Philemon 6 copy

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Evangelism For Our Sanctification Philemon 4-6 Pastor Duane Smets August 19th, 2018 I. Knowing Christ II. Sharing Christ

Once again its a beautiful day in The Resolved neighborhood this morning. It’s good to be with you, neighbors. If this is the first Sunday you’ve tuned in for our August summer series, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor”, welcome! We’re so glad you’re here. Your presence and your person is significant and important to God and to us. If this is one of your first times here, my name is Duane. I’m the preaching pastor here and I’d love to meet you. What we’re doing with this series based on the longest running TV show of all time, “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood” is looking at the mission of Mr. Rogers’ life, to connect with others, through the lens of the mission of God, which really is the exact same thing and where I believe Mr. Rogers ultimately got his passion from. God’s heart and desire are to connect with people, for people to come to know Him and all of His goodness. One scholar, Christopher Wright, wrote this huge ole book on this subject simply titled, “The Mission of God.” His argument is that when we talk about mission we usually think of something that we are supposed to do without recognizing that it is something God does, that He simply invites us to do with Him. So he says, “The writings that now comprise our Bible are themselves the product of and witness to the ultimate mission of God. The Bible renders to us the story of God’s mission through God’s people in their engagement with God’s world for the sake of the whole of God’s creation. The Bible is the drama of this God of purpose engaged in mission.” So what we’ve been doing for this series is taking a key Christian doctrine each week and seeing how we don’t really understand it right or live it out well unless we see how it is connected to God’s mission of bringing people to Himself and into His love. The first week we did the doctrine of election, meaning this was God’s plan all along since before He even created the world. Then last week we did the doctrine of

regeneration, looking into the point in time when the mission connects and a person first comes to know and experience God and His love. This week, we’re doing sanctification. A word which has a lot of aspects to it but can be summarized in a very simple way as “spiritual growth.” My thesis for this week is that sanctification, spiritual growth happens through showing and sharing with others the goodness of God’s love in Jesus. Mr. Rogers’ understood it this way, he said, “When I was ordained, it was for a special ministry, that of serving children and families through television. I consider that what I do through "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" is my ministry. And I think we all can minister to others in this world by being compassionate and caring. I hope you will feel good enough about yourselves that you will want to minister to others, and that you will find your own unique ways to do that.” Showing and sharing the goodness of God with others. We’ll look at a number of verses in the Bible together on this, but our main text for today is from the Philemon, verses 4-6. In honor of the Bible being a special book given from God to us through special people, let’s stand as we read this, thank God for it and pray.

Philemon 4-6 “I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of 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. “ Evangelism For Our Sanctification. This fancy Christian word, “evangelism”, we have learned is sharing the goodness of God’s love in Jesus with others. This week we’re learning about this other fancy Christian word and how it works, “sanctification.” Each week in this series I’m just doing two sermon points, one that’s doctrinal, doing some heavy theological lifting and one that’s practical, just telling some stories and exploring what that doctrine looks like when it’s lived out in real life. So my two sermon points for today are, “Knowing Christ” and “Sharing Christ.”

I. Knowing Christ With this first point, I want to start by digging into this word “sanctification” and then we’ll look at how our passage in Philemon explains it.

A literal definition of the word sanctification is to be set apart by God wherein throughout the course of a person’s life God purifies them or makes them holy by shining His grace upon them. It has to do with what a person’s life looks like, who is following God. 1 Thessalonians 4:1,3 says it this way, “You received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more…For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” So sanctification has to do with a life of walking with God. But how are we to understand it? One way, one of the best ways is to think about the sun. Every time the church in the Old Testament gathered together, that’s God’s people before Jesus came, when they gathered for church at the end the pastor would send them out saying, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” Numbers 6:24-26 It’s for this reason that thinking about light, heat, and warmth, like from the sun has often been using as a good analogy for understanding sanctification. We’ve been having some good sun here in San Diego lately right. Well, we do for most of the year. The sun feels good on our skin. You not only get tan but you get vitamin d. Vitamin d is a vitamin that is present in very few foods and which promotes calcium absorption in the body, modulation of cell growth and has an emotional effect of making a person feel good. Life is meant to be about experiencing the goodness of God and when we experience the goodness of God it’s kind of like experiencing the sun shine upon us. It’s good for us, for our bodies and it makes us feel good. Now when Jesus came to earth something significant happened. The story of the Bible is one which says in Jesus God took on human flesh. He cared about connecting with human beings so much that He became a human to connect with Him. Mr. Rogers would always squat down when he talked to children, coming down to their level. And this is what God did in Jesus. He squatted down, coming down to our level so that we could come to Him as children to a good and loving Father.

In light of this one of the ways the New Testament explains it, which all the stuff God had written for the Bible after the Lord Jesus came, is this way, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” - 2 Corinthians 3:18 So when we look at Jesus, we behold the glory or the light of God and it transforms us or changes us. Not all at once but in degrees. Step by step throughout our life as we keep looking to and beholding Jesus. Michael Reeves in his book “Delighting In The Trinity” says this, “The sun does not only enrich the earth with all good things…but gladdens and refreshes all with shedding immediately its own wings of light and warmth, which is so pleasant to behold and enjoy. And thus does God, and Christ the sun of righteousness. The very beholding of Christ is a transforming sight. The Spirit that makes us new creatures, and stirs us up to behold this servant, it is a transforming beholding…a person cannot look at the love of God and of Christ in the gospel and not be changed.” I brought a lot of books today, some of the big heavy books, heavy lifting. So when you’re studying the Bible there are basically four different things you study. You take a passage and you study the words themselves, what the original words that were originally written in either Greek or Hebrew are. Then you study the background, the history and culture of the time the given words were written in. Then you can study commentaries, which is what guys who have done a lot of that have to say in their expert or scholarly opinion on that passage. But then there’s a four thing you can study and it’s called, “systematic theology.” And that’s where you take a given topic and study every passage in the Bible that talks about it in order to have a full understanding of God’s thoughts on it. So I brought a couple systematic theologies with me today. I’ve got thirteen of them in my library, though there a lot more of them out there than that. I read what most of them said on sanctification this week. I’ll just read what two of them said for you. First from Wayne Grudem’s “Systematic Theology”, “Sanctification is a process that continues throughout our Christian lives. This is the primary sense in which sanctification is used in systematic theology and general conversation today. The task is for Christians to grow more and more in sanctification, just as they previously grew more and more in sin. We are progressively becoming more and more like Christ in the Christian life, which

involves increasing in our likeness to God in our thoughts as well as our words and deeds. Much of the New Testament is taken up with instructing believers in various churches on how they should grow in likeness to Christ.” Are you starting to get a sense of what this sanctification is? Louis Berkoff’s “Systematic Theology” is another one of my favorites. He explains it in connection with what we talked about last week with regeneration. “Sanctification is distinguished from regeneration as growth from birth, or as the strengthening of a holy disposition from the original impartation of it. Sanctification is the whole, but yet an undeveloped new person, that must grow into full stature. A new-born child is perfect in parts, but not yet in the degree of development for which it is intended.” So…all of that, all of those books and quotes and explanation to say, sanctification is spiritual growth, which comes through knowing Jesus Christ more and more. Which finally brings us to our Philemon passage. All of that was kind of set up, for something unique Philemon verse 6 says. So let’s look at it again. Philemon 6, “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.” Well, come back to the first part of it in our next point. For now, look at those lines that talk about the process of coming to “…the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.” Okay. We’re doing some heavy lifting, some heavy thinking today I know. We’ll get real practical real soon. But just for a minute think hard with me about something. If God is good and God is infinite, which are two of the things make Him God, or are what the definition of God is, and if Jesus is God that means there is an infinite or unending amount of His goodness to experience. Do you follow me? The full knowledge of every good thing we have or that is given to us to experience in Christ, is never ending or never exhaustible. And I believe this is a key point for us. No one wants to be miserable in life. Everyone wants to be happy and wants to experience what is good. The Bible’s claim is that God is good and He gives His goodness to us in Christ. And because Jesus is so good, infinitely good, it’s a gift that keeps on giving because there is always more and more to know and experience.

As we look to Christ, as we behold Him, we are changed by Him and we begin to experience more and more His love, joy, and peace in our lives. 1 Corinthians 2:9 in the Bible says it this way, “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.” Ephesians 3:17-19 says it another way, “May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Listen, if you’ve thought you kind of know everything about Christianity or you kind of get and know what this whole God thing is about, you don’t. There’s more. If you’ve thought this whole Jesus thing is kind of boring or doesn’t work, then you’re missing something because there is more, there is an unending depth and breadth of God’s love. There’s always more of His love to experience. Life has a way of bringing up difficult and challenging things in our lives and every time what that is about is an opportunity to look to Jesus, grow in Him and through that experience more of His goodness. Knowing Christ is the best thing we can pursue in our lives because there is always more of Him to know and it’s all good. I think a lot of people, a lot of Christians are missing out on a lot. I think a lot of Christians walk around with a dark cloud over their heads beating themselves up about things. Sometimes its fear, being fearful of whether God loves them or is for them. Sometimes it’s guilt, replaying past sins and feeling so bad about it. And sometimes it’s shame, thinking you’re not worth it or valuable to God. What all of that boils down to is missing out on the love, joy, and peace that Jesus offers to all who look to Him and His goodness. The Christian life is not meant to be a life of beating ourselves up about sin, it’s about enjoying every good thing we have in Christ. That’s what sanctification is. I started out this point by saying that sanctification is about how we live our lives with God. Then I said it’s like experiencing the sun and that in looking at Jesus God’s light shines upon us. Now I’m ending this point saying when we look to Him and He shines us, it’s good and we can never exhaust that love and goodness, there’s always more to know and experience. So I have a question. If you’re a Christian, what kind of Christian life are you living? What’s your sanctification like? Is it this dark struggle of beating yourself up? Or is it a life of joy,

experiencing the love of Christ at you look to Him and have Him shine His light upon you? And if you’re not yet a Christian, doesn’t that sound good? Isn’t that the life you really long for and want? My prayer is the prayer Paul records in Philemon, that we as a church would be a people who are pursuing the knowledge of every good thing we have in Christ. Well, let’s move on now to some more practical things and talk about sharing Christ.

II. Sharing Christ We’ve kind of gone about this backward today but that’s been intentional. I hope that now we’ve got a good understanding of what sanctification is as spiritual growth, now let’s talk about how it works. To do that, first I want to explain the story of Philemon. It’s actually the third shortest book in the Bible. It’s only one page! You can go home and read it and say, “I read a whole book of the Bible!” The book of Philemon, is actually a letter written by a church planter named Paul to a man named Philemon and what happened with him and this guy named Onesimus was so huge and important that the Church believed it was important to be included in the Bible for all time for all Christians to hear about it and grow from it. So if you do go home and read the letter you’ll be able to figure out the story. Here’s what happened. Onesimus worked for Philemon as his slave. Now slavery in Bible times wasn’t like the evil thing that happened in the US with the slavery of African Americans. “Slaves in the ancient world were found in all professions and generally had more opportunity for social advancement than free peasants. They were able to work for and achieve freedom, and some freed slaves became independently wealthy. They were better off than most free persons in the Roman Empire (c.f. Craig Keener in IVP Bible Background Commentary).” So Onesimus was Philemon’s slave and what verse 15 of Philemon explains is that Onesimus ran away and verse 18 says he stole some of Philemon’s money. Somehow when he ran away, he traveled Colosse where Philemon’s house was to either Ephesus or Rome, probably Rome, where he ended up coming to know Paul, who was in prison there. We don’t know if he ended up in prison too or just heard about Paul who was being allowed to teach about Jesus from the prison and have visitors. Either way, what verse 10

says is that Onesimus became a Christian through Paul’s teaching, entering into the faith of the Christian family. The reason Paul writes the letter to Philemon is to ask him to take Onesimus back, no longer a slave but as a brother in Christ and to forgive his financial debt. It’s a good story. And the way Paul first appeals to Philemon is in verses 4-6, our main verses for today. So verse 4, Paul says he thanks God for Philemon and prays for him. Verse 5 says he knows Philemon loves Jesus and all the saints. Then in verse 6, he says he prays that Philemon will share his faith, which you realize later in the book means taking Onesimus back and forgiving his debt. There are a few things to talk about here. The first is mission. This sermon is titled, “Evangelism For Our Sanctification.” So how is this text connected to evangelism? One, the whole letter is being written because Onesimus became a Christian! Every book of the Bible has this in view. The heart and goal are that people would come to know God and His love through Jesus Christ and become Christians. Two, when Paul mentions Philemon’s love for all the saints in verse 5, he doesn’t mean that Christians are only to love other Christians. The perspective of the mission of God’s love in the Bible is that it flows to His people and then through them to other people. Galatians 6:10 explains this well. “As we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” We’re to love and care for everyone and especially those who are in the family, in our household. The reason is that of what Jesus explained in John 13:34-35, “34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” When the outside world looking in sees how Christians love and care for one another that is compelling and it’s meant to be compelling. People who are not yet Christians are longing to see and to experience real love. Mr. Rogers was big on this. He said a few things about it. “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’

We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say ‘It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.” The Christian community as God’s people of love are to be the ones who shine in helping and caring, seeing needs and responding. The third way this is connected to evangelism is the challenge and opportunity it presents to our own souls. The translation we’re using today, the ESV, says in verse 6 it’s “the sharing of your faith.” That phrase can be translated a number of different ways. Some have it as the fellowship of your faith, or the community of your faith, or the generosity of your faith, or the participation of your faith, or the communication of your faith. They all kind of hit a different aspect of what we’ve been talking about the last couple of weeks, that evangelism, sharing the goodness of Jesus with others always involves works and words. Acts of good works give weight to the good words of Jesus. In Philemon’s case, the good work is taking him back which buttresses the words Philemon would speak to Onesimus about the goodness of Jesus and His love. What is sweet about this story is recognizing how hard this would have been for Philemon. Have you ever had someone steal anything from you? It’s infuriating! Last year I had someone break into my truck and steal my gym bag with shoes, boxing gloves, earphones. I don’t know why anyone wanted my sweaty and smelly gear but I was so upset. I felt like staying up all night to see if they would show up again, so I could get ‘em and call the cops on ‘em! Have you ever had someone just ghost on you? I’ve had this happen a number of times where someone I’ve been investing in and disciplining just disappears and stops returning my calls and text and apparently just doesn’t want to have anything more to do with me. I don’t get it. It hurts. It’s super upsetting. So imagine how Philemon would have felt. This would not have been easy for him. Onesimus worked for him. Just didn’t show up for work one day and stole a bunch of money. Mr. Rogers explained that it’s situations like these where we have a real opportunity to love someone. Here’s what he said, “Caring relationships require kindness and patience, tolerance, optimism, joy in the other's achievements, confidence in oneself, and the ability to give without

undue thought of gain…caring relationships will always include some measure of unkindness and impatience, intolerance, pessimism, envy, self-doubt, and disappointment.” “Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” Forgiving a person is a powerful thing. I was talking to a person this last week, who by God’s grace I was able to be instrumental in helping them come into the Christian family. This person had said and done some hurtful things not long ago but we got together afterward and we talked and I looked them in the eye with a heart full of compassion and said “I forgive you” three times. They said, at that moment they heard and saw the love of Christ. Forgiving people is one of the most powerful evangelistic tools we have to offer. Mr. Rogers said, “The only thing evil can’t stand is forgiveness.” When people experience forgiveness they are then able to see and experience the forgiveness God offers to us in Jesus. And it works the opposite way as well. Before the church could pay me as a pastor I worked a group home for foster kids. There was a girl there named Kelly I worked with and I don’t even remember what we got into an argument or disagreement about but I just remember that I was really mean and unkind to her. So I went to her later and told her I was sorry and asked for forgiveness. Through that, I ended up having the opportunity to talk to her about Jesus. Soon she started coming to church and ended up getting baptized and was such a great servant here for a number of years before she moved back to the east coast. Asking others for forgiveness is a powerful evangelistic tool as well. When people hear from Christians that they are not perfect and hear them admit faults and their own need for Jesus than others are able to see their own need for that too. Now here’s the thing in all this, our first point was all about knowing Christ, looking to Him and having the sun of His love shine down upon us. What I didn’t say is how that actually works itself out in real life. And I’m guessing the way most of you have thought of knowing Christ is as something we do on our own, in praying or talking to God or something by ourselves. But I don’t think that’s how it works most of the time. We have a tendency to think that life with God as a Christian is something we do on our own as though it’s just me and God walking down this road of life together. But that’s not

how God has designed it. Christian growth or spirituality is not meant to happen, I’d even say cannot happen in isolation. It always happens through relationship with other people. That’s what the whole book of Philemon is about and what verse 6 explains for us. Look at it again. “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.” When we share our faith. That involves another person. You don’t share your faith with yourself. That’s not evangelism. You share it with other human beings. Then when you do that it has an effect, it pours energy into our knowledge and experience of the good things in Christ. So there is this connection between evangelism and sanctification, that when we share Christ with others it helps us grow spiritually, it helps us experience more of the love and goodness of Jesus. Do you see the connection? Do you get it? Sanctification always happens through relationships. But how, how does that work? I think it works like this. Mr. Rogers said this, “A high school student wrote to ask, "What was the greatest event in history?" I suspect that like so many "great" events, it was something very simple and very quiet with little or no fanfare (such as someone forgiving someone else for a deep hurt that eventually changed the course of history). The really important "great" things are never center stage of life's dramas; they're always "in the wings". That's why it's so essential for us to be mindful of the humble and the deep rather than the flashy and the superficial.” Where do you think Rogers got that from? I think I know where. What’s the greatest even in history? The cross of Jesus Christ, where the perfect God-man gave up His life in order to forgive all those who had sinned against God, the deepest hurt of all. It wasn’t flashy or superficial, it was the most humble act the world has ever known. So here’s how I think it works. When we experience the love of Christ, His forgiveness for the deep things in our life, it changes and transforms us, moving us to have the same kind of love for others. And likewise, when we have the opportunity to extend love and forgiveness to someone else and it’s a challenge, we find the strength to do so by looking to Jesus and who He is and what He’s done for us. Does that make sense? And here’s the thing. When we do that it feels good!

It’s not easy but when we do that, we feel happy. You feel fulfilled. It’s satisfying. It’s good. There is this sense you experience when you’re like, “This is what it’s all about. This is what life and love and relationships are supposed to be like. This is the fullness and depth of knowledge that is in Christ. Here’s the thing. I think if a person isn’t sharing their faith with others, they’re simply not going to grow spiritually. They’ll be stunted. What happens and I’ve seen it over and over again is that a person grows self-righteous. They start thinking they’re the good ones and everyone else out there is bad and their heart just becomes hard to the love of God and the good things of God. But when you do share, challenging things come up that make you ask good questions that drive you back to the Bible, they challenge your heart and your own believes which drives you back into the love of Christ. I believe God has designed there to be an inseparable connection between our sanctification and us sharing the faith with other people. So in light of that, let me ask a simple question. Who are you sharing the faith with? We’ve got the “Be My Neighbor Challenge”, seven different ways we’ve given you to do that. I actually gave us two more today, to forgive someone and to ask someone to forgive you. Can you think of anyone you need to forgive and tell them so? Can you think of anyone you need to ask to for forgiveness? Do that. I bet God will do something amazing through it and you’ll walk away thinking you got to experience a new depth of the love, fullness, and goodness of Christ.

Conclusion Alright, this has been a thick one today. Thanks, everyone for sticking with me and following along today. We did some good theology and hopefully, I’m sending you away with some good practical handholds. I started out today saying it is the mission of God to connect people to Him and His love. Sanctification is merely Him allowing us to participate in that. It requires us connecting with other people. So one last Mr. Rogers’ quote for today, “If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”

The most important meeting that ever took place is when God came down to meet with us in Jesus. Jesus got up on a cross and died and then three days later rose again and then ascended into heaven, so His Spirit could come and meet with anyone anywhere throughout all time. When we meet with others, it’s so important because we have the opportunity to leave with them the mark of Jesus’ love in our lives. As Michael Reeves says in his book “Delighting In The Trinity”, “When we go out and share the knowledge of God’s great love we reflect something very profound about who God is. For when Jesus sends us, he is allowing us to share the missional, generous, outgoing shape of God’s own life.”