Turn with me in the New Testament.
Turn to Hebrews, that's not where I'm going
to speak to you from, but I want
you to—that'll get you headed in the right
direction.
I'm going to speak to you out of
a book tonight, one of the loneliest books
in the Bible, because in all of my
Christian experience, in all of my ministry, I've
probably heard fewer messages, fewer scriptures read out
of this little book.
Go to Hebrews and turn left to the
little lonely book called Philemon, as tonight I
want to talk to you about reaching the
lost and the troubled, but really this is
not a how-to message.
It's really about changed lives and how we
as Christians and how we in the church
are to deal with people who have had
a changed life and how we are to
welcome them into the fellowship of the church.
That, among other things, we'll find in this
little book of Philemon, which, interesting, it does
not deal with any doctrine.
Paul does not deal with any issue.
It's just a private letter, and let's read
through it a few verses here to set
the background for what we want to share
with you tonight.
Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus and Timothy,
our brother, to Philemon, our beloved brother and
fellow worker.
Verse 3, Grace to you and peace from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God always making mention of
you in my prayers because I hear of
your love.
He's talking to Philemon now, and the faith
which you have towards the Lord Jesus and
towards all the saints.
And I pray that the fellowship of your
faith may become effective through the knowledge of
every good thing which is in you for
Christ's sake.
For I have come to have much joy
and comfort in your love because the hearts
of the saints have been refreshed through your
brother.
Therefore, though I have enough confidence in Christ
to order you to do what is proper,
yet for love's sake I rather appeal to
you since I am such a person as
Paul the aged and now also a prisoner
of Christ Jesus.
I appeal to you.
This is the basis of his message or
his letter is an appeal.
I appeal to you for my child whom
I have begotten or whom I have brought
to Christ in my imprisonment.
His name is Onesimus who formerly was useless.
I think that King James says unprofitable.
Who formerly was useless to you, but now
is useful or profitable both to you and
to me.
And I have sent him back to you
in person.
That is, sending my very heart whom I
wish to keep with me that in your
behalf he might minister to me here in
my imprisonment for the gospel.
But without your consent I did not want
to do anything that your goodness should not
be as it were by compulsion but of
your own free will.
For perhaps he, Onesimus, was for this reason
parted from you for a while that you
should have him back forever no longer as
a slave, but more than a slave, a
beloved brother, especially to me, but how much
more to you both in the flesh and
in the Lord.
If then you regard me a partner, accept
him as you would me.
But if he has wronged you in any
way or owes you anything, charge it to
my account.
I, Paul, am writing this with my own
hand and I'll stop there.
Now, Paul's epistle, letter, was addressed to a
layman businessman by the name of Philemon.
And this remarkable letter is from a friend
to a friend asking the second friend to
receive back into fellowship and into friendship a
former cheating employee.
Now, specifically the three main characters in the
letter is Paul who is in a Roman
prison.
He's under house arrest in Rome.
The second main character that he's writing in
behalf of is Onesimus, a runaway homeless fellow.
And Philemon, who is an upper-class Christian
businessman of some means and influence.
He probably, he might have been, he would
be the equivalent of today, he was probably
the president of the full gospel businessman's chapter
in his town.
And in this triangle of relationship are some
remarkable lessons in the power of Jesus Christ
to not only change the sinner's heart, but
also change a Christian's attitude towards the change
that has taken place or supposed change that
has taken place in that sinner.
Now, there are some other things about this
letter.
And by the way, what's interesting about this
letter is that it was a private letter.
It's like being able to open Paul's mail
and read it.
And when he wrote this, he never expected
that you and I would be reading his
mail tonight in 1987 in Times Square.
But we're privileged to be able to, this
letter was kept as a part of the
canon of the scriptures.
And it teaches us among other things that
if you feel, for example, tonight, if you're
here and you feel that your life is
of no account, if you feel that you
have been a failure and specifically if you've
committed sins, not only against God, but against
the society or against particular persons, then this
letter of Paul's is hope to you that
God can change your life and He can
turn it around and make a complete brand
new person out of you.
And I want you to know if that's
your situation tonight, you couldn't be in a
better place.
You've come at the right place at the
right time among the right people because we've
got the right message for you.
And then Paul's letter deals with the problem
of how do we in the church address
the problem of runaways and the homeless as
well as the lawless in our society.
And Apostle Paul has something very surprising to
indicate or that is revealed to me in
this letter about our treatment of runaways and
homeless and ex-drug addicts and so forth.
And we're going to look at that.
And then also Paul talks about how do
we as Christians who may have been a
victim of a crime, you personally tonight may
have been injured by somebody spiritually, emotionally, even
physically, and now that person gets saved and
maybe they've been off somewhere.
Maybe you're the spouse, maybe you're the parents,
and they've gotten saved and all of a
sudden they come riding back into your life
like a knight in shining armor and they
say to you, here I am, I'm a
brand new person and you have to deal
with what you knew them before they came
to Christ.
And how do you deal with that situation?
So consider these issues as well as others
as Paul gives us some tremendous insights in
this book of Philemon that I love very
much.
First of all, let me give you a
word about Paul.
Look in the first verse.
And just keep your Bible open because we're
going to stay right here in this little
book, this little epistle.
I like how Paul opens his letter to
Philemon and he says, Paul, a prisoner of
Rome.
No, he says a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
And then in verse nine, it says, Paul
the aged and now also a prisoner of
Christ Jesus.
Now, Paul is talking about aged.
He is somewhere between the age of 49
and 55.
And one of our pastors on the platform
can identify with this and two of us
can.
But in the original, it is believed that
that term aged is somewhere between 49 and
55.
And he's under house arrest in Rome.
He's going to be on trial for the
fact that he has preached the gospel.
Because he preached the good news, they brought
him to Rome and his very life is
at stake.
As a result, this appending trial.
But notice that in spite of his circumstances,
that he calls himself a prisoner of Christ
Jesus.
And you know what that means to me
is that when you and I accept the
fact that God has put us where we
are, then that means we're a prisoner or
we're an employee or we're a fellow traveler
with Jesus Christ.
You see, how can you complain about the
state or situation you're in if Jesus is
your prison keeper?
You see, to be in prison or a
prisoner of Jesus Christ is to be highly
honored and privileged.
I think it's a line of a song.
I don't know where it came from, but
somebody has said where Jesus is, there's heaven
there.
And Paul, you see, would not, Paul would
not give the Roman government nor the devil
nor anybody else the privilege of claiming him
as their captor.
He said, I am a, Jesus Christ has
a prior claim upon my life and what
a testimony.
Can you imagine the censor who had to
read his mail if they did it?
And Paul writes and he says, Paul, a
prisoner of Jesus Christ.
Can you imagine the censor saying, what kind
of a fellow is this, prisoner of Jesus
Christ?
He wouldn't, he would not give knowledge to
that, acknowledgement to that.
You know, when I was studying this, the
Lord put it on my heart to say
tonight that if you're a prisoner, then you're
not really a prisoner, you're a prisoner of
Jesus Christ.
And I said, Lord, how can I say
that?
I'm not preaching to any, aren't there any
prisoners here tonight?
But then I was reminded of these tapes
and I just felt led of the Lord
to address myself to somebody who's going to
listen to this tape in prison.
And I want to say to that young
man or young lady that knows the Lord
Jesus Christ, that you are a prisoner of
Jesus Christ.
And when you are a prisoner of Jesus
Christ, that means the state doesn't bind you
or nothing else binds you, but you're bound
to the Lord Jesus Christ and that can
make your surroundings much better when you're a
prisoner of Jesus Christ.
Hallelujah.
Now Paul from prison engaged in prison ministry.
Because he was given certain freedoms within his
confines, outsiders had regular access to come to
him.
They could come and they could go.
Now he couldn't, but they could.
I'm sure that he had guards, but it
was relatively on a, as I said, he
was under house arrest and so he had,
it was not a normal kind of prison
situation.
Now apparently some Christians in Rome were engaged
in outreach street evangelism in the Times Square
of Rome and they came across this apparent
homeless runaway character by the name of Onesimus
and by some way, we're not told, we
don't know, we just can read between the
lines, but some way they brought him to
Paul and said, here Paul, here is someone,
here is a, here's somebody right, here's somebody
hungry.
And this person turned out to be this
fellow Onesimus.
Now Onesimus was in fact a runaway slave
who was, had come a thousand miles and
left his slave owner Philemon, escaped from him
and in the process also stole something from
him.
Look again at verse 18.
We know this, when Paul sends this letter,
it says, if he has wronged you in
any way or owes you anything, then charge
that to my account.
Now being a runaway was a capital offense,
you might say, in those days.
The Roman government depended a great deal on
their economy.
They depended on slaves and therefore they were
very harsh on slaves that would run away.
They couldn't let this get out of hand.
They couldn't let slaves take matters into their
own hands.
And in some cases, depending upon the situation,
if you were caught as a runaway slave,
it was death by crucifixion or at best
the slave would be branded with a red
hot iron on the forehead with a letter
F standing for fugitive or runaway.
And somehow Onesimus found his way to Rome.
It's believed that he stole an amount of
money in order to make his way to
Rome.
A thousand miles is a long walk.
It's believed that he stole something in order
to pay his fare or whatever to get
there.
And he lost himself among the throngs of
people in the city of Rome, no doubt
hanging out with other homeless people in an
area where people like that go and hang
out.
And then thank God, some Christians went and
witnessed to him in that area and apparently
one of the believers, as I said, brought
him to Paul and led him to Christ.
Now, three things happened to Onesimus when he
was introduced to Paul and introduced to the
gospel.
First of all, Paul received him without condition
or apparently asking any questions about his past.
I don't believe that anybody knew Onesimus did
not offer the fact that he was a
runaway slave.
Otherwise, why would a man be willing to
go visit a preacher in prison if he
told Paul and the other believers that he
was a runaway slave?
It was too risky for him to do
that and also it was against the law
to provide refuge for a runaway slave.
So that fact at first apparently was hidden.
But Paul, not knowing, it didn't really matter
to Paul what he was.
Paul did not treat him as a slave.
He did not treat him as a runaway.
He did not treat him as a criminal,
but rather he treated him as somebody who
needed God.
Now tonight, listen to me.
It doesn't matter if you're here tonight if
you're homeless or you live in a penthouse.
If you're living in sin, then you're lost
and you're in trouble and you need to
be saved from your sins.
And if you come to us, you come
to this altar and you say to us,
I am a homosexual.
I am a drug addict.
I am a runaway.
I am a criminal.
It may help us to know something about
your problem, but Jesus does not save homosexuals
or drug addicts.
He saves sinners.
You see, neither our badness nor our goodness
impresses God or is a criteria of acceptance
before God.
You may feel so bad that you feel
unworthy of Christ.
Other people feel so good about themselves they
don't sense a need of Christ.
But the issue is not your feelings.
It's not your social status.
It's not your lack of a status symbol
if you have one or don't have one.
The question is, without Christ, you are a
runaway from God.
And if Christ has no place in your
heart, then you'll be homeless for all of
eternity.
Now, Paul accepted Onesimus, but only the gospel
could change his heart.
Note how affectionately Paul talks or speaks of
his convert in verse 16.
He says, I'm sending him back to you
for a limit.
He's no longer as a slave, but more
than a slave.
He's a beloved brother, especially to me, but
how much more to you.
You see, Paul did not see him as
a runaway or as a criminal.
He opened his heart.
He opened his cell.
He opened his arms to accept this sinner
with his love.
And yet I say to you, with all
of Paul's love, as strong as it was,
it could not transform and change this young
man.
And neither can a mother's love change the
sinner's heart.
Spouse, you can't do it.
You can't love them.
Church, we can love them and reach out
to them.
But as much as we might do it,
as much as I've said to young men
at the Teen Challenge Center, I've seen them
wanting to leave.
And I've said to them at times, I'd
say to them, I wish I could put
chains or handcuffs on your arms and chain
you to the bed and make you stay.
Or some of them, I'd like to pick
them up and shake them a little bit
and then love them.
I'd like to, I'd try to do anything.
And I've seen mothers and parents and others
in the church or even some Christians that
get a burden for somebody and they play
a game that I call, ready or not,
here I come.
Ready or not, here I come.
I got the message.
You're the sinner.
You need saved and I'm going to save
you by hook or by crook or one
way or the other.
And you see, that's fine.
You must be motivated by love.
And yet that in itself will not do
it.
And think of all the human and the
social and the government or private efforts to
reach the unreachable of our society.
If love would do it, I remember being
interviewed by somebody from a magazine.
They wanted to know the success of Teen
Challenge.
And I remember she tried to explain it
away.
She said, Reverend, she said, I think the
bottom line of it all is, is that
they get changed because you love them.
I said, bless your heart, lady.
I appreciate that.
But I sure don't have a personality that
can change and make a drug addict want
to change his life.
Onesimus had a miraculous encounter with the living
God.
Paul received him and then Paul pointed him
to Jesus.
And this is what the testimony was.
Look at verse 11, who formerly was useless.
Another good title of this message tonight would
be from useless to useful, from unprofitable to
profitable.
You see, the last thing the gospel is
designed to do is to produce aimless, worthless,
lazy, inefficient people.
But it produces people whose lives are changed
and that only God can change your life
tonight if you're in that situation.
And when he changes you, not only will
you be ready for heaven, you'll be ready
for earth.
Not only will you be ready to die,
you'll be ready to live now.
Jesus will change your life around.
Hallelujah.
Onesimus means useful.
And that's very interesting because he turned out
to be anything but useful.
And Paul writes to Philemon and he said,
Hey, listen, I know that this fella has
never lived up to his name.
I mean, it's almost a joke to call
him Onesimus.
He's useless.
He's unprofitable.
He is useful only in name only.
But now Paul is able to introduce the
fact that Jesus has come into his life.
He's now a brand new person.
Old things have passed away and behold, all
things have become new.
Jesus makes you useful.
Hallelujah.
David, you'll remember, I go back way to
the beginning.
I don't know how this popped into my
mind.
You know Harvey, the first Jewish fella.
I guess because I just heard about him
recently.
Harvey was the first Jewish fella that came
to us out of Williamsburg.
And you talk about a fella who was
useless as far as his mother was concerned
and society was concerned.
Harvey stole everything that wasn't nailed down in
his house.
And he came home one night and he
found that his mother hadn't moved.
One day she just decided to move.
She didn't tell him he came home and
lo and behold, she didn't live in the
same apartment anymore.
She had moved someplace else.
Didn't tell him.
Because she couldn't take it anymore.
And Harvey ended up in prison and he
wanted to come to Teen Challenge because some
of his friends in the neighborhood, he had
heard that they got religion.
He didn't know what it was, but he
knew they were changed and he wanted to
come.
And so we sent one of our staff
to interview his mother to get her permission.
He finally, he did locate his mother.
Even though she moved, he located her.
And we wanted to get her permission and
we said to her, look, if Harvey comes
to us, he had been bar mitzvahed when
he was at the proper age and grew
up as an Orthodox Jew, but then got
involved in drugs.
And so one of the staff went and
explained what Teen Challenge was and what would
happen to him and she thought for a
moment, she says, well, he's useless to me
now.
If you're Jesus and he's dead to me
now, if you're Jesus can bring him back
to life again, I'll be very glad to
have him do so.
And that's exactly what happened to Harvey and
that's nearly 30 years ago.
He lives in California and he's still serving
the Lord and working.
He who was unprofitable, the useless became useful
because that's what Jesus Christ can do in
your life.
But you know, a further evidence that Christ
had changed Onesimus' life is that he came
clean.
He confessed his deepest, darkest, hidden secret.
As I said, I don't believe that Paul
knew the whole story about Onesimus at first.
He didn't need to know it.
But I believe that as a result of
having introduced him to the gospel and as
a result of the conviction of the Holy
Spirit into that cell and the Word of
God is that it brought it out.
And Onesimus, finally one day, I believe he
opened up and he said, listen, Paul, I've
got to tell you something.
I am a runaway.
I am a slave.
I've stolen some money.
You see, the true evidence of a new
life in Christ is that we're willing to
repent and come totally clean and honest and
open before God.
Now, the reason why we have some people,
now some, David mentioned before about some who
have come and confessed things here, but there
are others who have come.
They've come to this altar, they've prayed, and
there's not been a change in their life
because they have not confessed specific sins.
You see, John the Baptist called repentance laying
the axe to the root.
In other words, it means to getting down
to the nitty gritty and coming totally clean
before the Lord because Proverbs 28 and 13
says, He who conceals his transgression will not
prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them
will find compassion.
There's a sister here tonight.
I'm sure she will not bear me repeating
her testimony that we gave some weeks ago.
Very early on in one of our meetings,
the Lord convicted this sister, Christian, about taking
money from her husband and giving it to
the poor.
She would just take it.
And at one point she confessed it to
her husband.
He just laughed it off and didn't say
anything.
But one night in this service, a scripture
was read about steal no more.
And she got convicted.
And the Lord said to her, the Holy
Spirit said to her, not one penny more.
And she came to the altar and the
Lord met her because she came clean.
She came clean.
But let me take it a little step
further.
A further evidence of Onesimus' changed life is
that he was willing to go back to
the person that he had wronged and ask
forgiveness and make restitution.
Now Paul grew to love Onesimus.
He must have really progressed in the Lord
because Paul wanted him to stay with him.
Look in verse 13.
It says, he said, I'd rather he stay
with me, whom I wish to keep with
me, that in your behalf he might minister
to me in my imprisonment for the gospel.
But listen, we've been saying it on this
pulpit.
Please hear me out.
Righteousness means that Onesimus had to go back
to the scene of his wrong.
He had to face up to what he
had done.
He had to face up to who he
had done it to.
And Paul taught Onesimus proper biblical principles and
the Word of God got under his skin.
I'll never forget my dad was a preacher
one time.
He took over church and he said, listen,
he said, I can't sing.
I got no fancy personality.
I can't play guitar.
I can't sing.
He said, all I can do is preach
the Word.
He said, I'm going to preach the Word
and I'm going to preach the Word until
it gets under your skin and it changes
your life.
And if you aren't open to it, then
this preacher will get under your skin.
Take your pick.
It's either the pastor or the Word.
And the Word of God got down to
the nitty gritty in this man's life.
And Onesimus in teaching righteousness, he refers to
Onesimus as one whom I have begotten in
the faith.
And that word begotten means that you give
the law.
You teach the law.
You teach the whole counsel of God.
And you see, if you love somebody, when
you disciple them, you'll do what Paul did.
He required him to go back to those
he had wronged and ask forgiveness.
And even when possible, yes, it must include
restitution.
And what a testimony it is when the
sinner goes back like the prodigal son and
he says, I have sinned against heaven, but
Father, I'm not even worthy to come back
into your house.
Let me give you a testimony tonight of
a young lady.
She'd been at Teen Challenge and she's moved
on now to the next phase of her
rehabilitation.
This young lady that the Lord started convicting
her about her past and some of the
things she had done.
And so on one occasion, she wrote a
letter to one of her sisters that she
had stolen from and asked her to forgive
her.
And the Lord released her from that.
But then the Holy Spirit began to probe
deeper and said, no, I want you to
deal with something else.
She had some outstanding criminal charges from a
department store that she used to shoplift from.
In fact, for 17 years, she shoplift from
this store, sometimes three to $400 a day.
And as I said, the Lord began to
convict her.
And so she wrote a letter to the
judge and confessed to the charge.
In fact, it was, I think she was
due to go to court, but she went
ahead and she sent a letter to him.
And so the judge called her back, responded
with a letter and said, come to court
and called her name.
And he began to question her and ask
her if she really knew what she was
doing.
Because I don't believe that judge probably had
ever gotten a letter like this in his
life.
I mean, can you imagine, here's not a
policeman or here's not the law bringing somebody
to court.
Here's a girl writing and saying, hey, I
have wronged, I've done something wrong and volunteering
herself and throwing herself at the mercy of
the court.
And so he said to her, do you
know what you're doing?
Because she had a long, as I said,
a long, long record.
But then one of our counselors, Yolanda, was
there and introduced the fact that this young
lady was a teen challenge and that she
wanted to change her life.
And so the judge said, well, go back
and talk to the people at the department
store and see if you can work it
out with them.
And in the meantime, he would not let
her plead guilty.
This is the end of side one.
Turn the tape over to continue this message
on side two.
Because I guess if she pled guilty, he'd
have to send her away.
And so he postponed the case.
And so they went to talk to the
department store and the department store said, no,
we never reduce charges.
So it looked like that was it.
Finally, she was given a day to come
back into court.
And I have her testimony here before me.
And they showed up.
The department store was there, the DA was
there, and everybody was there.
And the judge was so impressed with the
fact, as the scripture says, he that conceals
his transgression will not prosper, but he who
confesses and forsakes will find compassion.
The judge let her go, fined her $30,
and let her go.
But you know what I appreciate about Yolanda,
the counselor, when she got back, she said,
all right, there's one thing you got to
do.
You got to get away all those clothes.
Don't you dare wear any of those clothes
that you stole.
You give them away.
But she made restitution.
And you see, sometimes that's evidence when you
go back and you make right something that
you've done wrong or somebody that you've wronged.
That's a part of having a changed life.
But then Paul dealt with something else in
this letter.
Note how Philemon fits into this story and
into this message.
Philemon is the slave owner.
Onesimus had run away from him.
And as I said, had robbed him of
a certain amount of money.
Now, this is a true story.
This is not a parable.
And in this true story, Philemon is a
type of the church.
It's a type of the Christian worker.
And what it says to me is this,
and what I want to say to you
in regard to it is, how are we
to respond to the unprofitable that become converted
and in the eyes of the Lord, He
calls them profitable?
How do we respond to them?
Now, Philemon had a good testimony.
Look at me again, what Paul says about
this man.
In verse 5, he says, I hear of
your love and of the faith which you
have towards the Lord Jesus and towards all
the saints.
In verse 7, he says, For I have
come to have much joy and comfort in
your love because the hearts of the saints
have been refreshed because of your brother.
Now, this man, this man qualified, you might
say, as a deacon or as an elder.
His conduct in the house of God, as
far as Paul was concerned, was unquestionable.
But Paul is not concerned about Onesimus' love
for other Christians.
He knows it.
He said the hearts of the saints are
refreshed by you.
But now Paul is writing to him and
he said, Philemon, I know that you love.
I know you personally.
I hear the report, but now I'm going
to stretch your love.
Now I'm going to test you because I'm
about to tell you about a situation.
I'm about to tell you about a person
and I'm about to test you.
I know you love saints, but what about
Ains?
You know, that's, you know, something in the
process of being a saint.
You love the people in the church, but
what about Runaway?
What about this other fellow?
Now Philemon is not the first who has
been tested in this regard.
So are we.
So is the church.
Are we able to accept and to love
and embrace the Onesimuses?
That maybe we knew them before conversion, but
now they've come back and Paul has some
things to teach us about what to do
in this regard.
And I want to share them with you
just in closing.
Three things that we need to observe in
deeding with a new convert who was once
unprofitable.
And I want you to listen to me
carefully.
First of all, in verse 15, Paul says
that thou shouldest receive him back forever.
Not now as a servant, but above a
servant, a brother beloved especially to me, but
how much more unto thee, both in the
flesh and in the Lord.
You know what this says to me is
that Christ breaks down the wall of petition
between us.
There is a spiritual brotherhood between all true
believers.
And I think that's a beautiful testimony about
this church.
And that's the vision that we would have
for the Times Square church, that no matter
what our culture, no matter what your race,
no matter what your status in life is,
that we're all God's children and we have
the same Heavenly Father and each of us
has the same rights and privileges before our
Lord.
We ought to love one another as brethren.
I remember a fellow said to me one
time, after he got saved, he was worried
about after he got saved, would he still
be culturally what he was?
I said, don't worry, brother.
You'll still have a rice and beans stomach
after you're saved.
Don't worry about it.
You know, and some of you, although after
conversion, one still likes rice and beans, another
likes soul food, another likes something else.
But you see, the Lord breaks down any
barriers that there might be because of our
outward differences.
Paul says to Philemon, O Nehemiah returns to
you, yes, as a servant in fact, but
he's something more now.
He's a believer and you're to have a
new relationship with him.
He's like a brother beloved to me and
if he's a brother to me, then how
much more should he be to you?
And he says to Philemon, are you willing
to lay aside all these other trappings in
his life?
Are you willing to lay aside the fact
that you're the employee and he's the employer?
Are you willing to lay aside the fact
that you're the owner and he's the slave?
Although that would not change in actuality, yet
in Christ that doesn't matter anymore.
And I like what Paul says to him.
Oh, Paul is so insightful.
Look at verse 16.
He says, he's no longer as a slave.
He's more than a slave.
He's a beloved brother, especially to me, but
how much more to you?
And now I want you to receive him
back both in the flesh and in the
Lord.
Now, I want to tell you something tonight.
I could love every one of you in
the Lord.
Sometimes it's in the flesh that I have
problems and I'm tested.
But Paul says, I want you to love
him in the flesh.
Yes, he comes back.
He's still a slave, but don't treat him
like a slave anymore.
Yes, he may be this race or he
may be that race.
He may have been a criminal.
He may have been that, but now those
things don't matter anymore.
Christ breaks down the wall of partition between
us.
Hallelujah.
Some people love others only in the Lord,
not in the flesh.
We break bread together.
That's a symbol of being one.
That means that we're one in the Lord.
But my friend, that's not just love in
the Lord.
That's also when we go out of here,
as soon as we go out of the
house of the Lord, we're in the flesh.
I mean, in the good sense, in the
natural sense.
And therefore we must love one another and
accept one another.
And then Paul also had something very interesting
to say about Philemon's financial obligations.
And Paul himself was personally willing to get
involved financially in this case.
And therefore Paul teaches us something about charity.
Look at verse 18 and 19 again.
But if he has wronged you in any
way or owes you anything, charge that to
my account.
This is the first example in the Bible
of a charge account.
Paul set up Visa Master Charge.
He said, charge it to my account.
In fact, he signed it.
He said, I, Paul, am writing this with
my own hand.
I will repay it.
Paul, he's talking about money.
He's talking about, he's going to take it
out of his own pocket.
And then he said, in case this doesn't
work, he puts a parentheses.
Notice it says, lest I should mention to
you that you owe me even your own
self as well.
I love Paul.
Now there's a twofold lesson here and hear
me out.
Christians ought to help other Christians financially.
That's number one.
Number two, wisdom ought to be exercised in
doing it.
Wisdom ought to be exercised in giving us
funds.
Paul gave based on knowing the purity of
Onesimus' heart.
He had discipled him.
He knew Onesimus over a period of time.
He felt Onesimus deserved to be helped because
now his convert was willing to go back
and work.
He was willing to go back and make
certain things right that had been wrong.
And I say to you tonight, friends, beware
of how and who you give to.
Do you know enough about the other person
in the church you're giving funds to?
Because you and I realized in my life,
at times I've given people money when they
needed to have discipling in their life and
certain character changes before that money would mean
anything to them.
Let me ask you this.
Let me take you back to the Old
Testament.
And do you remember the prophet who ran
away and ended up in the belly of
a well?
Jonah, all right.
Suppose you had been witnessing down by the
docks where he went down to get a
ship.
And he had come along and given you
some story.
And he would have had some story and
said, Brother, would you help me?
I'm in a real distress.
I really need to make a trip to
Tarsus.
If you had known what God was doing
in his life, would you have paid his
fare?
And you see, sometimes I've paid people's fare
when God was discipling them and they were
going to Tarsus and I had no business
paying their fare.
That's why there must be discipline.
Proverbs 11, 15 says, Be sure you know
a person well before you vouch for his
credit.
And we've had people that have been coming
here and they've been working the crowd.
And my friend, sometimes it's just putting, you
know, if a person is need, you feel
like you should take them out and give
them a meal, then do that.
Please do that.
Don't get me wrong.
But my friend, what we've got to do,
that's why I love this story of a
letter of Paul's.
Onesimus' life was changed, first of all, and
then Paul got involved.
And that's what we plan to do.
That's what we plan to do in this
ministry here as well.
And as I was saying, we've had people,
I remember our first weekend, our first opening,
a lady came here and she wanted a
place to stay.
And she said, please, you know, announce it
to the people, here I am.
I've come from out of town.
And what she had done is unwisely had
come here, had unwisely come here and she
was just going to throw herself on the
body of Christ.
And she said, would you announce that somebody
would find a place for me?
And I said, no, I'm not going to
announce that, but I'll do my best to
try to find you a place.
And so she pleaded with me.
And so finally I found somebody that was
going to get her a place to stay
overnight in Brooklyn.
And I said, I went over, I was
so happy.
I found somebody and I said, hey, I've
got a place for you to stay over
in Brooklyn.
She says, Brooklyn.
My goodness, I don't want to go over
to Brooklyn.
You see,
Paul used wisdom.
And then finally, Paul's appeal to Philemon in
Omnesimus' behalf teaches us something about receiving back
a fallen brother or sister.
Look at verse 15.
It says, you should receive him back forever.
Verse 16, no longer as a slave, but
much more than a slave, a beloved brother,
especially to me and how much more to
you.
And then verse 17.
What a powerful verse.
Sometime I'm going to preach just on that
one verse.
It says, if then you regard me as
a partner, accept him as you would me.
That's even a type of Christ there.
You talk about sticking up for somebody.
Paul put his reputation, his friendship, he put
everything on the line with Philemon in behalf
of a fallen brother.
And what a beautiful example of forgiveness and
grace.
And you see, the church must always welcome
back the man or woman who's made a
mistake.
And too often, we regard the man who
has taken the wrong turn, we regard them
with suspicion when he returns to God and
we're not prepared to trust him.
It's been said that the most uplifting thing
about Jesus Christ, that he trusts a repenting
man on the very field of his defeat.
And I've seen, that's a beautiful thing that
I've seen about ex-drug addicts, ex-homosexuals,
that God can change their life and then
he trusts them and he will send them
right back out into the same turf and
the same territory to reach the same ones.
But if you've been wronged specifically by somebody,
then God has a lesson for you to
learn here.
May your love be stretched.
If Christ is willing to forgive, may we
not be charged with making it hard for
that one to be restored.
God, give us the spirit of restoration, tempered
with wisdom, when we see that God has
changed a person's life.
Let's pray.
Let's bow in prayer.
This is the end of this sermon by
Don Wilkerson.
For a copy of this tape or any
other from Times Square Pulpit, write to World
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call Area Code.
If this city ever gets to you, start
reading this about Abraham.
Start thinking about this other city.
Hallelujah.
You don't live here, praise God.
God has another city prepared for you.
Jesus is coming back to take us to
that city.
Hallelujah.
That's what it means.
And listen, this confession of Abraham's,