for leading us in worship this morning. It's good to sing praises to our Lord, and especially good to sing with other believers. I trust it's edifying for you. It is for me. But most importantly, we pray that the Lord is pleased with our offering of worship to Him. And He has something to say about how we approach Him in worship, and when we come together as a body. As we turn to the Scriptures today, I'd like to look at one of the characteristics of believers that we must work on consistently because it affects us tremendously and it also affects our fellowship with God. And this is the attitude and the action of forgiveness. And we see a living example of this in the book of Philemon. You know the Bible teaches that God is a forgiving God. This theme is picked up again and again in all of scripture. It starts in the garden when Adam and Eve sin, and God does not immediately bring physical death to them, but graciously provides them with clothing and provision. And all through the Old Testament, God deals graciously with the nation of Israel, not immediately punishing their sinfulness and rebellion. After he brought them out of Egypt from the oppression of Pharaoh, and while he was giving Moses instruction for them, To provide blessing and protection for them, they fell into grievous sin. In Exodus 34, 6 and 7, after the people had sinned against God and they made the golden calf, Moses goes back to have the tablets made a second time. And it is there that God describes himself to Moses, saying, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. And this is a pattern that continues throughout the life of Moses and Joshua and into the Book of Judges. And later on, when King David falls into the terrible sin with Bathsheba has Uriah murdered. God spares him. And later, after repenting. David writes a couple of Psalms. He writes Psalm 51 and he writes Psalm 32 and Psalm 32. One David said blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered. Forgiven and covered by whom? By God. Psalm 130, we just read that. I didn't know we were going to read that. That's kind of interesting. Psalm 130, three and four. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. Many more in the Old Testament that we could read, but over in the New Testament we read in Ephesians 1, 7, and 8, in him, in Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us. Colossians 1, 14 describes the son as the one in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. First John one nine, we all know that well could probably recite that together. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So forgiveness is something that God is known for and has been central to who he is from the beginning. It was just, it was part of his plan because he knew that forgiveness would be required to save his people from their sins. Listen to the following verses describing the eternal electing purposes of God, Matthew 25, 34. Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Acts 2.23, he was delivered up by God's set plan and foreknowledge, and you, this is Peter talking to the leaders of the day, and you by the hands of the lawless put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But it was God's plan that was being enacted. First Peter 1.20, he was foreknown, this is Christ, he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you. So the mercy of God and forgiveness through the sinning of his son was planned in eternity past, is made plain in scripture, and it extends all the way up to us today. And perhaps nowhere in the Bible is the forgiveness of God more clearly displayed than in the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. This is a familiar story to all of us. You know the story, man had two sons. The younger son asked for his portion of the inheritance, which was not something that was commonly done. Left home, thought he knew it all. And after living in a debauched and depraved life, he runs out of money and ends up feeding pigs and he wishes he could have the food that the pigs were eating. And he comes to his senses and he exclaims, how many of my father's servants have more than enough bread and I'm starving. So he decides to return, but he doesn't expect much. Only that hopefully he'll be allowed to be one of his father's servants. He hopes to be tolerated at best. He doesn't expect a grand homecoming to say the least. But we read these wonderful words starting in verse 20 of Luke 15, and he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his hand, shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they all began to celebrate. And so the father in that story is God, and he's gracious and loving and forgiving. And forgiveness is central to who God is throughout the scripture. And when we forgive other people, We're like him. When we forgive others, we are like God. This is something that's foreign to us naturally. As natural people born into the world with a sin nature, this is not something that's natural for us to do. And so when we forgive other people, it helps to assure us that we have the new nature living on the inside of us when we really can forgive others. Because we know that that has to come from somewhere outside of us. It can't come from what we have, what we bring naturally. And so we are truly like God when we forgive. And that brings us back to the book of Philemon. So take your Bibles, turn there now if you haven't already. Philemon is tucked between the books of Titus and Hebrews and the New Testament. It's on page 1000 in your pew Bible. It is on page 1000. I checked that. Philemon is a small book. It's only one chapter, 25 verses. And though it's not the smallest book in the New Testament, it is the smallest book that Paul wrote, and it's a different kind of a book than many of his epistles. It's a personal letter. I want us to read it together and then I'll give some background and walk through what I believe some are important principles that we're to learn about forgiveness from this small but powerful letter. And there's a lot going on here. So what I want to do is look how Paul approaches the very real and very shocking request that he's making of Philemon. Although you never see the word forgive or forgiveness in the whole book, the inference is clear. We're going to see Paul do, what I wrote down were five things that we see Paul do. First of all, in verses four through seven, we see Paul express his love and appreciation to Philemon. Second, we see Paul request forgiveness and reconciliation from Philemon to Onesimus, his runaway slave. That's verses eight through 16. Request forgiveness and reconciliation. And then third, Paul reminds Philemon of the basis for those actions, the motivation. Why should he do this? Verses 17 through 21. And then Paul does something interesting. He lets Philemon know that he's going to be coming around to make sure that Philemon does what he's asking him to do. And that's in verse 22. At the very end of the letter, there is a kind of a subtle way that Paul reminds Philemon that he's had to do the very same thing himself. And he doesn't really say anything about it, but just a comment that he makes shows that, Hey Philemon, I've had to do this myself. You're not alone in this. And so in verse 24, we see where Philemon does that. Paul does that for Philemon. So let's dig into this book here, starting in verse one, Philemon, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus and Timothy, our brother to Philemon, Our beloved fellow worker and Afia, our sister and our Kippis, our fellow soldier and the church in your house. Grace to you and peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints. And I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you. I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus, I appeal to you for my child in SMS, whose father I became in my imprisonment. Let's stop there. First, a personal note, and then some history. This year, our family has been part of one of the study groups in our church looking at the book of Colossians. There's a, uh, another group in church that's doing that still even now. And, uh, we, we had a good time learning in that study that we did about how the church was planted and how God used the apostle Paul in doing so. The book of Colossians and the book of Philemon are very closely tied together for various reasons. One, they were along with Ephesians and Philippians written while Paul was imprisoned in Rome. He was under house arrest in Rome. And second, the church in Colossae was meeting in Philemon's house. So Philemon and Epaphras had been led to faith by Paul, led to faith in Christ, several years earlier, probably during Paul's ministry in Ephesus. Acts 19, 9 and 10, we read of Paul where it says, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus, this continued for two years so that all the residents of Asia, which is Turkey in the modern day, heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. And this was likely the time that Epaphras and Philemon traveled from Ephesus west 100 miles to Ephesus from Colossae. And then they returned 100 miles back to Colossae and started the church there. And so Philemon was obviously well enough off to have a big enough place to have church in his house. And so he was a man of some wealth and some status there. And we also learned that he owned slaves. one of whom was Onesimus. Now, by all accounts, Philemon was a kind and generous man and he was called by Paul a fellow worker in verse 1. But Onesimus ran away, possibly taking something with him, we don't know. But he didn't flee just to Ephesus. He fled all the way to Rome. So Epaphrasin Philemon went 100 miles. That's like us going almost to Atlanta, not quite that far. When Onesimus fled, he fled all the way to Dallas, Texas. He fled 1,000 miles away. So Rome's a long way away. And he was likely seeking to get lost in the mass of humanity that was the Roman underground of the day. And we don't know exactly how. doesn't tell us in the scriptures, but God and his sovereignty arranged the meeting of Paul and Onesimus. He may have heard of Paul before from Philemon, or maybe he even traveled with Philemon over to Ephesus before. We don't know. We just don't know exactly how they met. But he could have run into Epaphras while he was in Rome, because Epaphras was also there in Rome at the time talking to Paul about what was going on at the church at Colossae. But somehow, through God's sovereignty, They met each other, and through God's grace and Paul's preaching, he became a believer. Onesimus, the runaway slave, becomes a believer. And he became a faithful brother to Paul. It was very useful to him, Paul says later on. But there was a matter that had to be taken care of. And that matter is that he had run away from his master. And although Paul would like for him to stay, he knew that he had to send him back to Philemon. At the very least, Onesimus had deprived Philemon of his duty and of his service for however long he was gone. He may have also stolen something from him. And Paul knew that the two of them needed to be restored to each other. So he returned Onesimus to Philemon. But he didn't return him alone. Returning him alone would have been dangerous in those days. If you were caught as a fugitive slave, you were marked, branded with an F, which was the Greek for being a fugitive. And so he didn't want to return him alone. And so what he did was he sent him with Tychicus, who had a letter for the Colossian church that he had been writing. And now he also had a letter for Philemon. So this letter that he wrote wasn't only for Philemon, it was also for everybody in the church as well at his house. We see that in verse 2. There's almost a match, like a word-for-word match between the beginning of Colossians and the beginning of Philemon. There's one little difference here. In Colossians it says, Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy our brother. To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father. We always thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love you had for all the saints. That's kind of a typical Pauline greeting. Philemon says, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus and Timothy, our brother, exactly the same. Here's the difference. To Philemon, our beloved fellow worker, and Aphia, our sister, and Archippus, our fellow soldier and church in your house. and then three and three through five are almost exactly the same. Grace to you, peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers because I hear of your love of the faith that you have towards Lord Jesus and all the saints. I mean, it's typical that it makes sense that he would have said the same thing to Fleeman since the church at Colossae was meeting in his house. So that's not a huge surprise. One of the main differences here is obviously the main recipient. And then also Aphia and Archippus, who we believe are Philemon's wife and son. And Archippus is also mentioned in Colossians, in the fourth chapter of Colossians, in verse 17, and was in the ministry in some form. And Paul charges him there, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. So Paul begins this whole letter to Philemon with his love and appreciation for Philemon, his family, and encouragement. And then starting in verse six, Paul really expresses his heart's desire, the outcome that he is praying for in verse six, when he writes, I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. The word sharing here uses the Greek word koinonia, usually translated fellowship, usually translated that way, but it means much more than enjoying each other's company. It refers to a mutual sharing of life and could also be translated as belonging to each other. So that describes how believers all belong to each other in a mutual partnership that is produced by their faith in Christ. So we all belong to each other. Get this by forgiving Onesimus, which Paul will shortly be asking Philemon to do. Onesimus will not only belong to Philemon in an earthly sense, But Philemon will belong to Onesimus in Christ. Such an act of forgiveness on the part of Philemon would be effective or powerful. in the original language and effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that's in us. Now what does that mean? So in 2 Peter 1.3 we kind of see a hint about this when Peter tells us that his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. So a goal of the Christian life is to live in a way that reflects God's glorious attributes and his excellent character. And one of those attributes is forgiveness. So this forgiveness lives on the inside of Philemon. He's probably read about it. He's probably heard about it. But now it's time for him to live it or experience it. It goes like this. Onesimus has wronged him, but now he's a brother in Christ. He ran away from him, maybe took something from him, but now he's a brother to him. Philemon has the opportunity to show his mutual brotherhood with Onesimus and experience the fullness of one of the glorious attributes of the Lord, namely forgiveness. Back in 2001, before Stephanie and I had the burden, uh, the blessing of children, uh, we had, uh, the opportunity to take a few trips. And one of these trips was to Fresno, California. Nobody's cheering Fresno, California. OK. I know that Fresno doesn't sound all that exciting, but we only went there so that we could rent a car and drive to the Mariposa Grove of the Sequoia National Forest. And we camped there. Just show of hands, anybody been to the Sequoia Forest before? I see a few hands. OK. It was amazing. We camped for a couple days. It was unbelievable. It's the southern of the two redwood forests, not the one with the tallest trees. Those are in the northern part of California. And they reach over 350 feet tall, the ones in the northern part. But the ones we saw were bigger around. And they were magnificent. I had heard about those and seen pictures of them, even the one that you can drive the car through the tree with a hollowed out deal that used to be able to do that. But I'd never seen those in person before. It was different. being there. It's hard to describe unless you've been there. It's hard, really, to bring it to life to somebody if they haven't been there. It's almost unbelievable. These trees are, I don't know how wide this church is, but the trees are about 30 feet wide, the diameter of a tree, not around it. I'm talking about the distance straight across. It's almost as wide as this church. It's almost unbelievable, really, unless you are there and you're looking at one. It's crazy. The point is that when you experience something firsthand, it's different than when someone tells you about it, or when you read about it, or even seeing a picture of it. Imagine skydiving. Now go do it. See, it's different. So Paul is saying to Philemon, he's praying that this godly attribute will be effective for the fellowship there at Colossae, having seen forgiveness firsthand. Onesimus is coming back. Philemon can do this thing, which will make it effective for their fellowship. And why do all this? For Christ's sake, or literally unto Christ at the end of the verse. This is an offering of worship under our Savior. So the application for us from these verses, we should thank God and pray for the love and faith of other believers. We should be involved in praying for each other and thanking God for each other. That's one of the things we take away from that. Number two, we should strive to be refreshers. At the end of verse seven, he says, you refresh my heart. We're going to be refreshed by others. Every time I come to church here with you, I'm refreshed by you in some way. And that's going to happen. But we should strive to be the kind of people that are encouraging to the body as much as we can whenever we have opportunity to help and to refresh others. In verses 8 through 16, Paul is going to explain now what he's asking of Philemon. So he started out by saying, OK, appreciate you, love you, and here's what I really want from you now. Shocking. Verse 8, accordingly, I'll pick it up again in verse 8. Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you. I, Paul, an old man, now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus, appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. Verse 11, formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me. I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart I would have been glad to keep him with me in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel, but I prefer to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion, but of your own accord. For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a bondservant, but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother, especially to me, but now how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. So we see here Paul begins his plea for Onesimus and there's nothing particularly doctrinal in all this book and we don't see Paul basing his request on any theological foundation that he's articulated explicitly or that he will articulate. He assumes that Philemon has read the scriptures and he assumes that Philemon is a believer and that he knows what it is to be forgiven and that it is important to forgive. So we have to ask the question, how would he have known? How would Philemon know this? Why would Paul assume that? Well, he likely would have heard about the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus said the following words in Matthew 6, 14, 15. Part of the disciples' prayer, taught to them by Jesus, if you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. So he knew that failing to forgive others hinders one's own fellowship with God and puts us in the dangerous position of God's chastening. He also would have heard the parable that we read about in Matthew 18, a couple of Wednesday nights ago we read this here. Starting in verse 21, Peter asked Jesus, how often should I forgive my brother? And, you know, Peter, a brother that sinned against me, how often do I forgive him? Peter thinks he's being really magnanimous when he says, up to seven times, like that was a big deal. And then Jesus ups the stakes on him and tells him in a parable afterwards to explain. So here we are picking it up in verse 21. Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me? And I forgive him as many as seven times. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 70 times seven, what 70 times seven. And then he tells him a parable. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a King who wished to settle accounts with the servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. That's an unpayable debt. 200 years worth of salary or something. I mean, a ridiculous amount of money. Verse 25, and since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and his children and all that he had and payment to be made. So the servant fell down on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. There's no way he could have done that, but he was pleading with him. And out of pity for him, the master of the servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, a few months worth of wages, nothing in comparison. And seizing him began to choke him saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, listen to the words, exactly the same words that he said before, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. And the master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also, My heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. Apart from the obvious wickedness that this peril, the parable tells us about the part of the servant, that's kind of obvious to us. The need to forgive others in the way that we've been forgiven, very clear, but there's something else that Philemon would have learned from this. Look at verse 31 again. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. That's Matthew 18, 31. Unforgiveness can greatly hinder the fellowship with other believers. We all know how much we've been forgiven. We know that. And to see a fellow believer withholding forgiveness from someone because of pride or another wrong motive distresses us because it does not jive with the new nature that's in us. nor the Holy Spirit that lives within us. So Philemon knew that he had to forgive. It's going to affect him, it's going to affect his fellowship with God, it's also going to affect his relationship with other believers. So he would have known all of this, but it didn't make it easy. Surely it would have been difficult for him to control his emotions. And Nesimus standing before him, who ran away from him, it would have been difficult for him to forgive. And so what Paul does is that he reasons with Philemon. And he uses godly persuasion with him to help him with the task because the task is difficult. And he did this by reminding Philemon that Paul himself was a prisoner, that he was old, and that he loved Onesimus himself, Paul did, and that Onesimus was now a brother in Christ. He also uses an interesting play on words in verse 11. And when I first heard about this over 20 years ago, I thought, man, this is so neat. That was a Friday morning men's Bible study that I was attending in another town, and somebody was talking about this book. And I thought, wow, that is so neat to see a play on words. I'm like, that is interesting. The Bible has that kind of stuff? I thought, this is so cool. And so in verse 11, we see that. Onesimus was a common name for slaves, and it literally means useful. The name means useful. And so Paul is saying that useful became useless, but now he's useful again. That's what verse 11 is saying. He's doing a play on words with the name Onesimus. Very cool. And then Paul says that he's sending him back. And he calls him, my very heart. And that's another way to make it easier on Philemon, I think. Someone who meant so much to Paul would surely deserve mercy from Philemon. So Paul tells Philemon that he would have commanded him to show mercy, but he wanted this to be of Philemon's own accord or, wait for it, here it is, it's in the Bible, free will. It's right here in Philemon, we found free will. If you've been looking for free will in the Bible, it's in Philemon. Paul speaks of doing it not out of compulsion. He also speaks of this in other places, like 2 Corinthians 9, 6, and 7, where he speaks of the offering to the saints at Jerusalem that he's taking up. He tells the Corinthians there, the point is this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. That's a different, whole different topic, but it's Paul using the same kind of reasoning. Give from your heart, do this from your heart. I'm not commanding you to do it, but it's the right thing to do. You should do this. And he also says that he would like to have kept Onesimus with him, but he wanted to do the right thing. And now he's asking Philemon to do the right thing. What's the right thing? It's to restore and to forgive Onesimus. One bonus of this for Philemon is that now his slave will also be a brother in Christ and a useful person for service in that capacity as well. The application for us, one application, there's so many, you'll have different ones when you read through this, but one that I came up with here was that friendly persuasion can be biblical. That principle is taught in Paul's letter to Philemon. There's some kinds of, obviously, friendly persuasion that aren't biblical, like insincere flattery, or arm twisting that's unethical, or unscrupulous manipulation. Those types of things are not biblical. But there is a biblical kind of friendly persuasion, and the Apostle Paul used it here. He did this by appealing to Philemon's love in verses 9 through 14, the change in Onesimus. He was appealing to Philemon based on the change that Onesimus was now a brother in Christ. Also, the sovereignty of God. Verse 15 and 16, where he says, perhaps he was gone for a while so he could become a brother and be a service to you in that way. So Paul's appealing to a lot of different things to persuade Philemon rather than using his authority to tell him to do it. And he also appealed his own friendship with Philemon. We don't always need to use our authority. If we have any authority in any capacity to help our brothers and sisters, but rather loving encouragement. We ourselves are going to need that same encouragement just around the corner. We may be in one position now, we're going to be in another position, you know, a little ways from now. And so sometimes it's better not to use authority. Sometimes you can get done what you want to have done with godly biblical reasoning. So now that Paul has made his plea, he wants him to restore him and forgive him. He wants to remind Philemon of the proper motivation behind the forgiveness being requested. and we pick it up in verse 17. So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. If he has wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it to say nothing of your owing me even your own self. Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. So here Paul appeals to his partnership with Philemon in verse 17, and he asks Philemon to receive back Onesimus, the runaway criminal, as he would receive the apostle Paul. If Paul were coming to Philemon's house, you can bet that Philemon would be more than welcoming. He would have everything done upright. Paul's asking him to do the same for his runaway slave, his criminal runaway slave. And this harkens back to the story of the prodigal son. A reception that's undeserved, but still given. And it's really a picture of grace. Something very interesting, maybe the best part of the book for me, if even better than the wordplay in verse 11. Paul is doing something here. He's holding himself forth as payment for another man's sin. Paul is holding himself out there, putting himself forward as a payment, putting himself in the place to stand in the place of Onesimus. This is a picture that Philemon would have known well. A sinner stands before a judge and a payment's required, yet the sinner has nothing with which to pay. Does this sound familiar at all? A substitute who has the ability to pay must step forward and pay the debt and take the place of the sinner. Is this starting to sound familiar to us? Absolutely. This is the gospel. Paul is being Christ-like in a very real sense here. And he reminds Philemon that Philemon owes Paul a greater debt than Onesimus owes Philemon. Namely eternal life through the sharing of the gospel with him years earlier. And so it's a beautiful picture of Paul saying, Hey, whatever he owes, I'll pay it. If he owes you something, I'll pay it. But by the way, don't forget that you also owe me your own eternal life because I shared the gospel with you and God worked in your life. So keep that in mind while you're making up your mind about these things. The motivation for doing what needs to be done is that he has eternal life and that he knows where he came from and he knows what forgiveness is. Paul says, if we're partners, if you have any affection for me, if you remember the grace you've been extended, and if you remember that you also owe your spiritual and eternal well-being to someone else, then that should be reason enough for you to show mercy and love to a brother who has wronged you. spite of how hard it may seem. It's not to minimize your hurt because the hurt is real. When you need to be forgiven or someone needs to, or someone you forgive them or they forgive you, it's real hurt. But if you think you've been wronged, think of our Lord, how far he condescended, how much he suffered, how meek and patient he was, even to the point of dying on a shameful cross. in order to present us, his enemies, as righteous into his kingdom. See also Romans 5, Philippians 2. I mean, when we think of our Lord and all that he went through, it should be a very small thing for us to forgive something that is relatively insignificant compared to what he had to forgive for us. Application from these verses, we should stand in for other believers whenever we have an opportunity to do so. If we can help reconcile two members of our body together, we should make every effort to do that. Encouragement, counseling, money, whatever it takes, it's very Christ-like to stand in and help reconcile the body together. We should do that. In verses 21 and 22, Paul tells Philemon that he's hoping to come soon and will be able to verify Philemon's obedience to this request. We learn in Colossians 2.1 that Paul had never been to the church in Colossae, but he looked forward to visiting there after being released from prison. In verses 21 and 22 of Philemon, Paul says, confident of your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say. At the same time, Prepare a guest room for me, for I'm hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously given to you." This is so great how Paul does this. So Paul says, Philemon, I know you're going to do the right thing. I'm confident of that, and even more than I asked. I know you're going to do this. But I want you to know that I'll be coming around soon, so get ready. And he also adds even more to this. He kind of puts the pressure on Philemon even more. He says that he expected to be released. How? by the means of Philemon praying for him. So, Philemon, be praying for my release, and that release means I'll be coming your way. Now, you know he can't pray for Paul and his release without doing the very thing which Paul is requesting of him, especially if Paul's going to come see him the very first thing that he does when he gets out. There's a means by which things happen, and Paul is telling Philemon that the means of prayer is going to help him get released, and then he's going to be coming to see him. But what does the even more in verse 21 mean? What's the even more? I'm confident that you're going to do even more than I'm asking. A lot of different opinions about this and a lot of the things I've studied. It's not really a call for emancipation of Onesimus. It's not really that. He's not telling him to free him. But what it might be is that it might be a call to allow Onesimus to minister alongside of him, to do even more now that he's a brother in Christ. He also says that before, how much more not just a servant, a bondservant, but even more a brother. There might be that sense. It might be that Philemon would send Onesimus back to minister with Paul again. He didn't want to do anything, keep him there unless Philemon did something of his own accord, so that could be part of it. Paul possibly could have asked Philemon to maybe, maybe he's going to forgive others even more graciously, some other people he needed to forgive. We don't know exactly what this is. But Paul is confident that Philemon will act in accordance with his love for God and his fellow man and according to his character. And so Paul has confidence in this. And finally, Paul relates rather subtly how he's had to deal with this very same thing himself. Philemon is not alone in needing to forgive and you're not alone today here in our church needing to forgive. Everybody has to do this. This is part and parcel of what being a believer is all about, forgiving others and being forgiven yourself. Verse 23, a path for us, my fellow prisoner in Christ. Jesus sends greetings to you. And so do Mark Aristarchus Demas and Luke, my fellow workers, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. It doesn't seem like there's all that much there. It's the farewell. We, we usually read these things and we finished the book and we're good, but Paul's farewell is interesting because of a couple of names listed here. Epaphras we've talked about. Luke is a frequent companion of Paul, and Aristarchus had shared in Paul's ministry in Ephesus, had traveled with him through Greece and Rome and Jerusalem, and he had also shared in Paul's imprisonment. The two other are interesting. Mark is the same Mark who was the cousin of Barnabas, who defected during the first missionary journey of Paul. And that led to a falling out between Paul and Barnabas. They went their separate ways. Then Paul was with Silas, and Barnabas and Mark went one way for a long time. But by this time of the writing of this, Paul and Mark had been reconciled. This surely would have been significant to Philemon, knowing that the Apostle Paul had to wrestle with similar emotions and come to terms with forgiveness in the real world, as it were. Not just telling him what to do, but knowing that he had gone through some of these same emotions and issues himself. Another name here is Demas. Demas is listed here and in Colossians as someone who is with the rest of them, no doubt helping in some capacity. But by the time Paul writes his second letter to Timothy later on, Demas has abandoned the faith and deserted Paul and is described as being in love with this present world. First John 2.15 says, we know that for anyone who loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Also, James says that friendship with the world is enmity or hostility to God. That's James 4.4. At the time of the writing of Philemon, Demas would still seem to have been a faithful brother. So this lesson is perhaps for us. It wasn't for Philemon. Perhaps it's for us. Paul is still going to be dealing with these same issues, his whole ministry after this time, all the way to the end, up to the end of his life. If he dealt with that, we're going to deal with it. We're going to deal with it too. This is, this is part of what we deal with. Uh, we have, uh, people that we know in our lives, even people we look up to in the ministry that somehow two weeks from now they say, Oh, by the way, I never was a believer. I mean, you never know who's real and who's not real. Sometimes when you look at, uh, the people that defect and then, then finally you say, Oh, well, they were never a believer, but at the time it seems like they're faithful. But we deal with this. So we deal with defection, we deal with people letting us down. And by the way, we also let others down. And so we're on both sides of this. And this is something that we have to get our heads around and to be willing to deal with as a part of the Christian life. Application. God places people in our lives that will give us an opportunity to forgive. But don't forget, you're one of these people to other people. Okay. So I've been that person to other people and I've had to forgive and be forgiven. And that's just part of what we do. We have the privilege of forgiving others and showing the character of Christ. And we have the reminder of brokenness by needing others to forgive us. It's a good reminder. It's, it's humiliating to have to ask for forgiveness. It really is. And it's necessary. I want to close with a story that many of you have probably heard. It displays forgiveness in a powerful way, better than anything I could have come up with. It was written by Corrie ten Boom, a Christian and a Dutch prisoner in a concentration camp during World War II. These are her words. It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947, and I had come to Holland, from Holland, to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. It was a truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander's mind, I like to think that that's where forgiven sins were thrown. When we confess our sins, I said, God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, and silence collected their raps, and silence left the room. And that's when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment, I saw the overcoat and the brown hat. The next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush, the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister's frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsy, how thin you were. Betsy and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland. This man had been a guard at Ravensbrück concentration camp where we were sent. Now he was in front of me, his hand thrust out. A fine message, Fraulein. How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea. And I, who had spoke so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course. How could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women? But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze. You mentioned Ravensbrück in your talk, he was saying. I was a guard in there. No, he did not remember me. But since that time, he went on, I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. For Lynn, again, the hand came out, will you forgive me? And I stood there. I, who sins every day had to be forgiven and could not. Betsy had died in that place. Could he erase her slow, terrible death simply for the asking? It could not have been many seconds that he stood there handheld out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I'd ever had to do. For I had to do it. I knew that the message that God forgives as a prior condition that we forgive those who have injured us. If you do not forgive them in their trespasses, Jesus says, neither will your father in heaven forgive your trespasses. And I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but also as a daily experience. Since the end of the war, I had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. And those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able to return to their outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. But those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and horrible as that. And as I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart, I stood there. But forgiveness is not an emotion. I knew that, too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. Jesus helped me, I prayed silently. I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling. And so, woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands, and then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. I forgive you, brother, I cried with all my heart. For a long moment, we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then. Do you have someone that you need to forgive? Are you in need of forgiveness from someone else? My encouragement to us is don't let our fellowship with God and his body wait any longer to make things right. Surely, since we've been forgiven so much, that to forgive, though hard to do, is what God expects us to do. And when we submit in this area, he provides the grace necessary to carry it through and the true peace