morning church. Our text today is from the epistle of Philemon, most of it, chapter 1, verses 1 through 19. These are the words of the living God. Paul, prisoner of Christ Jesus, Antimuth the Arb Brother, to Philemon our beloved friend and fellow laborer, to the beloved Aephia, Archipus, our fellow soldier and to the church in your house. Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. For we have great joy and consolation in your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake I rather appeal to you, being such a one as Paul the aged and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I appeal to you for my son and SMS whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was unprofitable to you but now is profitable to you and to me. I am sending him back, you therefore receive him, that is my own heart, whom I wish to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent I wanted to do nothing that your good deed might not be compulsion as it were but voluntary. For perhaps he departed for you, departed for a while for this purpose that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then you count me as a partner receive him as you would receive me but if he has wronged you or owes you anything put that on my account. I, Paul, am writing with my own hand I will repay not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides. This is the word of the Lord. Thank you. Let's pray. Father we humble ourselves before you and we ask that you would by your Holy Spirit illuminate your word to us. We submit to your spirit, we ask that you would help us to see Christ in the text and we ask that you would conform us to his very image. As you reveal yourself to us in your word give us wisdom, knowledge and discernment. Help us to apply the truths of your word for your glory and for our good and in the name of Christ we pray and amen. The little letter or the little epistle of Philemon punches well above its weight class. It's single chapter and 25 verses takes only minutes to read and yet the doctrine within it completely undermines thousands of years of the status quo. It's part of a group of letters that are commonly referred to as the prison epistles all written by the Apostle Paul and what's believed to have been around AD 60 to AD 62 while he was in prison in Rome and this group of letters includes the book, the Books of Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. Now Luke gives us the backstory of this two year period where Paul is in chains as a prisoner in Rome in Acts chapter 28. And so we'll briefly survey that to give us the backstory. So an AD 60 Paul arrives in Rome from Jerusalem in chains on a number of trumped up charges from the Jews and the Jews are really threatening to stir up trouble and they like to use this tactic, this threat of political unrest as a means to get their opponents to do whatever they want. So they're doing this to Paul and really what they want Paul to do is they want him to stop preaching the gospel. They want to shut this man up, they want him to stop preaching the gospel and particularly they want him to stop proclaiming the gospel to the Gentiles because Paul is really kind of stirring up trouble again with the status quo. He's allowing the Gentiles into the temple and they see this as you're defiling the temple, these filthy Gentiles are defiling the temple, stop proclaiming the gospel to them. Obviously the Jews, they're very familiar with this style of fighting because it puts their enemies on the ropes, they like it because it puts them on the defensive. And in this case it puts Paul in chains and he is on house arrest while he's waiting to appeal to Caesar, he really appeals to the rights of his Roman citizenship here. And so the Jews, they know how to work the system. They use the Roman judicial system to murder our Lord and so they're hoping that this is going to have the same outcome with Paul. So the Romans were complicit in this and they're really playing the part of the coward in the story. The text in Acts says that they knew that Paul wasn't guilty of a crime that was justified, that justified capital punishment and yet because they didn't want to rock the boat with the Jews, they kept him in custody. And so they're really playing the parts of the cowards there. So Acts chapter 28, three days after Paul arrives in Roman chains, he calls a meeting of the local Jews there, the leaders of the Jews and they go and meet Paul and they say, we haven't heard anything about you Paul. We haven't received a letter from Judea and really none of the brothers have any evil to say about you. Let us hear what you have to say, we're going to go away, we're going to come back. So they come back shortly thereafter and the scripture says they come to his lodging place where he's in prison and they come in great numbers. And from morning until evening, Paul expounds to them from the Word of God and he appeals to scripture and he makes his case from the writings of Moses and from the prophets about Jesus and the kingdom of God. And so some of the Jews there, they end up believing, they end up trusting Christ. Great, many of them continue on in their unbelief. So Paul pulls no punches in this meeting and the Jews end up departing from that meeting after Paul makes this one statement. And that is, this is Acts chapter 28 verses 26 through 28, the Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, go to this people and say, you will indeed hear but never understand and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull. And with their ears they can barely hear and their eyes they have closed, less they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and and I would turn and I would heal them. Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, they will listen. Luke goes on to say at the end of Acts chapter 28 that Paul welcomed all who came to him proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. Paul is teaching about Jesus with all boldness and without hindrance. And so we see very clearly from this passage in Acts 28 that Paul was easily accessible during his Roman imprisonment. So when Paul says, I'm in chains, you should not think about him as being chained to a dungeon wall and being excluded from the outside world such that he has no contact with it. That's not what's happening here and it's more of like a house arrest situation where people can come and go and we see that in the book of Philemon. So Paul was determined to proclaim this gospel to any who would listen to him but especially to the Gentiles. Here he met with the Jews of Rome and they have hardened hearts and so he says to them flat out the gospel is coming to the Gentiles and he expects that they are willingly going to receive the good news and that it is going to produce in them salvation. So Paul's in Roman chains okay and some a thousand miles away in a little place called Colossi there is a discontented unbelieving slave by the name of Anesimus who decided to go all in on securing for himself his own freedom and so he hatched a plan he to escape from his master Philemon and he ran away to Rome where he meets Paul the same Paul that we just talked about who's willing to preach the gospel to anybody who's willing to listen and Anesimus converts to Christianity so this really sets the the stage or the story for the epistle of Philemon and what we see going on with Anesimus. So getting into the text now verse 1 we see that Paul is telling about himself here. Paul's greeting is noteworthy he says he writes Paul a prisoner for Christ Jesus not Paul the Apostle not Paul the prisoner of the Jews not Paul the prisoner of Rome but Paul a prisoner for Christ Jesus Paul makes known the sovereignty of God with his choice of words his choice of words his evidence of his submission to the sovereignty of God Paul isn't in chains because he's sinned he's not in chains because he's broken the law he is in chains because the spirit of Christ has come upon him and he is proclaiming the gospel to everybody any and everybody who will listen and this makes him a danger and a threat to the powers and principalities of the day that's why he's in chains so you've heard it said that you take the most flag when you're over the target put another way where there are no oxen the manger is clean where there are no oxen the manger is clean so if you have a life that is full of suffering and you can't really put your finger on a particular sin that's causing this suffering it may very well be right if you're if you're going after it and you're really serving the Lord and you're suffering it may be that you're over the target keep going keep pressing on but if you have a squeaky clean life and it's the kind of clean that's kind of eerie like everything is going really really well for you you may be coasting not always not always not in every instance but you may be you might be and if that is the case then you should really listen for the sounds of gunfire because that will tell you where the battle is and you should make your way over to where the battle is so Paul is a prisoner of Christ Jesus Paul utterly and completely belongs to the triune God and he knows that this is the will of God for this moment in his life and he points that out here in his introduction his suffering his suffering and chains is not meaningless for we are errors of God and joint errors with Christ if indeed we suffer with him that we may also be glorified together Paul does not waste this trial and chains but he uses it to produce some of the most potent text of scripture he uses this time and chains to help reveal God to the bride of Christ and he uses it to teach sound doctrine to the early church and to help establish her and the teachings of Christ and the kingdom of God the epistle is a titled philemon but the letter itself is addressed to philemon who is probably a minister or a pastor beloved afia who is probably philemon's wife sister in the faith archipists a fellow soldier and to the church and philemon's house in other words this is an open letter to the whole body of believers there in Colossi and it addresses a rather public happening Paul addresses the whole church body because they likely knew everything that happened and how onesimus and they knew that onesimus was wanting to come and join the body of believers there in their fellowship and so Paul addresses everybody that's going to be involved in this those sins which are done in public those sins which are done in a public fashion should always be made right openly they should be they should be put right openly so when you sin against a brother it's not required that you go before the whole church in order to be reconciled with that brother you can go and you can go to that brother and you can reconcile with him you don't have to go before the whole church and say oh I told brother so and so he has a big head at Wednesday at nine o'clock I was wearing a red shirt that's not necessary however if you're getting if you're getting a shouting match at the church potluck and because brother so and so it took the last piece of ham and you know you make all the little kids cry and you cause a big scene well that would be something that you would need to have an open repentance and open forgiveness and open form of reconciliation and both instances both of these instances are done before God obviously the private matter and the public matter it is the blood of Christ that brings the peace it is this blood that allows us to be both reconciled to God and to one another and so what we see going on here in the epistle of Philemon is that we have an unbeliever an usomus who caused a huge ruckus in the house of Philemon and the household of Philemon right onesomus robs maybe the family treasury all right he probably leaves in the middle of the night for all we know he kicks the dog on the way out because the dog's barking he's going to give away his escape oddly enough in the act of fleeing or the act of running away he takes himself as stolen property he belongs to Philemon so it's not that he necessarily sinned against the body of believers there but he did however want to join them in fellowship so he goes to Rome he meets Paul becomes a Christian and he wants to come back about two years later or so and he wants to join this family of believers and he wants to join them and Paul says to accept him no longer as a slave but more than a slave a beloved brother and now the church at Colossi needs to have a family meeting about bringing an usomus into the full fellowship of the body and that's what this little letter is helping to facilitate Paul is giving Philemon Philemon's wife the church officers the body of Christ there a real pastoral framework and a good solid biblical doctrine to deal with this very very very messy situation but if we think briefly about the perspective of the church there it's not too far fetched to think that the church body who knew unnusomus before he left knew the type of person that he was before he left that they might have a difficulty believing that the change in this man was real and that he was really now a beloved brother and so Paul is very careful to walk them through this now he starts off with a really great setup and Paul tells Philemon in verse 6 I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective and it's that word sharing that is the Greek word coinonia and we'll talk a little bit about that in just a moment in verse 7 we see that Paul says we have great joy and consolation in your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed in you brother he's talking to Philemon the hearts of the saints have been refreshed in you Philemon Paul says I thank God for you I pray for you always I know you love Jesus and I know you love the saints Philemon therefore I can appeal to you as a brother I know that you are a part of the household of God in Paul's loving appeal to Philemon he points to this wady thing this wady thing that we call coinonia that we tend to translate fellowship right he's pointing to the coinonia fellowship of the body of Christ as he appeals to Philemon in love pastor Jeff was just talking about this the other week about how we often do not feel or understand the weightiness of the word coinonia because we translate it as fellowship and we tend to associate fellowship with hanging out together with having really great conversations eating together catching up and things like this but it's much more than that it really is a transfer of the Christian way of life coinonia is really the transfer of the Christian way of life where where discipleship takes place where discipline takes place where bearing one another one another's burdens takes place and where submission to one another takes place it is the outworking of the spirit of God and his people that produces this coinonia fellowship and it refreshes the saints so it's in this context of coinonia that Paul says that he's not going to just show up pull rank on Philemon and force Philemon to obey his commands he could he's bold enough in Christ he could show up and do that but he doesn't he would rather appeal to Philemon in the context of coinonia fellowship so there was there was really no need for Paul to do that and Paul points to the good fruit of the spirit that God has produced in Philemon namely how he loves God and how he loves his neighbors so in verse 10 we kind of get to the meat in the middle of the sandwich so the Apostle Paul when you look at it if you look at it if you have it open in front of you you can kind of see this chiastic structure which the Apostle Paul wrote the letter of Philemon and in the middle is kind of like the weightiness of it and it's done like that on purpose he does that so he draws your attention to it and Paul says in verse 10 excuse me Paul says that he has begottened onesimus while in chains right he's begottened onesimus while in chains he is my son in the faith in other words anesimus is my son in the faith he is of the household of God and thus he is your brother Philemon so this should remind us that specifically that part I begotten right this should be a remind us of psalm 2 where Christ is the begotten son of God and Philemon who is an earthly master should be careful not to act like the tyrant kings of the world who rule wickedly and set themselves against the Lord and against his anointed ones God laughs at them God holds such earthly rulers in derision and the psalmist says in psalm 2 I would declare what God has said to me you are my son today I have begotten you ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance so we see that both master and slave are one in Christ that's what that's what Paul is trying to paint in the picture here master and slave are both one in Christ Christ who is the begotten of God in Christ there is no longer slave nor free in him many who were slaves are made sons of God and joint heirs with Christ psalm 2 ends like this blessed are all who put their trust in him the gospel is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes God delivers men from the slavery of sin the good news of Jesus means that runaway slaves like anesimus can become free men not of their own doing of the work of the Holy Spirit free men and members of the household of God now I want to park here for just a moment and talk about everybody's favorite subject slavery and I really want to distinguish the difference between the chattel system of slavery that we had here in America and the slavery that we see in scripture that clearly is not sin and was allowed for time and I know that can be difficult for us to process but I want to challenge us because it is in scripture and we have to do something with it so the two are often conflated and if we do that if we conflate them if we join together say that they're the same thing we will inevitably end up with an unhealthy view of scripture the institution that is allowed in scripture that we see is what Doug Wilson calls a robust in excuse me a robust indentured servitude that's what we see in scripture it is a grace to both the slave and to the master it's a grace to the bond servant and to the master it was usually for a set amount of time when people had incurred real debt when they wrote old real things when they got in real trouble and they they needed real help and so it was set for is usually set for a specific amount of time and not only that but when the slave was released which they were to be released at that at the end of that time they were blessed on their way out so the purest form of human to human slavery that we see in scriptures is this a slave when he loves his master and wishes to stay with his master's household because the slave is actually better off and the slave sees that and knows that and acknowledges that he sees that he's better off and he wants to stay with him that that slave could go to his master and make that known because otherwise he would be set free and he would be on his own and the master would then take this slave to the door post of the home and drive an all through the lobe of his ear thus signifying that the two were bound together for life so this is where we want to set the tone moving forward scripture never allows for man stealing scripture never justifies the unjustified killing or allows the unjustified killing or what we would call murder doesn't allow for that it doesn't allow for abuse or mistreatment of humans slave or not and so these are the types of things that are conflated when we talk about slavery because of the things that we've either learned in school or the the context that we learned them in scripture is not allowing or justifying any of this and the chattel system of slavery that we had here in the United States was a denomination to the Lord because it was not a grace to the slave or to the master and in many cases it was a real hell on earth and we should rightly detest it during the time of the Roman empire slavery was a nasty institution as well and and it needed to be abolished arguably more nasty than what we had here in in America so when Paul writes to Philemon he's really undermining this whole system this whole system of the status quo there was a stoic philosopher by the name of Seneca most of you probably have heard of him maybe even read some of his stuff he was a contemporary of the apostle Paul and he referred to slaves as humans or he was a proponent referring to them as humans at a time where they were not at all treated like humans and as Christians we would say yes and amen keep going Seneca he thought that if masters would just treat their slaves as humans the masters and the slave relationship would it would really be it would be great if he would just treat them as humans and he thought that if the slaves were virtuous and self-controlled if they were virtuous and self-controlled people then they could be free even if they remained in their enslaved state it was less about the externals it was more about the internals with the stoics and so the bible tells us that the love of our neighbor or excuse me that we are to love our neighbor as ourself and that the control the the self-control is a fruit of the spirit so Seneca was kind of onto something halfway onto something so his philosophy was a great step in the right direction but his worldview ultimately fell short because humans are sinful if our humanity is the thing that we are appealing to then we always are going to end up as slaves slaves to sin every single time so what about salvation what about redemption what can humanity do for itself in this regard the humanistic approach to sin fails it crashes it burns every single time and so Seneca's philosophy was a bit like putting a counterfeit twenty dollar bill in your in your wallet getting in your car driving to the grocery store going and selecting like the nicest state that you find and you know you go up to the to the cashier at the checkout and the high school or rejects you because he has a little felt marker and he marks on the twenty dollar bill and this is fake sorry bro I got to take the stake back now right the point is it sounds good it looks like the real deal but it's bankrupt from the beginning it's all wind and no sales so in verse 11 Paul says anesimus was once unprofitable to you but now he's profitable to both you and to me the name anesimus means useful or beneficial and Paul is using a pun here to highlight the changed nature of the man anesimus he was once useless to you but now he's useful to you and to me so slavery was a well established institution in the Roman Empire at the time of this writing and it's estimated that 10 to 20 percent of all the population at any given time was enslaved and with some people saying as high as 30 percent and we usually think of slaves as just laborers right but in some instances and especially in at this time slaves could be educated skilled and they were trusted with major positions like doctors teachers craftsmen managers accountants and things like these right scripture doesn't tell us how unesimus was skilled before he met the apostle Paul but we get the idea that he's a pretty handy individual um he gets one over on filiman he travels a thousand miles to Rome a journey that would take an estimated eight to eight months to a year and it would have required that he had to travel both by land and by sea and it would have it would have taken a great deal of know how so cius Lewis has this great quote um he says education without virtue makes a man a more clever devil education without virtue makes a man a more clever devil and if you apply that to anesimus at this time in his life seems like that would be true like he knew how to get things done so anesimus knew how to get things done but he lacked the proper worldview and so this apparently strained the relationship between master and slave when he gets to Rome he becomes a Christian he becomes a useful minister to Paul as Paul is in chains this is a type of usefulness that you cannot fake this is a type of usefulness that you can't crunch you can't cram in it didn't just happen by accident and Paul acknowledges this when he says to filiman I wanted to keep him here with me I wanted to keep him here so that he could be a minister to me on your behalf filiman but because I didn't want to force your kindness I'm going to go ahead and send him back to you and you can expect that when he returns to you that he will be useful in both household and in ministry a beloved brother in the flesh and in the Lord in church history this is an interesting um a little bit of information in church history there is a bishop of Ephesus by the name of anesimus and although we don't know that this is the anesimus of the epistle of filiman Paul all but says this man would be a great deacon or bishop and so although we don't know for sure that this is the anesimus the timing lines up the location lines up and it's really not that far fetched that this is the anesimus of the epistle of filiman verse 17 if then you count me as a partner receive him as you receive me in this section Paul really starts to use substitutionary language he says receive anesimus as you would receive me if you would receive me at all right that begs the question would you receive me if you would then receive anesimus as you would receive me obviously they would receive Paul so but I think the point that Paul is getting at here is receive anesimus as you would receive Christ if you think about Paul's conversion story and how he was persecuting Christ the only reason that Paul is an apostle the only reason that there is anything good about Paul or any of us for that matters because of Christ it's because Christ's righteousness has been imputed to that man and so really what Paul is saying is receive anesimus as a brother in Christ and so we see that Paul in using this substitutionary language he's pointing us to what Christ does for us this is what Christ does for every sinner who is made new in him when we put off the old man and put on Christ we put off sin and death and we put on the righteousness of Christ Christ righteousness is imputed to us and when we and when the Father sees us he sees Christ I have been crucified with Christ is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me verse 18 Paul says if anesimus has wronged you or owes you anything put that on my account anesimus the cheat anesimus the thief right Paul says if he has wronged you or owes you anything right he has he has wronged filemen he has stolen from filemen there is no doubt a debt that anesimus now owes to filemen that he cannot pay himself Paul says I will pay it back I am writing this with my own hand I will pay it the innocent party here is paying the debt for the guilty you see what Paul is doing there the innocent party is paying the debt for the guilty Paul takes on the debt owed to anesimus and notice that the debt doesn't just disappear it doesn't just go away Paul says I will pay for it in full and he's an act back in Acts chapter 28 his whole time in prison he's paying for his his stay there Paul means it he's going to pay for anything that anesimus has done wrong he's going to pay for this debt he's not just saying it's to be nice Christ does the same thing for us Christ becomes sin so that we may become righteousness to God for our sake he made him who knew not sin become sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God Christ the pure and spotless lamb who never sinned offers his perfect life for us let that sink in we who are guilty and are owed the real wages of sin and have a real debt to pay Christ pays it for us we are purchased with the blood of Christ our debt is transferred to Christ this is why we see things like in the old covenant the worshiper would place his hand upon the sacrifice to signify that his sin was transferred to the animal the animal was then consumed and not the worshiper our sin was transferred to Christ and he was the once and for all sacrifice that completely atone for our sins glory be to God so here's the thing we're all guilty we have all fallen short of the glory of God so I want to say this that thing that you've been carrying around that secret sin that you would never tell anybody about excuse me that guilt and that shame that thing that keeps you up at night the thing that hides your smile the thing that makes it hard for you to come and join the quantity of fellowship of the saints you don't have to carry it do not have to carry excuse me the sin that rules over you flee from it lay it down pick it up no more because if you are a Christian that debt has been transferred to Christ God has made peace with you by the blood of Christ he has set you free and if the sun makes you free then you are free indeed filemen needed to welcome anesimus into the household of God no longer merely as a slave but more than a slave a beloved brother we too ought to welcome all who have been given the status of sons and daughters in the living God we should welcome those into the household of God and one area that I know that many of us fall short on when we're applying this is that is when it comes to ourselves we fall short it's not necessarily the unbeliever that comes in that we're looking at all squirrely I'd but we do it to ourselves all the time yes you are a sinner yes you are fallen you were a slave to sin but if you're a Christian God has caused the light of his face to shine upon you and he has given you new life in Christ he has saved you from sin and death and he has saved you from yourself you are no longer a slave to sin but a slave for Christ therefore allow yourself to come into the full fellowship of the body of Christ allow yourself to submit to one another disciple and be discipled bear one another's burdens and let your burdens be bared love and be loved and the name of the father the son and the Holy Spirit Amen being no longer slaves to sin but sons and God let us now partake in the body and blood of Christ your charge today church is to be people of the word love it in such a way that you let it shape you and be careful that you do not try to shape it love it as food for life and light that keeps your feet from stumbling be ready and will even though there are things within it that you might have to wrestle with be like the Bereans who love the truth of God's word and who sought to know it and to discern it who shrewdly tested it against itself and who saw it for what it was light and life our text today dealt with slavery what many consider to be a controversial subject and if we import our views about how we understand certain topics certain topics like slavery will probably take offense where no offense was given we might even be tempted to try to create our own solutions like sineca if we love God's word then we shouldn't be ashamed to say what the Bible says the Bible addresses slavery in some instances it also allows for the owning of one man by another we shouldn't make excuses for it or avoid the topic altogether and pray that no one ever brings it up rather we should be confident that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and it is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction and righteousness and we should seek to reconcile scripture to scripture especially the parts that we have to wrestle with we must always let scripture interpret scripture and not some lesser authority when you study scripture the darkness of slavery both literally and figuratively makes the light of Christ all the more bright the slavery of man points us to the need for his salvation in Christ the story of anesimus is proof of this he was a slave to sin and death yes but he was he also belonged to filiman and yet the potency of the gospel completely transformed anesimus to slave and to anesimus the brother in Christ amen let us sing our praise to God praise Father Son and Holy Ghost now to him who was able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever amen lord be with you