Focal Point

Dave Deway: Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Forgive for others sake. Just like Philemon was supposed to forgive for Paul's sake. I want us to think about forgiving for other people's sake. I just want you to know that there are people watching you in your conflicts that would be very much blessed by you forgiving. Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez opens the door to a story tucked inside one of the shortest books in the New Testament. A runaway slave, a wronged master, and an apostle caught in the middle, appealing for something nobody in that culture expected. It's the start of a new chapter in our study, Fighting for Peace.

And Pastor Mike begins right where forgiveness gets hardest, not in theory, but in the moment your grip simply won't loosen. Here's Pastor Mike with today's message, When the Price Tag is High. You may remember some time back I asked us to speculate as to why Jesus had a Judas in his inner circle. Why would he have someone that is going to just end up betraying him? I mean, he certainly could have chosen better than than that. And I asked that question. I asked us to speculate about that when we were preaching through I was preaching through Psalm 55 to think about the reality of the human experience of betrayal.

And certainly Jesus experienced that and by choice and certainly to fulfill biblical passages of prophecy in the Old Testament, but it is interesting and unique that Jesus has the experience of a close friend turning on him. As a matter of fact, he quotes one of the Psalms about betrayal. In Psalm 41 verse 9, he uses the very phrase in the upper room when he talks about the Mike Here's how the whole verse goes. My my close friend, right, who who ate bread, who ate my bread with me, right, he's lifted his heel against me. I don't know if you think through the vivid nature of lifting the heel, it's like the the donkey that picks up the the hoof and kicks.

And it's like I have this close friend who has betrayed me. Certainly probably was in this situation with Ahithophel, his counselor, and Absalom, his son. He had all this experience of betrayal that all of us have had to some degree, a friend who stabs us in the back or someone who we've trusted and put confidence in has somehow violated that confidence. And that's a difficult thing for us. It's a real sense of injustice. And part of that certainly has to be whenever we got to this level when we were back in Psalm 55, but according to Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15, Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

Now, the idea of him being tempted was very important for the redemptive process of imputing his righteousness to us, having been a victor in the midst of temptation. Adam fell, he did not. And that was an important part of him saving us. But to have the experience, and that's how that verse begins in in Hebrews chapter 4, the idea of him being able to sympathize with our weakness. We know that Jesus knew what it was like to trust someone, so much so that Judas was the one who held the money bag. He was the treasurer of the group, and he was stealing, he was embezzling, he was ultimately turning Jesus in to put a few more gold coins in his pocket.

All of us know the sense of betrayal, whether it 's large or small. And it's something we've been studying in the book of Philemon because you'll have to agree that if you are a a state owner like Philemon who had a big enough house for the whole church in Colossae to meet in, he had this slave, a Greco-Roman slave, as I've tried to distinguish, is different than American historical ethnic slavery, but in Greco-Roman slavery, whether it was skilled labor or unskilled labor, there were people that indentured themselves to someone who was rich to take care of them and then to in exchange give service of their life to them.

And that arrangement was one of trust. They they are stewards. And as a steward, you know that Onesimus, this runaway slave that we've gotten familiar with in the book of Philemon, had this position of trust in the estate of Philemon. And he decided to leave, probably stealing as he left, not to mention his own work that was stolen as he ran away to Rome as many of the slaves often did, kind of the Las Vegas of the ancient world. And he goes into Rome to get lost in the crowd and to do whatever he's going to do, but he runs into the apostle Paul.

And by God's providence, here is Onesimus being won to Christ. And when he finds out that he's a runaway slave from Colossae, that certainly perked Paul's, you know, ears. And now he's saying, well, I I used to work for Philemon. And he's going, I know Philemon. Matter of fact, I led Philemon to Christ some time ago and the church is meeting in his house, this wealthy man from from Colossae. And so now all of a sudden, as we said early on when we introduced this book, he has to now make this right. And he's got a weird situation on his hand.

He's got a fugitive slave that is there as a Christian and he's going to send him back. So he writes a letter to the Colossian church and he writes another small letter that we know of as Philemon that he sends with his messenger to Colossian to the Colossians and Onesimus himself to go back and to seek reconciliation with Philemon. So Paul writes this letter. We've been studying it. But I want you to know what a series of events would lead to Philemon rightly being indignant about the injustice of him leaving and stealing from him. And this was I mean, he had this as I like to say, he he had the key ring to the the estate and money and probably was dispensing money.

Who knows what his role was, but it was one of trust and that trust was violated. And Paul's going to tell him to make it right. So we study this text knowing something of that, whether it's large or small and whether it's happening now to you or it's going to happen in the future or you look in the past and you've been through it. There's so much for us to learn about forgiveness, which has been our theme through this little book. I want to look at the last section of it today to find out how we're supposed to do this.

Forgiveness, by the way, as you turn to the book of Philemon versus 17 through 25, I want to remind you there are two words, two primary words that translate from the Greek New Testament into our English word forgive. One is a pheme, and I I often talk about that because it 's a great a great word of letting go. The injustice of forgiveness is what we feel when we think I don't want to forgive. I don't want to let it go because I need this to be I need this to have a just and and equitable ending.

I I don't want this to be left uncorrected. And if you think about the apostle Paul to the Corinthians, he writes them in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and he says, you know, these suits and disputes that you have against each other, you're going to small claims court here in Corinth before non-Christians. He said, this is a defeat already that you guys can't settle this among yourselves. You should be able to. And he says, as a matter of fact, why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? And I think to myself, I'm going to raise my hand and say, I know why because it didn't feel right, right?

I don't want to be defrauded and I don't I don't want to be wronged. I need it to make it right. And that why they went to court. And Paul goes, it'd be better for you not even to go to court. You're going to have to drop it. And a pheme is that Greek word that gives us a sense of letting it go. As my old pastor used to say, it's the palms down letting it go. But the problem is the feeling of injustice makes us just reflexively want to grasp and clasp on to this injustice.

It's like those of you that are the do-it-yourselfer weekend electricians who have no business putting in an electrical outlet, but you try anyway as I have done or putting up a ceiling fan or whatever it is and maybe you have turned off the wrong breaker in the panel or you are so manly you don't even turn off breakers. And you have the experience that that all of us you know, DYI people have and that is you you you touch the wrong wire with your metal needle-nose pliers and you have 110 volts running through your body.

And there's one thing you don't want to do when you're being jolted by the electricity in the current of your house. You don't want to let go. You want to let go, but you can't let go because there's one thing about being shocked. Your your muscles all clinch up and you hang on. Here's the problem. Injustice feels like that. I have to hang on to it. That's why you go and buy popcorn and and and and a soda and you sit there and you watch a movie and you want the bad guys to get it and then you want it all to be resolved, the good guys to walk away from the explosion in the background as the bad guys get what's coming to them.

And you think, well, that's how I feel. It has to be resolved. We don't like letting it go. We don't want to be defrauded. And that feeling is part of us being made in the image of God, and I get it. But Paul is saying that the the exercise of forgiveness is is a pheme. It 's letting it go. It's dropping the matter. That's hard hard to do. But there's another Greek word. The second Greek word that is translating into the English word forgive in the New Testament. There are a few others, but mostly it's one of two words.

And the other word is And if you've been around church very long or you've studied the Greek New Testament vocabulary, you might hear the word in the front of that. And that 's the word for grace. And is offering favor, offering grace. It's more than just dropping it. It's the hard hard task now of reaching out my hands to give you my favor. So if you want to symbolize this, the the natural reflex, right, is to stay clinched with the wrong and it's certainly not to hold out my hands with some kind of favor to accept and embrace and reconcile with you.

But that is the image. And I just want to tell you at the outset, this is very very hard to do. And I know we need Philemon to work harder to make sure that we do this by the grace of God. And this whole book starts with grace to you and ends with you need God's grace. May may God's grace allow you his favor that he extends to us, allow us to drop the matter and extend grace to others because here's the problem. Philemon is going to feel ripped off if he does what Paul says.

But Paul appeals to him in this last section. He's already told him that it's required. You have to do it. It'd be better if you are willing to do it. You have to do it. And now he appeals to him beginning in verse 17. I want to read through verse 25. And if you see our worksheet, you'll see the first point is just all about the appeal that is made here, the rhetorical, literary laying out of what is his appeal. What is he saying? Well, let's gather that as we read through it with a little bit of commentary.

I'll read from the English Standard Version, but the answers are here for us and this will help us as we look at it from three different directions. Philemon verse 17. For if you, Philemon, consider me, Paul, your partner. Now, remember how this letter started and we had that real struggle with what are we going to make of this phrase that that we're sharing together? Do you remember that whole thing? And And I said at the beginning of this letter, how do we what do we make of this? And I said the word that we're looking at at the beginning of the book of Philemon is the word koinonia.

And And if you've been around church, you know that's the word for fellowship or sharing it. And And he and and and Philemon are together in Christ fellowshipping now from a distance. He's in Rome and and Philemon's in Colossae, but he says, if you consider me your fellow fellowshipper, okay, then receive him, who's that, Onesimus, as you would receive me. Now, there's the injustice, right? If some guy's out keying my car in the parking lot and I'm approaching him with with my frustration and fleshly anger and you step in and say, hey, no, no, no, no, no, you know what, I just want you to treat him like you'd treat me and I'm your favorite parishioner here at Compass Bible Church.

I'm going to say, well, my issue isn't with you. Why don't you just stay out of this? That's what I'm going to say to you because I don't want you to butt in to my complaint with this guy. We have got a problem. He's keying my car and I'm mad at him. I've got a grievance. He's going to fix this. We got to settle the score. And And so I'm approaching him to do that and you've stepped in now and say, hey, just treat him like you treat me. No Nobody feels right about that. That doesn't doesn't work.

And he goes further. Verse 18, if he's wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge it to my account. Now, of course, he did owe. And you can take out a calculator if you're Philemon and you could figure out how much he took cuz he probably took plenty for the road. But then how many hours have I lost, right? Because he's my indentured person here working on my estate and you could calculate a number. And Paul is saying, hey, you know what, um charge it to me. And again, that is is still not quite right.

When I want to go and and in my flesh punch someone in the face for keying my car and you say, whatever it costs, I'll take care of it. I still I'm like, uh oh okay, but I'd I'd rather punch him, right? That that's kind of how the flesh works. I'd rather solve this myself. And And so this still doesn't feel quite right. Then he picks up the quill. I, Paul, write this with my own hand. And if you look up at the beginning of this book, the first verse, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother.

Timothy is probably serving as his amanuensis in this. If you're not familiar with that word, that just means you he's taking the dictation for Paul. But at this point, he picks up the quill and he says, I write this with my own hand. And in his own handwriting, it's like it's like calling in the notary public, right? He's saying, I'm showing this is from me like he does to the Galatians. Philemon knew Paul well. I mean, he'd been in his house teaching many times. And so he knew his handwriting. And as Paul tells the the Galatians, he had some visual problems, some eye problems.

And so he'd write with big letters and so they knew his handwriting. And he's saying, I just want to tell you this is what I'm telling you with my own hand. I will repay it to say nothing of you owing me even your own self. See, in other words, I've already done so much for you. I won you to Christ. You should look at me as the one who because of the human instrumentality of my evangelism, you're not going to hell. I know that you're you feel indebted to me just for the ministry I've done in your life.

And if you feel any indebtedness to me, I just want you to charge it to my account. Right? And I don't think Philemon, the rich man, is going to say, well, Paul, you owe me, you know, 315 denarii. I don't think he's going to say that. He's going to go, wow, you know, if if Paul needed 350 denarii, I'd give it to him. And so he says, just just count it against me. Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. In other words, he's saying, do me the favor.

Do it for me. Make the benefit here for me. Charge it to me. Do it for me. You owe me your life. Do me a favor here. Philemon, forgive Onesimus. Confident of your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say. Well, that's good. I mean, he's he got confidence that Philemon's going to do the right thing. And I think the reason we have this canonical letter in the corpus of New Testament writings is because in fact he did that. At the same time, prepare a guest room for me.

Remember, this is all written in the last couple of verses of the book of Acts. Acts 28 he's there for 24 months, two years under house arrest. And he says, right, I hope to get out of this. And if you know biblical New Testament history, he does get out and he goes on another trip and he does ministry. And then he gets re-imprisoned, comes back to Rome, writes his last letter, the letter of 2 Timothy. And he knows it's over then and he gets beheaded in Rome or so we think in the history of extra-biblical history of the Bible.

And so he dies as a martyr in Rome. But he says, I 'm hoping to get out and I hope them through your prayers I'll graciously be given to you. Then he closes with his buddies there in Rome. And we know about these people. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ, and maybe they had some some counts against Epaphras or maybe he's just voluntarily there in prison with him, sends greetings to you. And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. Now, we know those people. Let's just skip over Demas cuz it's not going to work out too well for him if you know your New Testament.

Luke is his traveling physician. Aristarchus we picked up on the journey across the Mediterranean during the whole shipwreck and all of that. And John Mark we know about from chapter 15 and all that went on there. And then he ends with what what he started with when he said grace to you in verse 3, he says now, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit cuz you're going to need it. If you're going to really forgive your spirit, your heart, the core of who you are is going to have to work hard to do the unnatural work of exercising the muscles of dropping something that that the sense of injustice makes you want to clasp.

And then I I want you to receive him, right? He's repented, right? He He knows he's done wrong. I'm sending him back to you and I want you to reach out and embrace him. I want you to show favor. That that koinonia means you you freely give him your favor. Okay. This whole argument, this is why the first point has next to it versus 17 through 25, is Paul, as I said, stepping in. And he's not directly involved in in the problem. And he's stepping in and saying, hey, I want to involve myself in this.

I want to let you know this would I mean, if you want to look at the core of it, it's right there in verse 20. It would be a benefit to me. It would refresh my heart if you would do this. And because it's obedience, as he says there in verse 21, right, it would be good to see Philemon be obedient because if you're a Christian, you have to obey. And we dealt with that. And he says, I think you're going to do more than just obey. You're going to do it willingly and you'll probably receive him in a gracious and magnanimous way.

It's going to be good. So all of this is about Paul getting in the middle of it all. Someone on the outside saying, I would really really appreciate it if you would forgive. Now, I just want to think about it that way. As a human being looking at someone who's got an issue with someone else and they are going to be at odds with one another and it doesn't make any sense in the world, they would just be at war. But instead of taking each other to small claims court or whatever, and certainly Onesimus wouldn't have a case as a runaway slave, but instead of you sending him to debtor's prison, right, would you forgive him and be reconciled?

I want you to think about whatever conflict you may have, whatever is difficult for you to let go, whatever it is that because of injustice you want to hang on to. And I want you cuz all of us need to a pheme the problem and that is we need to drop it. Even if they're not repentant, right, we need to know turn it over to God. We learned this from Romans 12 back in earlier in this series. We need to know that God is the one who takes revenge. So it's not about a a Hollywood movie.

This is about letting it go. And then if there is repentance, we certainly bestow, freely we bestow favor and embrace and reconcile. Okay. I want you to think about the people that are not involved in the case that would be positively benefited. Let's just start with positive benefit because of your reconciliation. Jot that down. Number one, let's just start with the whole argument. Forgive for others sake just like Philemon was supposed to forgive for Paul's sake. I want us to think about forgiving for other people's sake. And if you're a parent or you were a parent raising kids in your home, I just think you understand it's good when you care about your children if they get along.

That would be good. And if there's a grievance that they forgive one another and be reconciled. All right, there's no joy in being the parent of of of Cain and Abel. Would you agree with that? You don't you know that's not a good day. You don't like that. You want there to be harmony. You want them to be you want there to be peace. And And I will say just like Paul is a ecclesiastical authority, right? He's an apostle and he's looking at as the preacher there who's preached many times in in Colossae. He says, you know what, Philemon, I'm I'm kind of over you in the Lord.

Not kind of, I am over you in the Lord in terms of my authority, apostolic authority. And it would be good for me as a leader to see this happen in your life. I just want you to know that there are people watching you in your conflicts that would be very much blessed by you forgiving. Now, I'm going to quote a verse. You don't like it. You don't like it when I quote it. You think I'm trying to, you know, look down my long nose at you and and you know flex a little bit. I mean, this is not a flex, but let me quote this passage for you.

I'll do it as sweetly as I can. Jot it down. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 17. Hebrews 13 17, let me read it for you as you think I would read it. Obey your leaders and submit to them. But that's not how I'm reading it, but it is what it says. Obey your leaders and submit to them. Why? What's the rationale? Cuz they're keeping watch over your souls. They're trying to do the right thing as those who will have to give an account. The one of the reasons they care about how you live the Christian life is cuz they're going to have to answer for how you live your Christian life cuz their whole job is trying to disciple you and equip you and train you.

Okay? And then it says this, let them do this with joy and not with groaning. And And I can tell you there's lots of reasons a pastor might groan in his pastoral ministry. But let me be super clear. One of the things that absolutely is near the top, if not the top of the list, is you being at odds with people in the church that you will not forgive, people that you're bitter toward, people that you feel wronged by and you won't make it right. Factions, division, argument, bitterness, aversion, anger, malice, slander, gossip, all of that certainly makes pastors groan.

And I would say this. Let's just go further through the whole ministry structure. Sub-congregational staff pastors would certainly be refreshed if you could forgive. Small group leaders, right, just volunteer lay leaders would be certainly blessed and refreshed if when there's a conflict, and there always will be conflicts, that you forgive and you a pheme you let it go, you drop it. And you koinonia and you're willing to reconcile.

Dave Deway: You're listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez in a study called Fighting for Peace. Today's message is called, When the Price Tag is High. And if any part of it hit close to home, you can walk through it again anytime at focalpointradio.org or carry it with you through the free Focal Point app. Here's something we don't always connect. It's hard to forgive the way Pastor Mike just described unless you actually believe the book telling you to do it is trustworthy. If Philemon is just an old letter and grace is just an old idea, we've got no real reason to open our hands, no matter how good the illustration sounds.

Well, that's exactly the ground Pastor Mike covers in his brand new book, The Bible, A Book Like No Other. He lays out the manuscript evidence, the archaeology, and the history that has let this book survive every attempt to tear it down, written in plain language anyone can follow. When you give to Focal Point this week, we'll send this book straight to you as our thanks. And if you're able to give above your usual gift, you'll help place thousands of free copies directly into the hands of students across the country, people who'd never go looking for a resource like this on their own.

Call 888-320-5885 or go online to focalpointradio.org or mail your gift to Focal Point, Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California 92654. Every gift keeps this ministry on the air, reaching someone working through their own hard question about forgiveness or faith or where to even start. And the surest way to multiply the impact of your giving is as a Focal Point partner, a recurring gift that keeps this teaching coming every single week long after this book offer ends. Become a partner today at focalpointradio.org or call us at 888-320-5885. First time reaching out to us, we'd love to send you Pastor Mike's booklet, Fighting for Peace, at no cost.

Just get in touch at focalpointradio.org. Well, I'm Dave Deway. Join us tomorrow as Pastor Mike continues this study from Philemon Tuesday on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. You know, it's an honor to be with you every day helping you explore the depths of scripture. But I want to be clear, no amount of Bible knowledge is ever going to save you. Be sure where you stand with God. Get in touch with us. We'd love to pray with you and for you. Visit us today at focalpointradio.org. We look forward to hearing from you.

Dave Deway: Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.