis of love.
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I, Paul, as an elderly man and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus, appeal to you for my son
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Onesimus. I became his father while I was in chains. Once he was useless to you, but now he's useful both to you and to me.
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I am sending him back to you. I'm sending my very own heart.
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I wanted to keep him with me so that in my imprisonment for the gospel, he might serve me in your place.
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But I didn't want to do anything without your consent so that your good deed might not be out of obligation, but out of your own free will.
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For perhaps that is why he was separated from you for a brief time, so that you might get him back permanently, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, as a dearly loved brother.
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He is especially so to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. So if you consider me a partner, welcome me, welcome him, excuse me, as you would welcome me.
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And if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand.
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I will repay it. Not to mention that you owe me even your very self.
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Yes, brother, may I benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ.
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Since I'm confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.
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Meanwhile, also prepare a guest room for me, since I hope that through your prayers, I will be restored to you.
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Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my coworkers.
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The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Faith family, grass withers in the flower phase, but this word of our
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God will remain forever. Allow me to pray, ask for God's help, and we will start our journey in the letter of Philemon.
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Let's pray together. Oh, our Father, we thank you for your every mercy and kindness to us.
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We thank you for this wonderful opportunity that we have to come together as your people to hear you speak to us from your word, words of comfort, words of challenge, and most importantly, words about Christ.
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And so as we come to your word, we pray that you would grant us understanding, open the eyes of our hearts, cause us to see wonderful things out of your word.
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Father, it's our habit to pray for other churches in our area, and this morning, we take a moment to pray for Bear Creek Church back in Medford.
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Thank you for their leaders who are there serving you, and pray for both Brian and Bill as they share the pulpit there.
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Pray for the sermon series that are happening in both Genesis and Second Peter. Pray that your word would bear fruit in the lives of your people.
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May disciples be made, may men and women be trained to serve you, and above all, may the
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Lord Jesus be glorified through their witness. We pray that for them, and we pray that for us even now, as we come to your word.
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Asking it in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. Please be seated. I forgot to say one thing real quickly.
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Kids, hopefully your parents picked up a kids worksheet.
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If at any point you draw a picture of anything I say in the message and you bring it to me, I may or may not have a surprise for you.
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So, just a little incentive. For the rest of us, we come to this sermon series that, as I said, is entitled
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Forgiveness Matters this morning, with our first message entitled What Kind of Person Forgives.
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What Kind of Person Forgives. God knows it'll take a miracle to forgive.
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I can see it very clearly in my mind's eye, 20 years after the first time I saw it.
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Actually, 22 years after the first time I saw it. It was a two -tone poster in black and green on the south side wall of the
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Downs Baptist Church in East London, where I grew up. Walked past that building every day on my way to school.
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But that particular day, I'll never forget, I saw the poster and I saw the words and it grabbed my attention.
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It was a poster for a great Christian ministry in the UK called Premier Lifeline. They're basically a call -in line for people who need prayer, support, counseling.
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They do all, they're a really great ministry. But it was a campaign that they were doing and the poster, like I said, never left me.
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God knows it will take a miracle to forgive.
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I never realized at 11 years old, in my little school uniform with my oversized backpack walking to school,
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I never realized just how true those words would be as the years rolled by.
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As we start this series thinking about the subjects of forgiveness, let's just lay cards on the table for a moment. Forgiveness is not easy.
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It's not. And by the way, some Christians might act like it is, but let's be honest, it is not.
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When people wrong you, especially people closest to you,
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I think we can all agree, it's the people closest to you who have the potential to hurt you the most.
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Those closest to you have the capability to cause you the most hurt.
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As one of the pastors who discipled me growing up used to say, brother, proximity leads to pain.
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Those closest to you are the most likely, or no, let me not say most likely, are the most capable, let me put it that way, of hurting you.
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And it's all too easy when those moments happen to hold on to that pain.
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Now, I'm sure that there are folks who'd be like, ah, nothing ever bothers me, everything, you know, like water off a duck's back, it just rolls off of me.
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I am genuinely happy for you. Most of us in For Honors are not like that. For most of us, when people hurt us, we feel it.
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And I can't speak for anybody in this room, but I'll be honest, there are people who have hurt me deeply over the last few years.
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Some of those moments, if I'm honest, I've only been able to take to God in prayer because it hurts so much.
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11 -year -old me could not have conceived just how true those words on that poster on the side of that small
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Baptist chapel in East London, just how true they were. God knows it'll take a miracle to forgive.
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Philemon never saw that poster in East London in 2002, but I can only imagine that he felt something of that reality as he finished the letter that we just read from Paul.
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As I said, for the next three weeks, we're going to spend time in this little postcard of a letter from Paul that we know as the letter of Philemon, because that's, if you're visiting, that's what we do here at Redeemer.
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We work our way through books of the Bible, making the point of the text the point of each message. And so we're going to be in this little postcard for the next three weeks.
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But don't let me calling it a postcard, don't let that fool you. Yes, this letter is relatively short.
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It's really short for Paul, but this little letter packs a punch when it comes to the tricky subject of forgiveness.
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As we get started, I want to kind of situate you where we're going to be, for those of you who'll be here for this series, where we're going.
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This should be on the study guide that you hopefully got a copy of. There are three key questions that are asked and answered,
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I believe, about the subject of forgiveness as we come to this book. And I want them to just be in front of you for a moment, bear these in mind as we come to this series.
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Paul's going to ask and answer three questions for us as we think about the subject of forgiveness in this series.
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So this week, we're asking the question, what kind of person forgives? What kind of person forgives?
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Next week, we're going to ask the question, how should we forgive? In verses eight through 18.
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And then our final week in this series, we're going to ask the question, why should we forgive? So easy way to remember this, what, how, and why.
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What kind of person forgives? How should we forgive? And why should we forgive?
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My simple outline for this book as we come to it. And I've called this series,
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Forgiveness Matters. It's kind of a double meaning. Because we are considering matters relating to forgiveness, but we're also going to see from this study,
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I hope, that forgiveness truly matters. Forgiveness might not be easy, but it is worth it.
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Let me say that again. Forgiveness might not be easy, it really might not be.
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But forgiveness matters, it is truly worth it.
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So with that in mind, let's just jump right into the letter. So join me in verses one through three.
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Verses one through three. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our dear friend and coworker, to Aphia, our sister, and to Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the church that meets in your home, grace to you and peace from God our
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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Technically, it's what's just called the greeting to the letter.
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It's kind of how we would say dear so -and -so. And actually, this section is a little important because it gives us some background to the book.
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So before we jump in, we always want to kind of rebuild something of the background to the book so that we can get the most out of it.
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So for a few moments, I wanna ask a few questions about the background of this book that I think verses one through three answers for us.
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So a few questions. Question number one, well, who wrote it? Who wrote it?
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Well, this is an easy question. I would say Paul did, because the letter tells us Paul did.
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So look at verse one, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus and Timothy, our brother. Verse nine,
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I, Paul, as an elderly man and now as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Verse 19, I, Paul, write this with my own hand, just in case there's any debate as to who wrote it.
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Three times we're told Paul is the author, apart from a very small handful of, in my opinion, very wrong scholars, everyone agrees,
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Paul wrote this. So who wrote it? Paul did. Well, next question, not just who wrote it, but secondly, when did
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Paul write it? And actually, we do get some clues, even in these first few verses.
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So did you notice that in verse one, Paul refers to himself as a prisoner? He says,
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Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus and Timothy, our brother. Verse nine, he alludes to being a prisoner again.
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He says, I, Paul, as an elderly man and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. So that now is it.
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Now, this is one of, this is written during one of Paul's imprisonments. Paul has two imprisonments over, well, two major ones.
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He spends a lot of time in jail, but two major imprisonments during his time in the ministry.
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One happens, to give you some dates, about AD 61 to 63. The Bible records that one for us in Acts chapter 28.
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Remember Acts 28, if you've read it, right at the end of that chapter, as the book of Acts is closing, it says that Paul is in Rome in his own rented place for two years.
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Essentially, that's house arrest. He has a Roman soldier chained to him, but he has a limited amount of freedom.
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People can come and visit him. He can write letters and send them. So that's one imprisonment.
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He has a second major imprisonment in AD 68, and church history tells us that's the one where Paul is executed for his faith.
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So there's two imprisonments that he could be talking about here, but there's a little clue in Paul's writings that often tell you which one is which.
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In Paul's first imprisonment, he had very high hopes that he would be released.
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So when you read the letters that come from that imprisonment, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and this letter,
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Philemon, what's called Paul's prison letters, Paul has very high hopes that, yes,
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I've been in prison, but guys, I will be back. You will see me soon enough. When you read the letters that come from that second imprisonment, especially what we believe to be
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Paul's last letter, 2 Timothy, Paul is very keenly aware, guys, I'm not making it out of this one.
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Paul tells us in verse 22 that he has expectation that he's going to be released. So look at verse 22. What does he tell
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Philemon? Meanwhile, also prepare a guest room for me since I hope that through your prayers,
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I will be restored to you. So which one does it seem, which of the two imprisonments does it seem
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Paul is in when he writes his letter? I would argue it's the first one.
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So, okay, that gives us a little window, AD 61 to 63. We know from Colossians chapter four, and we'll look at that later,
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Colossians chapter four, that he bring, that Paul, excuse me, sends one of his workers, a man called
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Tychicus, he sends Tychicus with this letter and the letter to the
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Colossians, along with the person who was mentioned in verses eight to 18,
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Onesimus. Well, we do know when that letter was written, it's about AD 62. So this letter is probably written about the same time.
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So who wrote it? Paul, when he writes it, more than likely, summer of AD 62.
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Well, third question, well, who were the audience? Who were the audience of this letter?
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This letter is unique because unlike most of Paul's letters, it's written to just one person and his family.
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So did you notice in verse two, well, verse one and verse two, Paul says to Philemon, our dear friend and coworker, to Apphia, our sister, to Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the church that meets in your home, there's your audience.
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So he mentions Philemon. Philemon apparently seems to be a man of some means. He's got some wealth and he's a member of the church at, more than likely,
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Colossae because that's where Onesimus is sent. And verse 19 gives us a hint that perhaps, and I think there's some truth to this, perhaps he was a convert of the apostle
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Paul. So that's Philemon. We have this lady,
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Apphia, who is mentioned. Apphia is more than likely his wife. So you have Philemon, his wife,
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Apphia. Archippus is mentioned. Archippus, we know for certain, was involved in ministry at Colossae because Colossians 4, 7 tells us that.
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He also possibly, and I think, again, I lean in this direction, he was also more than likely
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Philemon and Apphia's son. So you have
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Philemon, Apphia, Archippus, and then the church at Colossae. Ladies, you know
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Philippians pretty well because you did a lengthy study in Philippians. Oh, Colossians, excuse me. And if you remember from that study,
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Paul didn't start the church at Colossae, but he was very familiar with their story, which is why he writes to them.
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So this is a church that Paul didn't start, but he knows this church very, very well. And that's our audience.
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So who wrote it? Paul. When did Paul write it? Somewhere in the summer of AD 62.
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Who are the audience? Philemon, his family, and the church at large. Question number four, why did
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Paul write this letter? Why did Paul write this letter? Well, this is where this starts to get a little bit interesting.
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Allow me to kind of paint a sketch of what the background is to this letter. Onesimus, not
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Onesimus, by the way, Onesimus, who was a slave of Philemon, had apparently run away.
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By the way, in the Roman Empire, this was no small thing. Running away as a slave was a crime punishable by death.
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So Onesimus had run away, apparently stealing from his master in the process.
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Now, this is not the sermon for me to get into the whole argument about slavery in the
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New Testament. If you wanna know more about that, I'll actually talk a bit more detail about that next week when we talk about Onesimus.
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For now, Onesimus was a slave who had run away from his master, and apparently had stolen from him in the process.
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We hear that because Paul says, if he stole anything from you, and the way that that's written suggests if, and he did.
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So Onesimus is a runaway slave. Somehow he makes it all the way to Rome, the center of the empire. And when he gets to Rome, he meets
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Paul. And when he meets Paul, Paul preaches the gospel and he is converted.
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And not only is he converted, he becomes a helper to Paul in his ministry. So did you notice in verse 12?
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He says, I'm sending him, Onesimus, back to you. I'm sending my own very heart. I wanted to keep him with me so that in my imprisonment for the gospel, he might serve me in your place.
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Onesimus becomes, and by the way, Onesimus' name, I'll say this again next week, the name means useful. So he starts to live up to his name in terms of his help to Paul.
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But Paul recognizes he can't keep Onesimus. Onesimus needs to reconcile that relationship with his master.
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And so Paul sends Onesimus back with this author that I mentioned, Tychicus, this apostolic worker, who's carrying both the letter to the church at Colossae and this more personal letter to Philemon.
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We know this because Colossians 4, 7 through 9, if you're writing it down. Tychicus, our dearly loved brother, faithful minister and fellow servant of the
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Lord will tell you all the news about me. I have sent him to you for this very purpose so that you may know how we are and so that he may encourage your hearts.
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He is coming with Onesimus, a faithful and dearly loved brother who is one of you.
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They will tell you everything. They will tell you about everything here. So Onesimus goes back with Tychicus.
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And basically this is the letter that Paul sends with Onesimus essentially to kind of pave the way for him.
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So Paul writes this letter to appeal to Philemon to essentially forgive Onesimus and to receive him.
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Did you notice that in verses eight through 10, not just as his former slave, but now as his brother in the
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Lord. So verse 17, he says, so if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.
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Quite the story when you pull it all together, isn't it? Quite the drama here. But that's why
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Paul writes this letter. He's writing to Philemon, essentially appealing on behalf of this dear man who had become, as he says, my own heart.
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Basically saying, I know he wronged you, but for my sake and for the gospel's sake, receive him.
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One more background question. What's the melodic line of this book? If you're a regular Redeemer, you know that I believe that every book of the
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Bible can be summarized with a melodic line. A melodic line is just a theme that runs through the book and gives it unity.
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I think the melodic line is very simple. It's on page two of the study guide if you grabbed it. What's the melodic line of Philemon?
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Very simply. That, that's not the one I wanted, but there we are. The gospel is enough to heal the deepest wounds and to bring about real forgiveness.
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That's the theme that brings this book together. That the gospel is enough.
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Did you notice that Paul, and we'll see more about this next week if you're here. Did you notice that Paul says,
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I'm not going to appeal to you on the basis of my authority, but on the basis of love.
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Well, what love? I'll save that for next week, but I'm gonna argue that's the love that we see in the gospel. And so he says, on the basis of the gospel, you should forgive him.
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Why? Because the gospel is enough to heal the deepest wounds and to bring about real forgiveness.
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That was a lot of technical information. I promise the rest of the message will not be this technical, but I go through all of that because it sets up the truths that we're going to learn from this section of God's word verses one through seven this morning.
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As we're starting this series, what do these opening verses have to teach us about forgiveness?
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Well, that leads to my big idea for this message. My big idea for the message is very simple. The gospel creates a people who are able to forgive.
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So if the question is what kind of people forgive? Well, it's people who have come to understand and to believe the gospel message.
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It's the gospel that creates a people who are able to forgive.
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The rest of our time this morning, I want to consider four marks of forgiving people from this passage as we begin our study of the letter of Philemon.
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What kind of person forgives? Well, can
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I put it to you that the first mark of a forgiving person is that, we learn this from verses one through three, forgiving people are real people.
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Forgiving people are real people. The fact that Paul is writing to normal, everyday people, these are not a special breed of Christian.
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These are not even Christian ministers. Well, our kippers more than likely, but by and large, these are just regular everyday
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Christians. That tells us that forgiving people are real people. It is not a select breed of Christian who is forgiving.
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It is not a super saint or a career Christian who is forgiving. All Christians are called to be forgiving people.
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Forgiving people are real people. And I say that because at times, we can fall into this idea that it's a super special kind of person who can forgive.
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So while the poster I saw growing up was true, that it does take a miracle to forgive, the question is what kind of miracle?
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And I wanna say that the miracle that it takes is the miracle of a transformed heart as one comes to faith in Christ.
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But once a person is transformed and comes to faith in Christ, they have the ability, they have the power to forgive.
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Paul doesn't write this to sort of super Christian who has this amazing ability, this almost unparalleled sense of just being able to just let things go and nothing bothers them.
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No, he's writing to very real people. Why? Because all Christians are called to be forgiving people.
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So in the Lord's Prayer that we are commanded to pattern our prayers on, remember what
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Jesus says, Matthew 6, 12? We are to pray that God would forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.
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In Matthew 18, verse 35, Jesus ends one of his parables by saying, so also my heavenly father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from your heart.
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A verse that we'll come back to next week in a lot more detail, Ephesians 4, 32. We're commanded to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.
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Philemon was faced with a very real situation. Think about this.
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His slave, nevermind, it's more like Philemon was a Christian when this happened to him.
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But Philemon is faced with this very real situation. His slave has wronged him. And now, just picture this for a moment in your mind's eye.
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They turn up to church on Sunday. Hey, one of Paul's workers is here. He's brought a letter from Paul.
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Great. Walks into church and he sees Onesimus.
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How awkward was that moment? I've had some awkward moments in church. I don't think
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I've ever had a moment where somebody who stole from me was standing right in front of me.
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I don't think that's ever happened in my time in church. This had to have been a very, very tense situation.
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It's a very real situation. The kind of real life situation, we maybe won't encounter something exactly like that, but given enough time in this life, you will face a moment where you have to forgive somebody for something that is bigger than the both of you.
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And so we learn from this passage first and foremost that forgiving people are real people.
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Philemon, his wife Apphia, his son Archippus, and this church, this was a church made up of just everyday normal Christians, not some kind of super sane or career
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Christian. So the first mark of forgiving people in this text, very simple, I won't label this point too long.
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Forgiving people are real people. But there's a second mark I want to draw your attention to from this passage.
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Forgiving people are real people and mark number two, forgiving people love
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God's people. Forgiving people love God's people. So Paul gets into the letter and Paul does this in very
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Paul -like fashion. So look at verse four. I always thank my God when I mention you in my prayers because I hear of your love for all the saints and the faith that you have in the
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Lord Jesus. Paul says he thanks God in prayer for Philemon and he thanks
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God in prayer for Philemon for two reasons. We're gonna look at the first of them now and the next one in my next point. Two reasons.
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Before I get into those reasons, I wonder if you've noticed this if you've been reading your
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Bible for any length of time. Have you noticed how often Paul spends time praying for other people? In pretty much every one of his letters, he mentions how he's praying for his audience.
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Galatians is the one time he doesn't but he's kind of ticked off in Galatians and it's very apparent. So he doesn't waste any time getting straight to his point.
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But by and large, Paul is always praying for folks. If I can pause for a moment, isn't it all too easy for the phrase,
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I'm praying for you to just kind of fall out of your mouth or off of your fingers onto your phones? I mean, as Christians, it's one of those things we say.
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Like someone tells us something, oh, I'm praying for you. And I'm not impugning the honesty of whoever says that.
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I'm sure most of you when you say that are generally praying, but I know this has happened to me at times. I'm saying I'm praying for someone or I'll be praying for someone and then just stuff happens and I forget.
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It might be very easy to say those words, but do you realize that when we pray for one another, do you realize that when we pray for another
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Christian, it's actually one of the most loving things we can do? It might not seem like much, but what could be greater than taking one of Jesus's precious people back to him in prayer?
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If I can take a moment, one of the things that encourages me about our body is how freely we pray for one another.
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I would argue where you see genuine Christian love, you see prayer for one another.
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Well, Paul understood this. And so he's praying for folks often. And it's interesting, the words he says here, he said before.
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So you don't need to tell me, but I'll read it. Colossians 1, 3, and 4, the other letter that he sends with his friend
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Titchicus. Colossians 1, 3, and 4, we always thank God, the father of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love you have for all the saints.
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Sounds really familiar. He says the same thing to the church at Colossae that he says to Philemon.
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And I don't think it's because Paul just says the same thing. It's not a form letter from Paul. I think this was
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Paul's genuine prayer for the Colossians. He knew that this was true of them. And since it was true of them as a church, it's true of Philemon as an individual member.
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The work of God's grace that had happened in that body hadn't just happened in the body as a corporate unit, it had happened even with the individual member.
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The individuals who made up that church. I said, Paul had two reasons for being thankful.
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The first of them, he says, is the fact that Philemon has a love for God's people. In the
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Bible, love is much more than just an emotion or a feeling. Love in the
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New Testament is an action. And in a very real sense, the kind of love that Christians have, think about this with me, that Christian love is the shadow that is cast by the love of God shown to us in the gospel.
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Let me just say that again, that Christian love is the shadow cast by the love of God shown to us in the gospel.
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Think about this with me for a moment. In the love of God, we see that love ought to be intentional.
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How do we know that? Because the Bible makes us to understand that before eternity even was a thing, the
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Father and the Son and the Spirit came together to purpose and to plan salvation. There was an intention to the love of God.
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So love ought to be intentional. Love ought to be personal. Because think about this, God didn't just put a plan in place.
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God himself entered into our world in the person of the
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Son. So it's intentional, it's personal, but it's also sacrificial.
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It's sacrificial. The Son gave his life for those who couldn't save themselves.
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In fact, the Son gives his life for those who were his enemies.
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And the Bible says that we are called to reflect that kind of love to one another.
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Whatever love Paul, not Paul, Philemon had for the saints, that love was grounded in God's love that is shown to us in the gospel.
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Love came down to us. And since love came down to us, we are able to extend that love outward to the people that God loves.
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Because of time, I won't read it in full, but if you're taking notes, 1 John 4, verses 7 through 11, this is one of John's points in his letter.
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Essentially, he says that if we have come to know the love of God as shown to us in Christ, verse 10, in this is love, not that we love
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God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. And he ends that point, verse 11, by saying, dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we must also love one another.
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God doesn't depend on you to generate Christian love. Have you ever thought about that?
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God doesn't depend on you to generate that. Instead, God has shown us his love in Christ.
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And that love creates love for one another. Love comes down and then love extends outward through God's people.
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And why is it important for us to think about that? Why am I laboring this point that forgiving people love
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God's people? Well, very simple. Can I put it to you that if you haven't grasped
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God's love for you in Christ, you'll never be able to properly forgive others?
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If you don't grasp that you have been shown immense love and mercy and grace, you will treat people with zero love, mercy, and grace.
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Paul understood that. And so he takes the opportunity to remind Philemon of the love that he both knew and showed to others.
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Why? Because forgiving people love God's people. So what do forgiving people look like?
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Forgiving people are real people. Forgiving people love
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God's people. There's a third mark I want us to consider in here. We're gonna take a little more time. There's a third mark of forgiving people
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I want you to notice in this passage. And it's that forgiving people are believing people.
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Forgiving people are believing people. So remember
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I said that Paul is thankful for two reasons. Reason number one was Philemon's love for God's people, but pick it up with me in, well, let's start in verse four.
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I always thank my God when I mention you in my prayers, because I hear of your love for all the saints and the faith that you have in the
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Lord Jesus. The second reason that Paul is thankful is because Philemon had faith in the
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Lord Jesus. For the fellow grammar nerds in this room,
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I simply point out that phrase there, that you have, is, again, if you don't like grammar,
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I'll make this as quick and painless as possible. It's a present active indicative. All that simply means is, for the non -grammarians in the room, the faith that Philemon had was active and living at the time of writing.
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You may think, well, Kofi, don't all Christians have active faith? Not necessarily. That might seem to be a given, but it's not always.
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Because the danger is, some of you have heard me talk about this before, that the longer you've been a
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Christian, the longer the temptation is to not have an active faith. A lot of Christians are happy to believe to be saved, only to kind of leave faith behind when they try to live their
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Christian life, or the longer that time gets, the less likely I am to think about faith. But not
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Philemon, apparently. Philemon apparently lived a life of evident faith in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, real quick, can I point out two observations about his faith?
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First of all, can I point out the reality of his faith? The reality of his faith in verse five?
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So verse five, he's thankful because he hears of the faith that you have, that you are having, if you want to translate it more literally, in the
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Lord Jesus. Faith for Philemon and for all believers is not just something that happens when you get saved.
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It's not, I became a Christian and I believed at that point, but now that I'm saved, there's something else.
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It's not in by faith and then we live by something else. Can I put it to you that the faith by which we are saved is the same faith by which we live as God's people?
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So Romans 1, 17, what does Paul say, quoting the Old Testament? The righteous will live by faith.
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Galatians 2, 20, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
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The life I now live in the body. What does Paul say? I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
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Interesting, Paul says that the Paul that you once knew is dead.
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The Paul who now lives, lives because Christ lives in him.
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And he says that life that he now lives, he lives by faith. I love what the
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American theologian, Charles Hodge, in his comments on this verse, Galatians 2, 20, had to say. In fact,
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I enjoy them so much, I put them up on a slide so you can read them with me. This is what he said. The faith by which a believer lives is not specifically different in its nature or object from the faith required of every man in order to his salvation.
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In other words, the faith by which you live as a believer is not different from the faith you need to be saved. It's the same kind of faith.
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He goes on, the life of faith is only the continued repetition of those exercises.
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It may be with ever increasing strength and clearness by which we first received Christ. So you received
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Christ by faith, and Dr. Hodge's point, commenting on Galatians 2, 20 is, you live by that same faith.
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It's not in by faith, and there's not, I come in by faith, but I now live by my works, or I live by my effort, or I live by my striving.
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No, it's, I was saved by faith, and I live by faith. He concludes that this faith is in all his fullness and in all his offices as our
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God and our savior. Again, it's not faith alone to get saved and then faith plus works to live as a saved person.
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No, it is faith from the start right through to the finish. And any works that we do are the outflow of that faith.
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Why is that important when we think about this subject of forgiveness? Well, it's important when we think about this subject of forgiveness, because forgiving others, if we boil it all down and make this real simple,
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I like simple. So if we boil this all down and make it real simple, forgiving others is ultimately a matter of faith.
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Forgiving others, if we boil it down, is ultimately a matter of faith. It's a matter of believing
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God that when he calls you to forgive others, it's believing that what he's calling you to is what is best for you.
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That, wait, God, you want me to do what? To who?
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Don't you know what that person did to me? And God says, yes, I do. But oh my child,
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I know, I know, I know. But listen, what I'm calling you to is better than what you're thinking in this moment.
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Forgiving others, if we boil it down, is ultimately a matter of faith, a matter of believing that forgiveness is what is best for you because God has said it is what is best for you.
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Philemon had that kind of living and active faith. Paul knew it, and so he simply just reminds him of that reality.
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So if you've got somebody who has genuine love for God's people and they believe God, well, what do you pray for them?
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Well, Paul prays for not just the reality of faith, he prays for the response of faith.
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So verse six, you finally get to what Paul's praying for. He says, I pray that your participation in the faith may become effective through knowing every good thing that is in us for the glory of Christ.
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That word participation, it's a word that you actually know really well because it's all over the Bible in another form.
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If you've been around church for any length of time, you know this word. It's the word fellowship. It's the same
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Greek word that's used here. It's translated fellowship in a bunch of other places. In fact, some of your Bible translations will translate it as just fellowship.
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Now, this is not the sermon for me to go into a whole study about what fellowship is. If you've got the study guide, you see the little
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QR code, if you just point your phone camera to it, it should open up a link, hit that link, and you can go and listen to a sermon
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I preached last summer where I went into a lot more detail from Philippians 1 about what fellowship is. For now, let me make the point as simply as I can.
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Paul is praying here that the vibrant participation in the shared life in Christ that we all have as Christians, those of you who've been in our
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Sunday school class, who've been thinking about union with Christ, the fact that when we believe, we believe into Christ, there is a life that we become partakers of.
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All of us share in that. That act of sharing in that life is what the Bible calls fellowship.
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I've often said that we probably do better if we change that word fellowship from fellowship to partnership because that's what it means.
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We all have a stake in this. And Paul is praying that this, the vibrant participation in this shared life in Christ that Philemon had with all of God's people would prove itself effective.
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Well, how is he supposed to do that? Know what he says? I pray that your participation in the faith may become effective through knowing every good thing that is in us for the glory of Christ.
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Paul prays that this participation he has would be effective, why? As he comes to a knowledge of all that God has done in his people and all that he is doing in his people and that through Christ Jesus.
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This word for experience carries the idea of a not, for knowledge, excuse me. This word for knowledge carries this idea of knowing something, but not just knowing it intellectually.
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It has that as a foundation, but then that truth is confirmed by experience.
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So not only am I knowing, okay, that God is at work in my brother and my sister, but as I am experiencing that,
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I'm seeing that confirmed. Paul is praying that the faith and love that Philemon had would manifest itself, catch this, in knowing and appreciating
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God's work in others. Now, why would that be important for this situation that Philemon finds himself in?
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When Onesimus left, he wasn't a believer, but now he's back and he is.
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Might Onesimus have been tempted to think, this guy is a liar and a thief.
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I don't want him anywhere near me. And might it have been the case that Paul knows that that might be a temptation.
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And so he says, brother, I want you to look at Onesimus and to see what God has done in him, just like God works in all the believers that you know.
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I put it to you that Paul asked this because he knows precisely how big the thing he is asking is.
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This is a big ask, but he can ask it because what did
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I just say a minute ago? Ultimately, forgiveness is an act of faith, not just faith in God, but faith in what
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God is doing in the lives of his people. If Onesimus was one of God's people, Philemon is called to trust that God has been at work and will be at work in him.
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Just like Philemon already believed about all the other people he knew. Forgiving people are believing people.
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They have a living and active faith that responds to trying situations, with more faith in God.
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So forgiving people are real people. Forgiving people love God's people. Forgiving people are believing people.
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There's a fourth mark I want you to consider. A fourth mark. And it's that forgiving people are selfless people.
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Forgiving people are selfless people. Like I said,
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Paul knows he's asking Philemon for something that is bigger than the both of them.
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How could Paul have confidence that this would go the way he was praying it would? One of the life lessons
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I live by, it might explain a lot about me actually, but one of the life lessons I live by is that you should never ask a question when you know the answer is no.
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I don't ask questions when I know the answer is no. They think, Kofi, how do you know?
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Well, I don't know the answer is no, but if I have even a 1 % feeling the answer might be no, I don't ask.
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Paul, thankfully, was not me. Paul seems to have confidence that this might go the way
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I pray it does. Why does he have this confidence to be able to ask something so bold? Can I put it to you that he has that confidence because he knows the character of Philemon?
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Where do I get that from? Look at verse seven. Why can Paul pray what he asked for?
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He says, for, in other words, this is the reason I can pray what I just asked for. For I have great joy and encouragement from your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother.
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This believing, loving disciple of Jesus had a reputation of being selfless.
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He had a reputation for providing support for other believers. This word that's translated in the
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Christian Standard Bible as refreshed, it's a really beautiful word. It actually comes to us from the military world.
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It was used for the respite that soldiers would get in the midst of really fierce conflict when they were able to, as it were, catch their breath in the midst of war.
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This is how this word was often used. In fact, Paul uses it a lot to describe the blessing he received from others in the midst of difficult times in ministry.
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So Paul talks about some friends in 1 Corinthians 16, Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, and he says, verse 18, they have refreshed my spirit and yours, therefore recognize such people.
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2 Corinthians 7, 13, he uses the same word to speak about Titus. And it says that Titus was refreshed by being with the
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Corinthians when Paul sent him to visit them. Why am I going with this?
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Very simple. Philemon's love for God and for God's people wasn't a love that was just on paper.
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It had led him to practically provide respite and refreshment for believers in moments and seasons of adversity.
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Again, I put it to you that you can sum up in one word, this man was selfless.
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You can see how that might be important if you're trying to encourage somebody to forgive somebody who's wronged them. Can I put it to you that you can't forgive people if you're given to being self -centered?
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You can't forgive people if you're given to being self -centered, can you? Is it possible for you to let things go if somebody asks for your forgiveness?
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If you have an inflated view of who you are? If your instinct is, do you know who
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I am and how dare you? Does forgiveness become not even possible?
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Is it even a thought in your mind if that's how you think? I'm no stats guy,
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I'm an English, I was an English nerd at school, not good with numbers. But I have to imagine that there was a high correlation between sense of self and unforgiveness.
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That the higher your sense of self, the higher the sense of your own self -importance, the less likely you are to want to forgive others.
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Can I put it to you that it is people who know exactly who they are? That they are forgiven people who have been saved by a gracious and glorious God.
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It's those kinds of people who are able to forgive the way that God calls us to forgive.
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It's people who know, Ephesians 4 .32, that God forgave you in Christ. No matter how much somebody has wronged you,
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I can almost certainly guarantee they have not wronged you to the degree that sinners have wronged a perfectly holy
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God. Kofi, you don't know what the,
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I don't know what that person did to you, but I'm pretty certain they didn't sin against the perfect person.
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But all of us, at some point, have sinned against an infinitely holy
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God. And yet he in his graciousness and in his mercy forgave us. If he could do that,
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I think we can forgive. Equally flawed, equally imperfect, equally in need of grace human beings like us.
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That makes sense, right? So what's the profile of a forgiving person?
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Forgiving people are real people. Forgiving people love God's people. Forgiving people are believing people.
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And forgiving people are selfless people. I don't know about you. Does that seem like a tall order?
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Does that seem like a lot? I mean, it should feel like a lot because you cannot be that or do that without God's help.
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That's why Paul starts this with prayer. Again, Paul knows the bigness.
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I can't think of another word, so I'm just gonna go with bigness. Paul knows the bigness of what he's asking, but he also knows the bigness of the
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God to whom he is asking. And that's why, let me leave you with this thought and I'll be done.
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That's why the gospel has to be our foundation as we consider these kinds of matters, as we think about how forgiveness matters.
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If you start with, you should be a more forgiving person, good luck with that.
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There needs to be fuel in the tank. There needs to be something that provides us the power to do that.
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And ultimately it is in the gospel that we find the power to be the kinds of forgiving people that God calls us to be.
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And Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for that gospel in which we stand. We thank you that we don't have to figure out what forgiveness looks like because we simply need to look at the cross.
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And as we look at the cross and we see the forgiveness that you showed us in Christ, as we look at that, that makes the difference.
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Father, help us that we would be the kind of people empowered by your grace and fueled by your gospel who are ready to forgive when the opportunity arises.
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Be with us in this study as we think about matters relating to forgiveness and we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.