Focal Point

Dave Deway: Today on Focal10 Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Trust me. A lot of people blame their personal conflicts in the church on doctrinal issues when it really's not a doctrinal issue. It's a personal issue. Your feelings got hurt. You got bent out of shape because they wronged you. Now, are there doctrinal issues that should divide us? Yes. But that's rare. We try to find a theological branch to hang the conflict on, but stop people that you come to church with. The problems with those people are issues that need to be dealt with.

Dave Deway: Every one of us has been let down by someone in the church, or we will be. Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez begins a brand new study called Fighting for Peace. It's built around the tiny book of Philemon, where the apostle Paul handles a real conflict between two Christians with remarkable grace. And by the way, if you're just finding us for the first time, say hello online at focalpointradio.org, and we'll send you a free copy of Pastor Mike's booklet that pairs with this series called Fighting for Peace. Well, now here's Pastor Mike.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Picture yourself, if you would, for a moment as a brand new Christian. You're brand new Christian, middle of your life, didn't grow up in church. Some intelligent, caring co-worker starts talking about eternal things with you. God's spirit starts to work on your heart. You start to feel the the guilt of your sin. You recognize the fact that you're uh subject to a creator that you're going to have to stand before. You you get that conviction that you deserve his just response to your sins, and you learn through these consistent conversations with your evangelistic friend that um Christ has paid the penalty fully, and you throw yourself on the mercy of God.

You cling by faith to Christ, and you just are flooded with a new feeling of relief that your sins have been forgiven, that you are a new creation in Christ. You're excited about the fact that you for the first time feel like everything's right between you and your maker. And then your evangelistic friend says, hey, you know what you need now is you got to go to church. You got to get involved in church. And so he brings you to church. Never been to church, right? You you maybe for Christmas as a kid you went, but you this is not a part of your upbringing.

And so you come for the first time, and you pull in the parking lot, and there's parking people pointing you where to park, and you get out, you start walking in, you see people with kids in tow and Bibles under their arms, all flooding to the lobby. You walk into the lobby, it's buzzing with people, people standing in line for coffee. And look the other direction, men and women thumbing through Christian books. You walk into the auditorium, you hear Christian music lightly playing in the background you never heard before, and people are greeting one another joyfully and lovingly.

And and you just think this is amazing. You think this is crazy. It's amazing. All these people that are are just like me forgiven, they they love each other, they love God. I just you feel like you're now in a in a new family. It's just almost euphoric. You sense that this has been going on your your whole life, and you knew nothing about it, and now you're here. And that would be a a great feeling, but it's the skeptic in the back row who watches you wide-eyed and so optimistic that says yeah.

Guest (Male): Right.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Just give it some time, right? All this new Christian needs is a year, maybe two, at the most five, and they'll realize just uh just what a mess this church really is, how the people are not always as nice as they seem. They'll stab you in the back, and there's going to be problems, and you're going to get your feelings hurt, and you're going to have uh issues with people that make you angry. There's a lot of uh passive-aggressive behavior in the church, and some of it not so passive. And you've got people that are leaving upset and groups that are splitting and all kinds of problems between these people.

Now, that'd be a sad thing for a uh a new convert to hear from some curmudgeon in the back row, but I'd have to say his prediction is um is probably true. There are going to be problems, and they're going to be people that don't like each other. I mean, we are after all a bunch of uh Christians that may be forgiven and may be right with God, but we're not yet glorified, we're not perfected. There's a lot of trouble, and there's going to be hurt feelings, and there are going to be people taking sides.

And and there's no doubt that given enough time, you're going to have problems with people that you feel like should be your spiritual family. And and it's just going to happen. And and really the difference between a church that encounters those things and lets them fester and uh divisions and fissions and factions all kind of fall into place where you eventually get to kind of a civil war in the church that ends in a church split, and the church that still has these imperfect people sometimes stepping on each other's toes, sometimes hurting feelings, but they deal with them one by one, one conflict at a time, one strained relationship at a time.

And they settle those and move forward. The difference between that church that uh that gets through their problems and the church that just kind of compounds their problems is the difference between a church that is going to be uh fruitful and effective, albeit imperfect, and one that's going to implode. There's always issues between Christians. And what we need to do is make sure that we handle those some things that crop up and get into our relationships and threaten to mess up a relationship that will soon turn to uh people aligning with others and causing all sorts of problems.

We we we got to prepare for that by responding rightly to them. Finished the book of Acts last week, Acts chapter 28. You remember he is under house arrest. And Paul, we saw for the two years he's there with the freedom to share the gospel with people as they come and go and write letters of the New Testament. Uh he wins a lot of people to Christ, including one man named Onesimus. Onesimus, he learns, is a runaway slave. And uh oh, what a small world Paul realizes it is when uh he finds out that he ran away from Colossae, uh city that Paul knew very well.

And he ran away from a man named Philemon, who Paul's eyes must have gotten big. Who? Philemon. I know Philemon. Philemon's the uh the wealthy man in Colossae that hosts that the church in his home. And now he's got a dilemma on his hands. Here's a new brother in Christ, Onesimus, with a sordid past. And uh he surreptitiously ran away. This wasn't buying his freedom or trying to shake hands and agree that it's time for him to move on. This was uh this was basically theft in the Greco-Roman world. And he is really by Roman law a fugitive.

And Paul knows we just can't sweep this under the under the carpet. So he writes a letter to the church at Colossae. We know it as the letter to the Colossians. And along with that, he writes another small letter, the letter that we call the letter to Philemon. And he says to Philemon in this letter, you got to fix this problem. It's just a great template with a very extreme wrong that was done, and something that's just not going to be easy to do, to really forget and forgive the kinds of things that should separate people in the other organization in any other situation.

But in the church of Christ, we need to deal with this because we're not like every other organization. And I think this extreme template of solving problems can be a great road map for us to make sure we're the latter church and not the former church, the latter church that works through every conflict, and make sure that we come out the other end still unified and in harmony with each other, prepared and knowing we're going to have problems, but uh we know how to solve them. We know how to solve them because we have great examples like Paul's divine wisdom to Philemon and Onesimus to solve the problem.

So we finished Acts 28, and one of the letters I wanted to tackle was one of his prison epistles that probably is not uh as well known as Paul's other writings. It's the little book of Philemon. And if you could look it up, just find Hebrews, turn back one book, and you'll find the book of Philemon. And this week, we're just going to deal with the introduction. And it's a rather long introduction for a book that uh is so short. He'll make his appeal and get to the meat of his instruction in verse 8, but the prelude to this is is all the foundational theological, the supporting rigor.

It's the reason that we should do everything that follows. We're going to look at this, and I hope we're going to leave more equipped either to deal with the problem we have right now, whether it's actively aggressive, passively aggressive, or whether it's just something that torques you and you can't look at that person. We're going to do the difficult work in the next three weeks, trying to make sure we can be a unified church. So take a look at these seven verses with me. And if you're new to the church and you think I don't have any problems yet, well, stick around.

I hate to be the curmudgeon in the back row, but it it is it is coming. So we're going to equip you ahead of time. Read from the English Standard Version. Paul begins with something that is familiar to us. It's where we left him in Acts 28, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus. We learn there were several people with him, and at this point Timothy is with him, and he says and Timothy our brother. Now, at the bottom of verse 1, he addresses those who are the addressees of this letter. To Philemon, our beloved fellow worker, and Apphia our sister.

And because the bottom of verse 2 and the way the syntax of all this works, we won't bore you with all that. This is probably his wife. So we have Philemon and Apphia his wife, and probably because of the bottom of verse 2, Archippus is probably their son that is still living there in the home. So Philemon, our beloved fellow worker, and Apphia our sister, and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church that meets in your house. He's well to do. And he's so well to do that he's got a big enough home to host the church as it gathers together throughout the week and especially on Sunday.

Very familiar salutation in verse 3, if you've read any of Paul's letters, you know he often starts this way. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in English, modern English at least, we don't distinguish between second person singular and second person plural pronouns. So I've got to read this in the Southern edition so you know we're dealing with a plural second person pronoun. Grace to y'all and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Why do I need to say that? Because the pronouns shift really fast in verse 4.

He's addressing now Philemon, Apphia, Archippus, and the church. So we know Colossians, the Colossian Christians are going to read this. They're going to know this. And they probably already, those who are close to Philemon, the host of the church, probably already know that he's he's got to run away slave. But now the runaway slaves encountered Paul. He's gotten saved by an intelligent, caring evangelist, and now he's being sent back with a rolled up scroll in his hand to say, hey, Paul says we got to fix our problem. And he says, you know what? Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

But look at verse 4. I thank my God always when I remember you. Singular. The second person pronoun here is singular. I thank my God always when I remember you singular in my prayers, and I hear verse 5 because I hear of your singular love and the faith that you singular have toward the Lord Jesus. It's a choppy way to read it, but we've gone from you know grace to you all to I thank God Philemon because I think about you. I remember you in my prayers, and I've heard that that your love and your faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints.

Well, it's a weird to it's obvious to say, okay, I know how love transcends the vertical relationship to to Christ and and I see how you can love your brother, but it's interesting that the word faith is coupled with this. Well, there's obviously a kind of faith that we have in Christ. I mean, we're trusting that his life and his death and his resurrection are all applied to my account as Romans 6 says so that I can be right before God. I have faith in Christ, but there is a sense in which we can say we're supposed to have faith in each other.

Even the basic command about love says love is supposed to cover a multitude of sins. Even the sense in which we should be giving each other the benefit of the doubt and and he knows that that Philemon is setting a good example in that regard. I'm I'm grateful that you love and you trust in in the people of God just like you trust in Christ, not the same quality of faith, but you do. You you you have a good relational ethic in the church. Verse 6. And I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective to the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.

I read that quickly. It's a mouthful, but it is really the key to all that we're going to see in this book. This particular verse, it's the hardest verse to translate, it is the hardest verse to interpret. And sadly, I think the NIV and the ESV and a few other English translations translate it this way. And if I use the phrase, hey, this Saturday I was sharing my faith with someone, you would say, I know what you mean. It's what we do on Saturday morning here, go door to door, and we share our faith. We share the gospel.

We share the good news of Christ. That is not what we're talking about here. As a matter of fact, the word, if you get your Greek New Testament out, I know some of you do that, word here is the word koinonia. And if you grew up in the church or been around the church very long, you know that word. Usually translates into our English word fellowship. And if you were around back in the old days in Acts chapter 2 when we were studying Acts chapter 2 verses 42 and following, you remember that whole sermon on on fellowship.

And we talked about it in two senses. There's a sense in which the early church they fellowshipped in an active sense, and it can be translate sharing just like in this passage. They shared with each other. I mean, even in chapter 4, the end of chapter 4, when Barnabas was selling property and sharing its proceeds to help people in the church, they were sharing. Whatever persons had needs, they met those needs. And just like when we say, well, our small group's not going through the questions this week, we're having a fellowship night. And you're saying, okay, what do I bring?

I'm going to bring some food, or we're going to sit around and I'm going to bring some conversation. I'm going to bring some stories. We're going to hang out and we're going to fellowship. That's an active sense of the word. But then there's a passive sense of the word. See, we're in the fellowship. We share in the fellowship of faith. We have a participation in it, and we are, we would say, of the fellowship. And in this particular passage, sharing's not a bad word, but the sharing shouldn't be considered in an active sense, but a passive sense.

And if you dig into this text, and a lot of translations will put it this way, the idea is that we have a share in the faith. That's a good way to put it. We have a fellowship, a koinonia, a sharing in the faith. And he says, look at how it's put now. I I pray that the sharing of your faith, that you're a part of this thing, may become effective. If I if I'm a Christian, I'm sharing in this faith, well, then I want it to do stuff in your life. I want it to work its way out first through your brain for the full knowledge.

I want you to know what you should be doing, that the whole point of a transformed mind is to know the truth that we can discern what the will of God is. We need our minds to be transformed. I want it to go through your brain, the full knowledge of every good thing I love this now that is in us, something that God has put in us. He's changed our hearts. The New Covenant promise was to take your heart of stone, give you a heart of flesh. God's going to change you from the inside out.

And in a sense, we want all of that connection with the spirit of God within us to create, as it says in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10, this outworking of good works that God has set out before us. We want these things to be organic in our lives. Sharing in the faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for your sake. No, for Christ's sake. There are some things we do that come from within that don't win us any points in our lives. They don't make our lives any better.

As a matter of fact, it feels sacrificial. It feels like I'm not winning in this. Forgiveness in general is a theme which we're going to get into next week in the heart of this letter. I mean, that seems like I'm losing. I'm letting something go when I feel like I need my pound of flesh out of this. I really want to tell him off to get back to the concepts within our church. I feel like I need to bear this grudge for the next 20 20 weeks or 20 months, but I'm going to let it go.

That feels like a loss, but we're doing it for Christ's sake. We forgive each other for Christ's sake. I want all of that participation in the faith of the gospel, the truth of Christ. I want it to become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. And there's one good thing Paul has in mind when he's writing to Philemon, right? You're going to take Onesimus back and forgive him. You guys need to make up over this. I know it's it's it's a it's a problem. It it was he wronged you.

And I'm not talking about restitution here. I'm talking about you accepting him back as a brother. We'll get into all that next time. That's what he has in view. And then he's not done with the introduction. Verse 7. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother. Talking to you specifically Philemon. When I was there, I was meeting in the I I preached in your house. Ah it was so great. Your love brought me joy and comfort. And not only that, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through your blessing all kinds of people in this church.

Can you see he's kind of setting him up for where he's going? I think Onesimus might have given this letter to someone else. So you go in there and have him read it first before I walk in. And these seven verses are going to be foundational. If we can understand these seven verses, if we can put to practice these seven verses, it's going to put every other conflict you ever have with another Christian. I'm not talking about apostasy. I'm not talking about doctrinal like and and trust me. A lot of people blame their personal conflicts in the church on doctrinal issues when it really's not a doctrinal issue.

It's a personal issue. Your feelings got hurt. You got bent out of shape because they wronged you. Now, are there doctrinal issues that should divide us? Yes. But that's rare. About 90% of the time, if not 99% of the time, the issues are personal. They're not theological. We try to find a theological branch to hang the conflict on, but stop. Right? If it's apostasy, great. Come to the pastors. We can deal with that. And if we have to part ways, we'll part ways. But most of the problems you have with people in your small group, in your sub congregation, people that you come to church with, the problems with those people are issues that need to be dealt with.

Dealt with because of who we are in Christ. And these seven verses are so great in helping us think that through. Let's start with the first two verses. The way that he describes all the players in this book and even the person he's standing next to here in the prison. Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus. Now, we know that he's literally a prisoner in Rome. And Timothy our brother. If you said, Mike, how many brothers do you have? I say I have one brother. And you know what you mean by that, and you know what I would mean by my answer, right?

I have one genetic biological brother. That's it. That's all I got. But if you said, no, no, no, no, no, I'm thinking the way the Bible means it here, is Timothy Paul's brother? The answer is no, not literally, but metaphorically because we know he's a fellow Christian. Matter of fact, he's an up and coming pastor who's going to take the reins of the church in Ephesus. And he calls him in 2 Timothy his son. Well, he's not his son, but he's his son in the faith, but he's not a brother. This is a metaphorical use of language.

It's a familial use of language as you see in verse 2 when he says Apphia our sister. Is Philemon Paul's brother in law? The answer is no. We're not talking about a biological sister. We're talking about a metaphorical sister. Again, familial words in the body of Christ, very common. So we have the familial metaphor. And and then Philemon is described here as our beloved fellow worker. If I said worker or business or marketplace, you know task, I would say, what is Paul's marketplace task? What does he do for business? Well, at least on the mission field, he was making tents.

And that was very important particularly in in the city of Ephesus where there was a lot of need for that, with all the pilgrims coming to the temples there. And he made those tents. That was his business. Am I supposed to think that Philemon is literally in business with Paul and a fellow worker? The answer's no. This is metaphorical language. Right? It's not like they they both are running a tent business, certainly not making that kind of money with that kind of house making tents. So we're not literally saying you're fellow workers, we're metaphorically workers.

Talking about some other kind of work. And he says, hey, your son, or maybe it's just someone in the church that was close to him, Archippus, our fellow soldier. Well, I know one thing about Paul because I've studied his life with you through the second half of the book of Acts. He is not a Roman soldier, right? He's not a Roman soldier. So there's no way that we're talking about him being a fellow soldier as though he's in the Roman army. He's not. This is metaphorical language. So let's think about the metaphorical language employed in this introduction in the first two verses as he thinks about the work that's being done in the church as it meets in his house.

And let's think about what that says to the whole issue of what we are going to deal with in the book, and that is interpersonal conflict in the church. Let me just jam those all together. I've already run through them. We have familial metaphors, we have business metaphors, marketplace metaphors, and we've got warfare metaphors. And all of those might help me if I jam them together, particularly if I take the business and the warfare because in the sense of if you're a marine or whatever, this is your business is to be a fighter. And let's just jam those two together.

There's a mission, and it's a mission of fighting. And we'll talk about that. And then siblings, well, that's that's what we are in terms metaphorically. We're siblings. So these things will help us. Jot this down as we jam it together in one phrase. Number one, you need to see yourselves in this church, in your small group, in your sub congregation as siblings with a mission. That is going to help us if we just start there.

Dave Deway: That's Pastor Mike Fabarez here on Focal Point, laying the groundwork for everything we'll dig into in this study from the book of Philemon called Fighting for Peace. Today's message is titled Glimpses of the Goal. And if you'd like to hear it again, just go to focalpointradio.org. This month, we're very excited to bring you something special from Pastor Mike, his brand new book called The Bible, a book like no other, where he gives his own answer to the questions he hears again and again. Can the Bible actually be trusted? Is it historically reliable? How do we know it's God's word and not just an old book we've chosen to admire?

Pastor Mike walks through the archaeology, the history, and the fulfilled prophecy that most believers have never been shown, and does it in plain language that's easy to follow. Get your copy of this brand new book when you give a donation to Focal Point this month. Call 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org. You can also mail your donation to Focal Point, Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California 92654. We hear from listeners like Kent who wrote to us recently. I'm a long time listener to Focal Point Radio and to ask Pastor Mike, I've been richly blessed over the years by the preaching and teaching, and I pray for you and this ministry regularly.

I support you financially as I can, and I encourage others to listen. Keep up the great work, and thank you for your time and effort for the king and his kingdom. Well, stories like Kent's are exactly why this ministry keeps going week after week. Now, if that sounds like your own story with Focal Point, would you consider giving a monthly gift as a Focal Point partner? It's a simple standing way to stay part of what God is doing here. Sign up to become a Focal Point partner today at focalpointradio.org or by calling 888-320-5885. I'm your host Dave Deway, inviting you back again next time for part two of today's message Glimpses of the Goal.

That's Thursday on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Hey there, Pastor Mike here. We're almost out of time, but before we go, I wanted to personally invite you to contact us here. Let us know how we can be praying for you. Head on over to focalpointradio.org and click the contact page or send me a note on Facebook, facebook.com/pastormike or x.com/pastormike. Can't wait to hear from you.

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