 Throughout my life I have increasingly found that reading scripture in public isn't just about feeding our own spirits and minds, it's about rehearsing the mighty acts of God for God's glory. So let's think together about Philemon verse 6. And first let's have some tea. My prayer is this, that the partnership which goes with your faith may have its powerful effect in realising every good thing that is at work in us to lead us into the king. That's a puzzling verse. In fact it's so puzzling that most translations can't bear to put it as literally as the translation that I've just read does because Paul has here condensed his whole longing and desire for Philemon, his friend who lives in Colossae, and for Onesimus the former slave of Philemon who has run away from his master, dangerous thing to do in the ancient world, and has landed up with Paul in prison in Ephesus. Paul is sending him back and he's sending him back with this letter to Philemon. And verse 6 which I just read highlights what Paul is really wanting. It's the prayer which he is praying. First that the partnership which goes with your faith may have its powerful effect. The Greek word for partnership is koinonia, fellowship, but also business association. Koinonia is what Paul and Philemon have going for them together. They've worked together. They belong to one another. They're part of the same enterprise, the gospel enterprise. But Paul says that the koinonia which you and I share is the koinonia which we also share with every brother and sister in Christ, not least this young man Onesimus for whom Paul is appealing to Philemon, his owner and master. So Paul is saying, I want the koinonia, this partnership to be powerfully at work. It's a kind of a dynamic thing. It's like sowing a seed and it's going to bear fruit and Philemon, I want it to bear fruit in your life. And then he says, it's going to bear fruit, I pray, in realizing every good thing that is at work in us. That's the literal meaning of what he says. So God, by giving us this koinonia, this sharing in the Messiah's life together, is transforming us, is at work in us. And the word Paul uses is an energetic word. It's a powerful transformation. As many people find when they come to faith, they are surprised at the new desires, the new longings and perhaps the fading of some old ones as well. God's word, God's koinonia is at work in us. But then perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the verse is at the end when he says to lead us into the King, into Christ, into Christ. Most translations therefore say something about that we have in Christ. But he's quite clear, Paul doesn't say into Christ when he means in Christ. So what's going on? I think we can get help here if we look at Ephesians 4 verses 1 to 16, where Paul talks about the rich diversity of the people of God all however through the single gift of God's spirit that God gives to some this ministry, to others that activity and so on. But then he says the whole point of it is that we may become one mature human being, one body in Christ, that we may not be scattered to and fro doing our own thing in every possible direction, but that together you may grow up into him who is the head, namely Christ. I think Ephesians 4 was written around the same time as Philemon because I think Paul is writing Ephesians as a circular from prison in Ephesus, just like he's writing this letter, from prison to one specific person. And the point is that leading us into Christ or into the Messiah, into the King, Paul has this vision of Christ, not just as the individual person Jesus, but as the incorporative Christos, the one who sums up his people in himself, the one in whom Philemon the slave owner, Onesimus the slave, Paul the apostle writing this letter, are all part of the same body. So Paul's prayer is that the fellowship which goes with your faith may have its powerful effect in you Philemon and we can pray this for us too, leading us into the realisation that is both the knowledge and the putting into practice of every good thing, every gift which God has given us which is not for our own selfish pursuit to take us off on our own journeys somewhere, but rather to be used to build up the whole body as a single community because the unity of that very unlikely family, neither dune or Greek slave nor freem no male and female, as he said in Galatians 3, that unity is one of the key tell-tale signs to the world that Jesus is Lord. So may God give you grace in your fellowships to come together in whatever unlikely combinations Jesus calls you so that we may demonstrate to the world that there is a new way of being human and it is the way which looks like Jesus the Messiah. Amen.