The Gospel Transforms Lives — Part Three

The following message by Aleister Beg is made available by Truth for Life. For more information, visit us online at truthforlife.org. All right, verse 8 of Phileiman. We return to Phileiman. He set the scene and now he says, "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 appealed to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me. I'm 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 preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion, but of your own free will.

For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever. No longer as a slave, but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, especially to me. But how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord?

Well, I think again, and just as I hear my own voice reading it, I we we realize again just that the tone really matters, doesn't it? tone. Um, not just in musical terms, but the tone um that you know when you when you study homalytics, when they teach you homoytics, they teach you about uh pace, whether you're moving too fast or you're dragging.

Uh they teach you about volume, whether you're loud or whether you drop your voice. Uh they teach you about pitch, whether you're high with a voice or low with a voice. And all those things are important, but you know what the real issue is? Tone. Tone. What is the tone?

Does it Does the tone come from the pullpit like this guy thinks he really knows everything and so he's going to let us know. [clears throat] Or is it like I'm not sure he's sure about anything at all. I don't I don't know what he's doing up there. Tone really matters.

And when you write a letter, tone matters. What's the tone? Well, what's the tone here? It's humble. It's gracious. It's endearing. And it's actually difficult to resist. If you look at a text, you see it's a request. It's not a demand. It's made only on the basis of love, not on the basis of rank or authority.

It's heartfelt. He says, "This is in my heart. I'm going to send it back. He's very dear to me. It's selfless. I'd actually like to keep him." It recognizes God's providence in the circumstances that have put them together. Spurgeon used to tell his students, he taught them many things, but he told them on frequent occasions that more flies are caught by a jar of honey than by a pot of vinegar.

It's such a simple thought. And yet when you think about that in relationship to being a school teacher or being a medic or whatever it might be, anything that deals with people unusually in times of challenge or difficulty or vulnerability or whatever it might be, it's uh it's it's vital that we um learn from Jesus in this regard.

He is the good shepherd. He's the shepherd who gives his life for the sheep. He leads the sheep. He doesn't drive the sheep. People ask me now at this point in my life, if you started again, what would you do differently? There are many things I would try and do differently.

And one would be to try and learn sooner than I did that you don't move people forward by being horribly horty or as you say hortatory. I think um it's like come on, come on, come on. You know, you can't listen to that for very long. You go out the building you like.

Why does he keep saying that to us? And they suddenly realized, no, the people need to understand the indicatives before we move to the imperatives. We need to understand who we are in Jesus and what we are and what he has done for us before we then move on to all the imperative action.

And you can see that Paul is absolutely super here. He's he's he's far more friendly than he is forceful. And uh I guess uh you know old habits die hard. Um my son who was part of things just last Sunday night is also the person who was in the backseat of the car when after I had been uh giving very straightforward directions to everybody else on the road uh while I was driving the car explaining to everybody hey move it over there get stop move go you know that kind of stuff and afterward there was a there was a silence and then the voice from the seat said and that's another kind word from your pastor.

[laughter] Did it Did Did I just say something about tone? Well, verse eight, I think if you just look at it, it makes very clear that uh the apostle's tone is exactly that intreaty. He entreats him [clears throat] uh rather than demands of him or commands him. And in giving up his right to command, he actually advances the ball up the field to obtain what he desires.

It's important, I think, we recognize, too, that this is a letter. There's nothing here that is mechanical or manipulative. Phileiman, who we saw uh yesterday, is the beloved brother. He is Agapos. He's full of agape love. And so it only makes sense that the appeal that Paul makes is on the basis of love.

If you are the agapy man, I'm [clears throat] going to appeal to you not on the basis of duty. Duty is okay, but that's not his appeal. He he says, "After all, you should realize by now that I'm an old man. Uh I guess as old as he feels." And once again, he acknowledges that he is a prisoner for the sake of Christ.

And once again, as we said, and I I don't apologize for reinforcing this, he remains truthful and he remains tactful. Tactful. And having done all of that, now in verse 10, he finally comes to what he's on about. Now, all of the beginning of this is not like a bad history essay on the part of myself when I went to school because you don't really know the answer to the question.

So, you try and pad it with as much information as you could possibly find in the hope that the teacher will miss it. How they ever would, I don't know. But anyway, so this is not a lot of foofu stuff here for the first night. Now, this is this guy was trained as a lawyer.

Don't forget he knows exactly what he's doing. And so now he says, "I appeal to you for my child Onesimus." Now think about this. We know this because we've read it a couple of times. if this was read from a scroll and is he goes through this and and um an old man I'm a prisoner and so on and and and and Phileiman's going yeah and I appeal to you for my you mean the guy that ripped me off and ran off.

Yeah, I guess he's on about Anessimus. I appealed to you from my child Anessimus whose father I became in my imprisonment. Peterson does a wonderful job in this. He says, I I have become a father though I've been under lock and key and the child's name is Onesimus.

And this by the power of God changing his heart. It's always the power of God that changes the heart. We don't know the backstory to this in Onesimus's case anymore than we do in relationship to Phileiman. But he says what you need to know is that this Onesimus who was formerly useless to you, he is actually now useful to you and to me.

In other words, the Onesimus that I'm writing to you about just now and I'm going to send back to you is not the same old Onesimus. He's a new Inesimus. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Therefore, he is a new Anesimus. Incidentally, in that first song, there was a typo in there, I think.

And we sang one in himself. It's one with himself, right? Okay. Cuz I thought maybe you're starting to change the words and then we're going to have a conversation. You're going to have you're you're going to have to go see Joe. Okay, that's that's very important because one with himself, I cannot die.

Why? Because if I am placed in Christ in his death, I am placed with Christ in his resurrection. Therefore, it is an ontological impossibility for me to die, to be separated from God in eternity because it is one with himself. I cannot die. Sorry. Anyway, that's just I just saw that because I looked at my notes.

If any man be in Christ, uh, he is a new creation. Therefore, Inesimus is a new person. I know he's been pretty useless to you. He says, but you're going to find that he is useful. It's a play on words. If you know your Bible, you know that this is uh this is an irony because the name Onesimus actually means useful.

So, Mr. useful was blooming useless until he became a newimus and became peculiarly useful. Is it ought to be an encouragement to us because some of us have asked questions and I had a number of questions uh along the lines of well what about the kids that don't believe and so on.

These are big questions and there are big issues for prayer. But let's remind ourselves of this that Christianity knows nothing of hopeless causes. There are no hopeless causes as long as Jesus is a resurrected Lord. As long as we have life and breath and as long as we can pray and as long as we can influence and so on.

People would have said Anessimus is a is a useless character. Why they called him Anessimus? He's he's pathetic. I mean we haven't seen him in ages. What a radical change that came about not only in the life of Anesimus but in the life of Paul. Because think about this, here is the one-time heir of Jewish exclusiveness describing a gentile slave who has become a follower of Jesus.

It's fantastic. And he says, "He is my very heart. I'm sending him back to you. Sending my very heart. If you should leave me now, you'll take away the very heart of me. Oh, oh, baby, please don't go. Please don't go." It's the tone. Actually, the word that is used here is is a is a graphic word.

In fact, those of you who were brought up in the King James version know this word because it gives you it's the word that was translated in the King James bowels. Bowels. I always thought that was funny when I was a kid. I liked it when they read it because I could laugh about it.

But the fact is it's like if you get airport stomach, if you get anxious or something, it goes right to your gut. And what he's saying here is when I think about what has happened in the life of Anesimus, when I think about what God has done in him and is doing through him, and when I think about sending him back to you, I'm not trying to get rid of him because I would like to have kept him if I could.

I'm sending him back. He is my very heart. I wonder if Paul in thinking about this and in urging this response on Phileiman doesn't flash back to his own conversion experience when he goes to seek to join the disciples and they're afraid to have him and it's Barnabas that plays the role of bridging that gap and now Paul is playing the Barnabas role in some ways in returning Anessimus.

You see, the real the real test in all of this is if Onesimus is as useful as Paul says, then it makes sense that he would keep him if he could. And that's exactly what he affirms. 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.

If if Anesimus had stayed with Paul, then he could have done what Philemmon would have done, [clears throat] that is have looked after Paul for the gospel's sake. And then verse 14, but I prefer to do nothing without your consent, in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion, but of your own free will.

God loves a cheerful giver. And Paul desires that Phileiman should know that joy. The joy that is found in doing what ought to be done, not grudgingly, but freely and happily. For he says, think about it. This perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while.

Do you like that? Perhaps. I like it. I like it a lot. I think if I was the apostle, I wouldn't say perhaps. I would say and I know that this is why he was parted from you. But Paul doesn't say that because he doesn't know. [clears throat] He says, "Perhaps."

You see, the providences of God are seldom self- interpreting. I get a funny feeling up my spine when people come and tell me all the things they know as this is what has happened and this is why it is going to happen and this is how it is going to happen.

I said where do you find all these things? How do you find these things? [laughter] You think about it when for example Mori says to Esther who knows who knows he says but perhaps for perhaps you have perhaps it is that you have not come to the kingdom but for such a time as this.

Who knows? God knows. Morai doesn't know. He's going to find out. And so is Esther. So it's a wonderful thing. The providence of God because most of our understanding of the providence of God is not looking through the front of the car. It's looking through the rear view mirror.

You go through it and you say, "I don't see how this works. Why has this happened now? Why has this happened to me? What is this supposed to do?" All those other things. So learn here. live with your perhapses for perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a while.

From a human perspective, we would probably say that if Onesimus had a shot at becoming a Christian, surely the perfect place was in the home of Phileiman, who had become a Christian and who had apparently a Christian wife and a boy who was too young to march with the infantry. infantry and Onesimus is there in such a loving spot.

I mean, we'd be inclined to say, "Well, this we should just pray. Pray for Anessimus. He's a slave in the in the house of Phileiman, and these are good Christian people, and it's a wonderful opportunity for them to witness to him, and perhaps he'll become a Christian there."

Well, that's all perhaps. And perhaps, but guess what? That wasn't to be. And he ran away. And then we would say when we had the prayer meeting, oh what a shame. Anessimus ran away and we prayed and remember last Tuesday we prayed specifically for Anesimus. Yes. Are you stopping now because it didn't work out the way you thought was perfect?

How about it goes this way? Who who knows what's going to happen to him when he goes running off down the street taking all that stuff with him? Well, he didn't know either. He ran away from his master and was swallowed up in the arms of the master.

He ran away and found himself caught up in the providence of God in the experience of a transformed life. This this of course is just quite amazing, isn't it? that that uh that the the ways of God are past finding out. That that uh judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace.

Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. I have a great quote from Calvin somewhere. I don't I can't find it. It's such a good quote and I can't see it. I've just found it. There we have it. Think think thinking along these thinking along these lines about things going against us.

He says if we are angry over offenses committed by men, our anger should be soothed when we see that things done in malice have been made to serve a different end by the purposes of God. You think of Joseph's brothers, same stuff. You think of Anessimus here. This is a big one for Phileiman.

He didn't he didn't he couldn't read Calvin's institute so he wasn't helped by this. But Calvin got it from the Bible anyway. Your response Phileiman should be served by recognizing that God knows exactly what he's doing. I I'm fascinated, as I say, to find out how these things worked.

I mean, how did how did Anessimus come into contact with Paul? I don't know. Was he was he a Did he work in the jail? Was he Was he a server? Did he bring him his meals? Was he They took out the garbage? Was he a cleaner? I don't know.

We'll have to wait to heaven to find out that. [clears throat] But we might be encouraged by God's providential overruling of all the things that seem from a human perspective to be apparently inconsequential when they're not. that God in his providence without interfering with the free will of Anesimus used the charge of the runaway slave to bring that fellow to faith in Jesus.

Not the way that we would have imagined it or planned it. And when you think about your life, which we do from time to time, we realize that um again the hymnwriter helps us when all thy mercies, oh my God, my rising soul surveys, transported with a view, I'm lost in wonder, love, and praise unnumbered. comforts to my soul.

Thy tender care bestowed before my infant heart conceived from whom those comforts flowed. You think about Anessimus singing this and Paul [clears throat] when in the slippery paths of youth with heedless steps I ran your hand unseen conveyed me safe and brought me up to man. That's the story for all of us with little tweaks and twists and different parts.

But it is that that God in his loving kindness sweeps into the unfolding drama of redemption all these different parts. So much so that even the hours of this day and the privileges of these days are planned from eternity with a view to [clears throat] eternity. It's great. Well, I shall stop.

Let's pray. God, you're so great and wonderful, high and mighty, so vast in your wisdom, so kind. And uh we thank you that you know every one of us tonight, you made us. We all got a different DNA, all got a different story. And Lord, we thank you that in the mystery of your eternal counsel, you've seen fit to bring us together for these couple of days.

And we do want sincerely to hear your voice from your word so that we might come in childlike trust to believe you, to accept you, to rest unreservedly in what you've done on behalf of sinners. And so we thank you for the time and we commit the night to you and we commit our loved ones to you in Christ's name.

Amen. >> This message was brought to you from Truth for Life where the learning is for living. To learn more about Truth for Life with Aleair Beg, visit us online at truthforlife.org.