 So we're looking at Philemon, beginning at verse one, reading to verse three. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved friend and fellow laborer, to the beloved Afia, archipelage, our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house, grace to you in peace from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. So here's your context. Here's your foundation, here's your background. Philemon was written somewhere between the years 60 and 62 AD. It's one of the prison epistles that Paul wrote. The other epistles he wrote that are called prison epistles are Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians. They're prison epistles because they were written during one of Paul's incarcerations. They were written when Paul spent around two years under house arrest in the city of Rome. The book of Acts chapter 21 records that Paul was in a city in northwest Israel on the coast, a city called Caesarea. And while he was there, there was a prophet, a prophet by the name of Agabus. And Agabus had prophesied that Paul would be arrested in the city of Jerusalem, and that had caused everyone to plead with him not to go to Jerusalem. In Acts 21-13, Paul answered, what do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so there was nothing that could be said, and he left. When he arrived at Jerusalem, he went into the temple. When he went into the temple there in Jerusalem, he was seen by some enemies. You see, many Jews believe that Paul spoke badly of Moses, the law, and the temple. They also believe when they saw him that he had brought a Gentile into the temple, which was against Jewish law, and it sparked a riot. They wanted to kill Paul, but a Roman commander brought troops and saved him. And after the commander had saved him, Paul convinced him to allow him to speak. And so he began to preach and the people began to listen. So as he was speaking to them in the Hebrew tongue, they were listening respectfully until at a certain point, he began to speak concerning the fact that he was commanded to speak to Gentiles. And at that point, once again, they went into a rage and they had to remove Paul from them. Well later, Paul was brought before the governor, a man named Felix, whose nickname was the cat. No, just see if you're listening. Two years later, a new governor came into office. His name was Festus, and he left Paul in custody. Well, when standing before him, Paul demanded that he be taken before Caesar. And so finally, Paul arrived at Rome and he was awaiting trial before the Caesar. Someone said it is generally accepted that Paul wrote the prison epistles during his first Roman imprisonment. The exact dates he wrote each of the prison epistles is unknown, but the two year period he spent under house arrest in Rome has been narrowed down to the years AD 60 to 62. Paul's imprisonment in Rome is verified by the book of Acts where we find references to his being guarded by soldiers, Acts 28, 16, being permitted to receive visitors, Acts 28, 30, and having opportunities to share the gospel, Acts 28, verse 31. These details, along with Paul's mention of being with those who belong to Caesar's household, Philippians 422, support the view that Paul wrote the prison epistles from Rome. Paul's Roman incarceration produced three great letters to the churches of Ephesus, Colossae, and Philippi, as well as a personal letter to his friend Philemon. So this letter that we're looking at is a letter to Philemon. Philemon lived in a city called Colossae, which is in ancient Turkey. We'll see that Philemon was a wealthy man and he'd been converted to Christ under the ministry of Paul. Verse 19 informs us of that. It's commonly believed that Afia is his wife and Archipus is his son. We need to remember that for the first three centuries, the church met in various places, including people's homes. And in this case, the church meets in Philemon's home, which he stated in verse two. His son Archipus held a position of leadership in the fellowship, according to verse two. And that is seen how Paul addresses him as a fellow soldier. Now remember in Colossians, Paul had given Archipus a command concerning his ministry. In Colossians four, verse 17, Paul had written, Say to Archipus, take heed to the ministry which you've received in the Lord and fulfill it. So Paul was saying to him, do not take your ministry duties lightly. Carefully safeguard the ministry that's been entrusted to you. You see, in 1 Thessalonians two, verse four, Paul said, we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. Even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. So we have been approved to be entrusted. That's an important word. You see, it's a great honor to be given and entrusted with someone's keys. And what we have been entrusted with is the gospel. In Matthew 16, verse 19, Jesus was speaking concerning this when he said to the apostle Peter, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And so we're to safeguard that which has been given to us because we in the gospel have been handed the keys to the kingdom. It's a great honor to be entrusted with someone's keys. You know, I don't know about you but I don't give my house keys to anyone. Just anyone walking down the street here, will you take care of my house and give them my house keys? I have to trust the person that I give my house keys to. I have to trust the person that I give my office keys to, you know, for them to be able to walk into my office whenever they want to. I have to trust that person before they're given my keys. I was behind my desk a while back now. I was in my office, my office is right back here. And as I was in my office, my door is left open and I saw movement in the back because the green room, we call it the green room, is right in here. And so as I was behind my desk, I'm looking towards the door. I see movement and there are always people going back and forth in the green room. So I see someone walk by and then I see them walk back a minute or so later. And I'm still typing and working and I look past my screen and I see someone walking up to the water fountain that we have actually a sparkless kind of thing and they're getting themselves a glass of water and then they come and walk and stand in my door. And so I look to my doorway and there's a stranger there. I've never seen this guy in my life. And he's standing there drinking water and I looked at him and I said, can I help you? And he says, no, I'm okay. I said, oh, okay, all right. I said, do you have a meeting with someone? He goes, no, no. I said, really? And he says, no, just, I said, do you go to this church? And he goes, no, I don't go to this church. I said, really? And what are you doing back here, if I may ask? He goes, I don't know. I just walked in. I was wondering what was back here. And I'm going, really? You're not. And I took him out, you know, took him up to the front. Then I had some guys, no, I'm just kidding. That's why we have locks on the doors now. We didn't lock up the doors before, but now we have locks because people sometimes decide that they want to take the tour. And so I trust people with keys, whether it's for my house, whether it's for my office, and whether it's for the church building. There are employees here and volunteers that we give the keys to. And not only do we give them the keys, we give them the code. And so they know how to turn on and off the alarm system. They can enter in as they will. But I only give those to those whom I trust. And Jesus entrusted the apostle Peter and the other apostles with keys to the kingdom. And because we have been entrusted with the keys, which is the gospel, which opens the door to let people in. Because we have been entrusted with the keys, we need to understand that the word entrusted means something. He has actually trusted you. And it's something that we don't take lightly. You see, as a wealthy man, Philemon was a slave owner, as was common in the New Testament times. Onesimus is one of his slaves. And Onesimus had run away and had made his way to Rome. And while in Rome, Onesimus had come into contact somehow with the apostle Paul. And we'll see in verse 10, had come to faith in Christ. So Paul is now riding to Philemon on behalf of his son in the faith, Onesimus. And under ordinary circumstances, a runaway slave could be treated terribly. He could suffer the penalty of death even. At the least, he could be punished brutally if he was caught or voluntarily returned. So with this in mind, Paul writes on behalf of his son in the faith, Onesimus. And he has to write Philemon because simply because Philemon is a mature believer doesn't mean that he can't be instructed. Doesn't matter how long you've been in the Lord, you can always learn something new. And so Paul is writing to let him know these are things you need to do and things you need to know. And so that's the introduction. So let's look at the verses in front of us. It begins in the common way Paul would begin a letter. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved friend and fellow laborer, to the beloved Afya and Archipus, our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house, grace to you in peace from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. So he begins his letter in the typical fashion. It began at that time with the person, the name of the person sending it. It identified the recipient and it included blessings. Notice how Paul begins. He refers to himself as a prisoner of Jesus. The only who was in prison, he didn't see himself as a prisoner of Rome. Paul knew that he was the Lord's prisoner. He knew that he was engaged in service to the Lord. So he knew that he was his prisoner. Again, everybody serves something and everybody can be rightly called a prisoner of whatever it is that they serve. Whatever you yield yourself to ultimately becomes your master. Whatever I spend my time thinking about, whatever I think about and dream about, whatever I pursue, that is my master. Whatever I spend my time, my talents, my thoughts and my treasure on, that is my master. And in Romans chapter six verse 16, Paul said, do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey, you are that one slaves whom you obey. Whether of sin leading to death or of obedience, leading to righteousness, don't you know that? Whatever you yield yourself to becomes your master. And every one of us has yielded ourselves to some master. Whatever I think about, whatever I dream about, whatever I pursue, whatever I spend time telling treasure, thoughts on, that is my master. So as a Christian, I'm to daily yield my life to my master who's Jesus Christ. There's a writer that I like, his name is A.W. Tozer. And Tozer said, the man who surrenders to Christ exchanges a cruel slave driver for a kind and gentle master whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. So Paul was a prisoner of the Lord and he reminds Philemon of this. So he does this not to provoke pity, but to remind Philemon that he too was Jesus's prisoner. And this was intended to touch Philemon's conscience, not simply his emotions. Now he speaks to Philemon and he calls him our beloved friend and fellow laborer. So that's a statement that's filled with humility because Paul is recognizing his value in the kingdom. Philemon is someone that Paul could call his friend as well as his fellow laborer. So Paul was not doing the work alone. Paul worked in the field with other laborers and Philemon was one of them. He speaks in verse two of Afia and Archibus and he calls him Archibus, our fellow soldier. Afia was Philemon's wife and Archibus was Philemon's son. Notice again, he's a fellow soldier and he's a pastor along with the pastor of the church Epiphras. It is interesting how Paul refers to Archibus as a fellow soldier. As a fellow soldier, Archibus is to remember that he's engaged in spiritual warfare and that reminds him to be faithful and to be on the alert at all times. And then he speaks in verse two of the house, the church in your house. Now that doesn't mean that the entire church is gonna read this letter. It's simply a way of extending a greeting to them. And so he's begun his introduction. Now let's look at his letter. Verse four, 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. We're gonna take this apart a little bit at a time. He begins in verse three, grace and peace. Again, that's the standard greeting. It appears in all of his letters. But notice with me, first grace, then peace. You will never have peace until you've experienced the grace of God. That is a very basic Bible 101 concept. People today don't understand that and sometimes the church doesn't. You will never have peace with God or peace with others until you experience the grace of God. We'll see how that works in a moment. But when you experience the grace of God, it brings humility in your life. And when the grace of God is experienced in your life, you can now see yourself for what you are, what a great sinner we all are and how that God has forgiven us of our sins which brings humility. And when humility is experienced in our life, we can now live at peace even with those who have heard us. You're gonna see this work itself out as we go through the book of Philemon. You will see this in a moment. So he says, I thank my God, and I thank the Lord for making mention of you always in my prayers. Philemon, I bless God for your testimony and I want you to know I'm constantly praying for you. What is it that prompts Paul to keep praying for him? Verse five, hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints. Philemon, your testimony of faith and love has been shared with me and it's because of your faith and love that I'm writing to you. This is because faith is to be evidenced by the love of God. There are people who say, oh, I have great faith. Well, great faith will be demonstrated by great love when somebody says really have faith in God. It's gonna be demonstrated by how they speak of and fellowship with him but it's also gonna be seen in how they treat other people. And there are quite a number of people who say, oh, I've got great faith but what we really need is faith that is combined with love. In Galatians five verse six, it says in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but faith working through love. So this faith and love is not restricted to some. This faith and love that you have has been toward all. Notice that toward all the saints. You've opened your house to ministry. Philemon, you've shown your love and your faith in a very practical way. And by the way, you're well known for being a man filled with faith and love for other believers. Now this testimony came through Epiphras who had communicated Philemon to Paul. So his faith was put into practice and his faith was revealed by the love he had for Jesus Christ and people. Now we need to remember, and this is all a setup by the way, he's setting him up to receive some teaching, a setup not in a negative way but he's preparing him for what he has to say. We need to remember that Paul is writing on behalf of a runaway slave named Onesimus. And Paul has said that Philemon has love for Jesus and toward all the saints. Well Onesimus is now a believer and one of the saints that Philemon is to love. You see his love for the saints would have extended even to Onesimus because Onesimus is a fellow believer. And what Paul is doing is he's beginning to lay a foundation as he's gonna make a plea for a man who ran away and could be treated harshly in returning. He says in verse six that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. This will take a moment to develop because that's kind of an awkward phrase. The sharing of your faith may become effective. The word sharing in the Greek language is the Greek word koinonia. The word koinonia is a word that we translate fellowship. It's also a word that is used speaking of somebody that is partaking in something. So the sharing of his faith isn't him going out preaching the gospel. The sharing of his faith is something that he shares in concert with others. It speaks of his faith being exercised as he does good to other people. So the sharing of your faith, he says, becomes effective. The word effective means to be energized or empowered. It speaks of being active or operational. That your faith may be active and extended and expressed. He speaks of acknowledgement. The word acknowledgement is a full experiential knowledge that comes through personal knowledge of the truth and is seen and recognized by others of the same faith. And then he speaks of that good thing. Good thing he refers to is every loving and gracious trait that is expressed and is visible to other people. So this is what he's saying. This love and this faith being worked out springs from the work of the spirit in your life. And the sharing of your faith is my prayer that it becomes effective. Again, it's not saying go out and evangelize. He is saying that he and Onesimus share the same faith. Philemon has been saved and has been completely forgiven of his sins. There's no doubt that he has sinned against others yet he's been forgiven. Philemon had sinned against others and Onesimus had sinned against him. And since Philemon has experienced forgiveness, he is to extend it to Onesimus. See people all the time will say, how can I forgive someone who has sinned against me? The apostle Peter says to Jesus, Lord, how many times shall I forgive someone who has offended me unto seven times? The rabbis at that time had taught that you've forgiven three times. So what he's saying is, I'll double what the rabbis are teaching and add one to it for good measure. Jesus says seven times 70. Well, that's how do I go about doing that? You have to be willing to understand a couple of things. I'll talk to you for just a moment about this, about forgiveness. In the act of forgiveness, there are two people being forgiven. Two people experiencing the forgiveness. The person forgiving as well as the one receiving it. When I forgive, I am actually relieving myself of a burden that I've been carrying. That's why Jesus taught us that we were to forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. A debtor is somebody who owes me something. In the matters of forgiveness, somebody has sinned against me and hurt me, and there is kind of a debt involved now. So I can hold on to that as a debt collector and never release them from their debt. I can look at them and I can think in the back of my mind, this is the person who did me wrong and did me harm. And I will carry on my back a burden because I am carrying a weight of unforgiveness. So in the power of the Lord through the Lord's mercy, when God has awakened me and us into the fact that we have sinned against him in word, thought, and in action, and that I owe him and yet he has completely wiped the slate through the blood of Christ and cleansed me of all sin, not just some, but all sin. If I confess my sin, he is faithful and just to forgive me my sin to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. He doesn't, in other words, he doesn't just forgive some unrighteousness, he forgave it all. Every single bit, I want us to think about this for just a moment. Every single sin that you and I, that you committed, I committed, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses it and washes us. And we can have fellowship with him and fellowship with others. When I stopped pointing my finger at somebody else who sinned against me and I realized that God has forgiven me all of my sins, I can be free, but if I refuse to do that and I live as a debt collector, then I will never walk in the freedom that I desire because I'm always carrying the weight of unforgiveness. So when forgiveness occurs, two people are relieved. I'm relieved of the burden I carry because I've been angry at you so long and you're relieved because your sin has been forgiven. And so Jesus teaches forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors as we release them from what they owe us. I'm set free. And so Paul is speaking to him and saying to Philemon, listen, Philemon. You are our partaker of the grace of God. You're sharing in the fellowship of Christ. You've entered in by being forgiven of your sins. You said, God be merciful to me as sinner. And God washed you and cleansed you. He gave you a new life, empowered you with his spirit and gave you his word to live by. Well, guess what? Onesimus has been freed too. And the way God forgave you, he forgave Onesimus now. He hasn't said it yet, but he's moving into that direction. He's actually setting the table here. You see, if you forgive, you're gonna experience the relief of a burden. You're gonna have a deeper sense of the presence of God in your life. There's an interesting scripture found in the Gospel of John chapter 14, verse 21. And Jesus said, whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my father. And I too will love him and show or reveal or manifest myself to him. When you keep my commandments, you love me. My father and I will fellowship with you and I will reveal myself to you. Do you ever wanna know more of the Lord? Do you ever wanna experience him deeper? You experience him deeper when you obey him. When you do what he says. He shows up in a very personal way. And when I forgive, he shows up and that burden is relieved. And I'm able to be free because I have yielded myself to a master that has been harsh, a master called unforgiveness. And every time I see that person and I think and you know this is true, that guy hurt me. That guy lied about me. That person used me. That person stole from me. And that's the first thing that comes to your mind. It is. That person has done me harm and it just renews it. Have you ever had that experience where you say like, you know what, it felt like the wounded healed but somebody ripped open that wound again. That's what happens when you don't have forgiveness. That's what happens when you carry it in that sack of burdens that you carry around that dominates the way that you think and the way that you act. And so Paul is appealing to the fact that Philemon has been forgiven. He's appealing to that. And he's saying, as you've understood this in doing what God commands, you've been set free. So he says it, verse six again. He goes, the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. Verse seven, four, we have great joy and consolation in your love. Now notice because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. We've heard of your love of God. We've heard that you love his kids. We're blessed by it. Philemon, you've been used to relieve the burdens of many believers. You've done good things for those in need and relieve them. As a matter of fact, the hearts of the saints have been refreshed because you love them. You see, love for them has been revealed by your ministry to them. And this is a mark of a true Christian. In Galatians six, nine and 10, Paul says to the church there, let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we don't give up. And therefore as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. And so you're well known for these things. You have refreshed the hearts of the saints. Verse eight, 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. So Paul makes it very clear that he has authority to give a command. He says, I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting. That word bold speaks of being outspoken. It could be seen as issuing a direct order. So I have the authority to give you a command. Verse nine, yet for love's sake, I rather appeal to you being such a one as Paul the aged. Well, if he commands him, he might have short circuited a work God would do in Philemon because if Philemon voluntarily does what is right, he's gonna learn a deeper lesson. And love for Jesus and love for Anesimus should motivate him to do what is right. If Philemon thought that such a command was easy for Paul to give, well, he's wrong. Paul's a prisoner. So Paul was asking Philemon to do the right thing out of love for Jesus and Anesimus. And he knew that such a thing would exact a price on Philemon because forgiveness very often is not easy. And because of this, Paul makes it clear that he had the credentials to make such a request because in verse nine, he says, I'm aged. I'm in jail as a prisoner for Christ. This gives me credibility. And now he lets him know what he's talking about. Verse 10, I appeal to you for my son, Anesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me. And I'm sending him back. You therefore receive him that is my own heart. I appeal to you for my son, Anesimus. Now, as we've gone through just the first few words that he's penned in this letter, he has written many things that would encourage Philemon. He said, I often pray for you. I've heard of your love and your faith. I know that you have a love for other believers. I know that you minister in a practical way to other Christians. And I know that you're a manager biblical authority and respond to direct orders. I know that you're aware of my age and that I'm in a prison cell even as I write you. So with all of this in mind, let me now come to the reason for my writing this letter. I make it an appeal to you on behalf of my son, Anesimus. I brought him to a saving faith in Jesus Christ when he was in Rome. As I mentioned earlier in another study, in scripture, Paul only refers to two other men as his sons, Timothy and Titus. So this endorses his conversion. This is a genuine believer and he should be treated as such. Now, this is important for Paul to point out because Anesimus is a runaway slave. And so in verse 11, he speaks of him and he says, who was once unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me. He was unprofitable. Perhaps he didn't work hard. Maybe he had wronged him. Ultimately, he had run away from Colossae. He had ended up in Rome. Well, the fact is that Anesimus, before conversion, was unprofitable. And this is a state of every unsaved person, unprofitable to God. In Romans 3.12, all have turned away. They have together become worthless. There's no one who does good, not even one. But now that he's been saved, the one who was once unprofitable is now profitable. The name Anesimus, Anesimus means profitable or useful. After coming to Christ, he became profitable. And that is the fruit of conversion, a completely transformed life. That, which at one time was useless, is now useful in the hand of the Lord. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. All you need to do is take a moment if you wanted. And some of you are able to do this. You've been in Calvary Chapel Ministries for a long time and start thinking about the testimonies of some of the men the Lord has used in mighty ways. Unprofitable before Christ. You have an angry man who wants to shoot and kill his children, Raul Rees. You have a guy named Steve Mays. Steve Mays was a drug runner. Steve Mays had a wound in his leg. He had been shot. He was laying in a gutter in front of a house. He had passed out there. And a couple had pulled out of their driveway. They were on their way out and they're driving out and they stopped because there's this young man in a gutter in front of their house. They climb out of the car and they say, what are you doing? They begin to speak to him and they take Steve into the house. And Steve's wounded, he had been shot in the leg. He's wounded, they take him into the house and they say, you smell, take a bath. And he took a shower, they gave him clothing and they took him to Calvary Chapel House that we used to have and Steve went in and this young man who was the house elder sees Steve and he says, you look miserable. You need Jesus Christ. You need to give your heart to Christ. And he leads Steve Mays to faith in Christ and Steve begins to lead until he goes home to be with Jesus. A beautiful, beautiful church in South Bay area. Or you have Mike Macintosh. Mike Macintosh was a drug addict. He had lost his mind. He had dropped so much acid and he was out in a desert and a guy took a revolver and placed it next to his head and fired it and Mike, because it was so loaded on such a dose of acid, he thought that half of his head had been blown off. And so he thought it was just a freak of nature for him to be able to walk around with only half a head. And he heard about a prayer meeting at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa. And so he went and walked up to Pastor Chuck Smith and said to Chuck at the prayer meeting, he said, could you pray for me? I've lost half of my head. And Chuck's looking at him thinking, no, it's all gone. No, can you pray for me? And Pastor Chuck prays for Mike and a miraculous healing takes place and he goes off and does Calvary Chapel San Diego becomes a rise in ministries and to this day is serving the Lord Jesus Christ. God grabs hold of unprofitable people. There's a story of how Pastor Chuck and Kay Smith used to go to Huntington Beach and he used to go there with her and they would park on the side there and they would watch the hippies as they walked by. And as the hippies would walk by, Chuck would mumble under his breath and Chuck was just like my dad, they were the same age. My dad felt the same way. Chuck would murmur under his breath those dirty, smelly hippies, why don't they get a job? They need to put shoes on, they need to take a bath. They need to, and he'd be just grousing, you know, and then he'd look at his wife Kay who was in the passenger seat because she's the one who made him come out and look at these dirty things. And he would look at Kay and he would see Kay crying and praying for these kids, these lost children, so messed up, so messed up. You know, they would do that in a time when I was a young man. I used to hang around Huntington. I used to walk by with the long hair and the dirty feet and the ragged t-shirts and I don't know, I'd like to pretend in my own heart that maybe one day they prayed for me because I used to go in the same area where this was all taking place and there would be Kay and she'd say, God save those kids, God in Jesus' name, save those babies, Lord, in Jesus' name, reach those children, they need you so bad. And Chuck would be gone, amen, amen. God takes that, which is worthless in the sight of the world, guys, and he makes it profitable. That's what he did to you. He took you. Oh, you might have been cleaner trash than the other trash. I was too, but you were still in need. I've told this story before it comes to mind. My uncle Louie had an uncle named Louie. He was from Columbus, Georgia, had a southern accent and for some reason he loved me and my uncle Louie used to, because he had gotten injured on the job, this was back in the 50s. He couldn't work and he didn't make anything other than just a little bit off of government aid. And he used to drive a pickup truck through the neighborhoods and we used to call him at that time trash diggers. And that was something that my generation in the 50s was ashamed of, that my uncle was a trash digger. He would go into people's trash and pull things out and he would take it in, he would change it and paint it up and put it up for sale in yard sale kinds of things. And I was ashamed of him until the Lord taught me something. And it was kind of like this, you were trash, David, somebody used you and finally got rid of you, threw you in the trash. And there you were stuck in the trash with just you were just trash yourself. But Jesus was like my uncle Louie driving his little Holy Spirit pickup truck through neighborhoods and he stopped one day and he went to the trash and he took that trash which is me and he made me into a treasure because God has a way of turning trash into treasure. That's what he does. That's redemption. That's what he does. So Philemon, don't be getting all high and mighty like you're so good and so much better than Onesimus. Don't be thinking that you're something special when in fact you're just like everybody else and you're just in need of someone to lovingly forgive you of what you've done. You never should have a heart of judging someone else. And so that's how he's beginning to present this to him. He's saying he was unprofitable, but now he's profitable. He was to you unprofitable, but he's become profitable. So he said, I'm sending verse 12, I'm sending him back. You therefore receive him that is my own heart. In other words, I sincerely love this brother. I'm truly sending you a part of my own self. And he goes on in verse 13, whom I wished to keep with me that on your behalf, he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. Onesimus was Philemon's servant. He really couldn't serve another without permission. And Paul would not keep Onesimus with him. So he sent him back to Philemon. Well, in Rome, he had taken Philemon's place of service to Paul, but Paul didn't keep him there. So while saying this, Paul is subtly reminding Philemon that he, Paul, is in chains for the gospel of Jesus Christ. He says in verse 14, without your consent, I wanted to do nothing. I don't want your good deed to be out of compulsion. Your obedience to my request needs to be a response to Christian grace. And so in verse 15, perhaps he 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 do you, both in the flesh and in the Lord? God is using this situation for good instead of having a slave for a brother. You have a brother for a slave, so love him. And remember Galatians 3.28, there's neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. He says in verse 17, if you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me. Well, since we work together for the same God and we are co-laborers, would you love him like you love me? But verse 18, if he's wronged you or owes 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. That's a little subtle dig right there. If he's wronged you or owes you anything, put that on my account. Now this infers that Anesimus wronged him by escaping and robbing him when he left. So if he owes you something, put his debt to my account. I will guarantee payment. Paul didn't owe the debt but was willing to pay off the debt. Again, that's a subtle picture of salvation. Jesus paying a debt that was not his own. When Jesus died on the cross, Jesus did not die for any sin that he committed. When Jesus laid down his life, this is the heart of the Christian message. He did not die for sins he did, he died on behalf of others. He's the Lamb of God who take away the sin of the world. He is the one who bore my iniquities upon himself. When I saw him, I looked at the cross and I saw that this man had done no wrong. Like that thief on the cross, when he spoke to the other thief and he said, we are here for just reasons. We have done wrong. We deserve what is taking place. But in pointing to Christ, the one in between them, he says, but he has done no wrong. See, that's what happened when you got saved. You realized, you came to know that he died for you. And you may not have been as bad a sinner as the next person but you were still a sinner. You were still someone lost, you were still sinning and falling short of the glory of God. You knew you were imperfect and you might have had that beautiful outside, that facade, kind of like the Pharisees. When you looked at them, they would pray, they would fast, they would give. And Jesus would use them as an example because the people looked at them as the perfect example of a religious person because they did the three things that were important in the Jewish religion to earmark them as believers, to earmark them as righteous. They fasted, they prayed, they gave. Those were the three basic elements of the religion of Israel during the time of Christ. And that's why Jesus would point them out and say, don't be like them. They pray, they fast, but they do all this to be seen by men and from men there at that moment when they give them recognition, they receive their reward, don't be like that. Because true religion is not something I do on the outside. True religion is a change of heart and that comes from the understanding that Jesus Christ died on a cross to take my sins, paying a price I could not pay. And I by faith said, thank you God for saving me a sinner. That's the point. And so Philemon, Philemon, you're a sinner too. And onesimus, if he owes you anything, put it on my account. But then let me remind you, you owe me your own self also. How's that? Because it was through the ministry of Paul and his ministry that Philemon had faith in Christ. Listen, Gentiles didn't have a relationship with God and in the New Testament, they have to be brought into a relationship with God. In the Old Testament, you have humanity divided into two simple categories, Jew and Gentile. In the New Testament, humanity is divided into three categories. You have Jew, you have Gentile, and you have the church. The church is made up of the two Jew and Gentile making up what is called the new man. And so this man, Philemon from Colossae, was the Gentile outside of the promises of God. And the New Testament refers to Gentiles as they do not know God. The Jews are in rebellion against God, but the Gentiles know not God. They have no relationship with Him. So Paul is saying, you owe yourself to me. I brought the gospel to you a Gentile outside of the promises of God, lost forever. Let me remind you of what it means to come to faith in Christ, a new life, you're going to heaven, and it's because someone forgave you your sins, and it's God who did that, and it's because someone brought the message of forgiveness, and I did that. You owe your own self to me also. Your salvation came because God sent me to bring you this message. You are my debtor. In Romans chapter 15, verses 26 and 27, Paul said to the Roman church, it please those from Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints who are in Jerusalem. It please them indeed, and they are their debtors. For if the Gentiles have been partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister to them in material things. But he uses the phrase, they, the Gentiles, are there, the Jews, they are their debtors. And so he's saying, not to mention to you, you owe me even your own self. Besides, I brought you the faith in Christ. Verse 20, yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. I want you to see something that's interesting, but Paul did. Notice verse 7 of the same chapter. We have great joy and consolation in your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. Notice verse 12. I am sending him back. You therefore receive him that is my own heart. And then notice verse 20. Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. Philemon, you are known to be one who refreshes hearts. Onesimus is my heart. Refresh my heart by forgiving him. The emphasis on forgiveness reveals genuine salvation by the one exercising it. Let me share with you as I close some of the blessings and benefits of forgiveness. The first thing we need to remember is that failing to forgive keeps the pain alive as we replay it constantly in our minds. Forgiveness allows healing to occur. Second, unforgiveness produces bitterness, hate, and a longing for revenge. Third, unforgiveness gives Satan an open door to attack us and can render us useless. And finally, unforgiveness hinders our fellowship with the Lord as it is misunderstanding the basis of a relationship. To forgive is to open the door to fellowship with him. There are blessings and benefits to this. So he says, refresh my heart. And then finally, having confidence, verse 21, in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. But meanwhile, also prepare a guest room for me, for I trust that through your prayers I shall be granted to you. I will be released, so prepare a place for me today. Epiphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Deimos, Luke, my fellow laborers, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with your spirit, amen. And finally, we'll close with a few words. He mentions names, again, Epiphras, Mark, some Gentile believers, but I want to close with another reference to verse 24 to Deimos. Again, I mentioned him recently. I mentioned him again, Deimos, Deimos, Deimos. I gave a message at a pastors conference on the East Coast a year or two ago. And in the message, I shared concerning this Deimos. And again, recently, I just spoke of this, so I'm not going to go over what I've already shared with the other than maybe a couple of reminders and thoughts related to that. And as I was sharing with the pastors on the East Coast, 1,200 pastors and leaders in Calvary Chapel Ministries, I shared with them that Deimos was a guy that you would see come walk it into the room and you would say there's Deimos and he's well known and all. And then when you look at the Bible, you begin to see how that Deimos is mentioned more than one time in favorable ways. And then yet, the very end, it just simply says, Deimos has forsaken me having loved this present world and has departed for Thessalonica. That's the last thing you hear about him. And again, I just shared this with you and you remember. But the last thing that is mentioned of you is a very important thing. The last thing that is mentioned of you is a very important thing. Usually, we save our last words for funerals. Somebody has died and somebody comes up and gives the last words. They usually, what they call eulogize, the word eulogize, it literally translates speaking good words. So they eulogize, they come up and speak good words about the deceased. This is my dad, this is my uncle, my mom, my aunt, my grandmother, you know, we speak good words. She was a lot of fun, made a lot of tortillas, you know, she was just so good. And we'll do that, that's what we do in our funerals. You do that, I do that, that's what we do. That's what we do. We talk about them. I can remember, I can remember, I can remember and those things settle. And there are times when you come up perhaps and you'll say, this is the dad I had that you didn't know. And you might share some stories when my father went home to be with the Lord and we were out there and I was doing his funeral eulogy and all I just shared some stories about my dad, Superman, my dad was Superman and these things. And I would share about my dad and what a great man he was to me, how he taught me and this and that. You just say good words about them, right? And you always wanna say good words. You don't wanna say bad words. The very first funeral that I ever did, I did not know the man who died. I knew his daughter. The man who died was a gambler. He was an alcoholic and he was a child molester. He molested his own daughter and he died outside of forgiveness and outside of the grace of God. That was my very first funeral I ever gave. I was 27 or 28 years old and I spoke to a group of people that were gamblers and druggies and prostitutes. There were women in the little chapel there who were wearing bright red dresses, platinum bleached blonde hair with bright red lips. When I grew up, my mom used to say prostitutes are ladies in red. That was an old phrase from 30s, 40s, whatever. She said, oh, she's a lady in red and I don't know. I like the color red. But it was a term that meant she was a prostitute. And there were literally women with platinum blonde hair, bright red lips and satin, bright red dresses. I mean, I'm in the midst of a funeral of a man who molested his daughter, a man who was, you wanna find good things to say. I didn't make anything up. Somebody may be wondering, well, what did you say? I said, I didn't know this man. I didn't know him. I don't know if in the last moment he gave his heart to Christ or not. I don't know that. I wasn't there. But I believe that if he were able to share with you something that he would think you, his friends and family should hear, I think he would share with you that you need to come to faith in Jesus Christ. And I preached the gospel to them. That was the best thing I could do. But I had no good words to say about him. You know what, guys? Fact of the matter is there's still plenty of people who are dying when somebody comes up will not have a good word to say about them. I don't wanna be that man. I don't wanna be that man. I wanna be the man that people will walk up and say, this man loved Jesus Christ. That's the man I want to be so that my children don't lie making up stories about their father when in fact that was nothing like the stories that they're trying to remember. The last things that people say about you very often are important things. And as I shared recently, Demas' last words, Paul's last words concerning Demas, he has forsaken me. And so it makes me sad. It actually literally touches my heart to see this man's name included with these others. As a man who at the very end, Paul could not commend. He called him a fellow laborer, called him a brother. This is a man who visited him in prison. This is somebody that Paul would have vouched for. This is a good man. He's the guy who would walk in here and people would say, oh, there's Demas, good brother. Loves the Lord when in fact he didn't. And so there's a reminder here, guys. Even in his name being mentioned among a list of faithful men, may I not be like Demas. May I not live a life that is known for a certain thing until the very end and the last thing people say about me is he forsook the Lord. And so that's what Paul, once again, he reminds me just by looking at Mark and Aristarchus and Luke, fellow laborers, but in that midst is a man named Demas. May we not be a Demas. And then finally, he says, the grace verse 25 of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, amen. Philemon, you were saved. You were a debtor, but God forgave you of all of your sin. And you had a man by the name of Anesimus who was unprofitable, probably stole from you, ran away from you. But I want you to remember, I want you to know that he came and saw me in Rome, basically taking your place as he cared for me. He's my son in the faith. I brought him to faith in Jesus Christ and the one who was unprofitable has now become profitable. I'm sending him back to you and I'm asking you receive him, forgive him. He is profitable now, his life has been changed. And by the way, forgiveness is of the Lord because God forgave you, forgive Anesimus and may God's grace give you the ability to do that. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, amen. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, which includes forgiving the ones who have hurt me. And so, Philemon, forgive him because in doing so, two people are set free. Anesimus and you. And don't forget, you were forgiven. Don't think of yourself as some high-grade sinner. You were just a sinner, like everybody else in need of a savior and Jesus loved you. This man went through your neighborhood. He took you out of the trash. He made you brand new. He did the same for Anesimus, receive him, after all, the church meets in your home. You need to show hospitality to a brother and the Lord. What a good lesson for the church to learn to love one another by the grace of God.