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The Friendship and Fellowship

Of the Gospel, Part 3
Philemon 5-6
May 28, 2005

Introduction

Have you ever stopped to consider what motivates

people to give what they do? There are two elements to
their giving. There is love and there is loyalty. People
give to what they love. Or they give to what they feel a
certain sense of loyalty toward. And sometimes they
give because of both.

There are some who feel a certain sense of loyalty

toward the Fraternal Order of Police, or the Shriners, or
to Muscular Distrophy, to hungry children in third-world
countries, the Red Cross, to PETA (People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals), to PBS (Public Broadcasting
Service) or NPR (National Public Radio), to Callaway
Gardens, and the list could go on and on and on. The
opportunities to give away your money to a ‘needy’
cause are endless. There will never be a short supply of
people and their organizations to take your money.

Giving of this sort comes under the heading of

‘humanitarianism.’ It is defined as ‘the concern for
human welfare.’ A humanitarian is someone devoted to
the concern for human welfare and the advancement of
social concerns. There are many ‘good’ humanitarian
causes, and many ‘good’ humanitarians. There are
people who feel genuinely loyal to certain causes in
humanity. I was unable to find some exact figures for
how much humanitarian giving was done in 2004, but
one estimate puts it around $628 billion dollars.
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But here’s my question about this kind of giving. Where

does it come from, and what lasting effects will it have, I
mean eternal effects, of course? Does humanitarian
giving arise out of biblical truth? I think most of the time
it arises out of some felt sense of loyalty toward a
particular need. Perhaps someone lost a loved one to
Muscular Distrophy and now they want to devote their
lives to raising money for it. Or perhaps they have
formed a close friendship with someone in PBS and they
want to see that continue to flourish. There are many
reasons for humanitarian giving, but my question is this:
does it flow from the love of God for us in Christ and
does it flow from our love for Jesus Christ?

If this motivation of God’s love for us and our love for

Jesus Christ is missing, then the heart of giving is
missing. God is the greatest giver, and if we don’t give
like Him or for Him, we are not giving in a way that
glorifies Him, and so we must ask ourselves are we
really giving at all?

Further, if the motivation of loyalty does not have the

people of Jesus as the heart of the giving, can it really be
God-glorifying giving? Again, people feel loyal to all
manner of things, but do they feel a loyalty to the God
who gave them life and breath, food and water, clothing
and housing? Do they feel a loyalty to Him who gave
them what they desire to give to someone else? And do
they feel a loyalty to what God is loyal to? If not, it
cannot be God-glorifying giving.

Also, if it happens to give to the people of Christ, this

kind of giving does not have a heart for all of them, but
only for some of them, in sort of a cliquish sense. Again,
humanitarian giving is cliquish, only concerning itself
with one particular need, or one particular group of
people, or one particular country. I know we’ve got to
start somewhere, and everybody can’t do everything.
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But from the Bible’s perspective, the fact that
humanitarian giving is limited to one focus betrays the
fact that it is not God-glorifying, for it does not feel a
loyalty to everything God demonstrates loyalty towards.

Now you have to ask yourself a very tough question: is

humanitarian giving or any giving to any charity
considered a ‘good work?’ Is giving a good work simply
when it is money given to someone else? I think we are
going to find out this morning that ‘good works’ are
defined by loyalty and love expressed through giving
and serving. But we will find out that that love and
loyalty are expressed through giving and serving Jesus
Christ and His people…period. Christians will feel a love
for and loyalty towards Jesus Christ and what He feels
love for and loyalty towards. And Philemon is a
beautiful, living color example of this in Scripture. But
before we venture there, let’s review where we’ve been
so far in Philemon.

Transition

First, true believers will care about the application and

advancement of the gospel. They will care about the
fact that the gospel is applied to their lives, and how it
is applied. And believers will also care about the
advancement of the gospel. And the greatest way in
which we apply the gospel is by serving others. Because
it is only in serving others that the gospel will be
advanced. As I said that morning, the advancement of
the gospel does not depend upon us, but it does depend
upon us serving one another. Paul’s thanksgiving for
Philemon shows us that Philemon was this kind of a
servant, who cared about applying the gospel to himself
and his house church, and because of that care saw the
advancement of the gospel.

Second, true believers will have such a intimate and

personal relationship with God that they automatically
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and spontaneously spend much time thinking about and
praying for other believers. This is seen in the life of
Paul who always thought about and prayed for the
believers in every place he went. His heart was so in
love with Jesus that his heart could not but help be in
love with Jesus’ children. The result was that he was
always thinking about them and praying for them.

3. True Believers will Make it their Aim to Love

and be Faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, as well as
to One Another, Thereby Proving their Faith
Through Good Works.

In verse 5, Paul thanks God for the love and faith of

Philemon, both of which are displayed “toward the
Lord Jesus and all the saints.” He deals with the faith
in v. 6 (“the sharing of your faith”), and the love in
verse 7 (“from your love”).

From these three verses we gather three observations

we must make in order to comprehend the most
essential gospel-centered elements that will promote
true friendship and fellowship in our little flock.

A. The Marks of Gospel Friendship and

Fellowship are Love and Faithfulness (v. 5a)

There are two key words used here in verse 5: love

(agape) and faith (pistis).

A. Agape love is the kind of love that continues to

give a person(s) what he (they) needs without reference
to how it may affect or serve the giver. It gives to what
is needed and expects nothing in return. It is the love of
John 3:16, of God loving a world that could not, would
not, and did not love Him…loving it so much that He
gave all He had, His only Son to die and forgive. That’s
what Philemon was most notable for in verse 5. He
loved by giving what he had – of himself and his
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resources – and he did so without worrying about how it
would affect or serve him.

The best illustration of this is parental love, isn’t it? We

guide, direct and love our children, but I’ve not met a
parent yet who does all these things with any real sense
of expectation of something in return. Have you? You
just do it because you love them, and there’s never this
sense of expecting them to do something wonderful for
you in return. It’s always nice when they do, and they
should, in fact, do these things. But parents hardly ever
expect it. And that’s good. That’s biblical love.

B. Pistis, or faith, is used here with reference to

loyalty and faithfulness. It is not a reference to ‘saving
faith,’ because it follows the word ‘love,’ and because it
is directed toward the Lord Jesus and all the saints. We
do not place any saving faith in the saints, but we are to
be faithful to them. Therefore, the meaning Paul intends
here is that Philemon was loyal and faithful to the saints
in his house-church. He was a man described by Paul’s
words in Galatians 6:10. “So then, as we have
opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially
to those who are of the household of faith.”

I know a man named Gene Frazier. His wife’s name is

Sharon. They are members of the first church where I
pastored in northern California. Gene and Sharon are
approaching their seventies, if they are not already
there. To me, when I think of faithfulness and loyalty, I
think of the Fraziers. The church where I pastored had
its share if conflict and trouble. And when many people
would be leaving because of it, the Fraziers stayed
behind. Gene was especially loyal in terms of his
leadership. He was a deacon there and may still be to
this day. Even after my departure, which was shrouded
in conflict and trouble, Gene stayed on. He
demonstrated such loyalty to a body of believers
regardless of the conflict and trouble. He was a servant
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who had persevered through so much and weathered so
many storms, yet he remained. He personified Galatians
6:10 to me and my family while we were there. And I
would say that Gene would be a modern day Philemon,
minus the runaway slave, since Gene doesn’t own any
slaves!

When we put these two words together, what we

have is clear: we savor the Savior by serving the
saints. Or as F. F. Bruce has stated it, “Love and loyalty
to the people of Christ provide visible evidence of love
and loyalty to the unseen Christ” (The Epistles to the
Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, NICNT, p.
208). This is just what the apostle John teaches us in 1
John 4:20-21.

“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his

brother, he is a liar; for he who does not
love his brother whom he has seen cannot
love God whom he has not seen. And this
commandment we have from him: whoever
loves God must also love his brother.”

Remember where John got this kind of talk from? He got

it from his Master, Jesus Christ, who taught it never more
clearly than in the upper room discourse, that night of
the last supper, before Jesus was arrested. In John 15,
Jesus emphasized this issue of love and loyalty with His
disciples.

• In verse 9, the concept of abiding in Jesus is

attached to love. Love means abiding in Christ,
which means remaining faithful to Christ, loyal to
Him. It carries with it the idea of pitching a tent
and taking up residence with Christ, just as He has
done within us. His move in this way
demonstrated loyalty to us, and our abiding or
remaining in Him demonstrates our loyal to Him.
And this is how we love Him.
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• In verse 10, obedience to Christ is the chief form of
faithfulness to Him. If we obey Him, we are being
faithful to Him. If we obey Him we are loving Him.
Love and obedience, faithfulness and obedience
are connected here.
• In verse 11, this kind of lifestyle promotes joy, just
as we see it did in Philemon’s life and house
church, a seen in verse 7. The saints were
refreshed and made joyful by his lifestyle
• In verse 12, this is a pattern for us to follow.
• In verse 14, Jesus urged them that if they were
really His disciples they would obey His
commands. And then He followed that by issuing
them a new command, but one which has really
existed all along – love one another.

So Jesus binds together love and faithfulness, service

and loyalty. And He connects abiding in Him with love
and obedience.

This is illustrated for us in Philemon’s life. The love and

faithfulness Philemon was pouring out on the flock there
was simply the practical outworking of his Christian faith.
This is just what we read of in Galatians 5:6. “The only
thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”
To be sure, Paul is in fact speaking about saving faith in
Galatians 5:6. But the issue surrounds love, doesn’t it?
If love is not present, neither saving faith nor loyalty nor
faithfulness can be said to be present either, right?

Philemon’s saving faith was made complete by works of

love – which proved his loyalty and devotion to Christ’s
people - just as James has written about in chapters one
and two. He taught at the end of chapter one that it is
not enough to hear truth, but that we must also obey
(1:22). True religion then consists in doing what is
needed to minister to needy persons, such as widows
and orphans (1:27). Then in chapter two James goes on
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to teach that faith without the works to prove it is real is
really worthless faith. In 2:14 and following, he has
written:

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone

says he has faith but does not have works?
Can that faith save him? If a brother or
sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily
food, and one of you says to them, ‘God in
peace, be warm and filled,’ without giving
them the things needed for the body, what
good is that? So also faith by itself, if it
does not have works, is dead.”

Now, to be sure, James, like Paul writing to Galatians, is

writing to the Jews about saving faith, and not loyalty or
devotion or faithfulness here. However, it is inescapable
that since the same word, pistis, is used, there is an
inseparable connection between saving faith and loyalty
or faithfulness. You cannot be loyal to Christ unless you
have savingly believed in Him. And you cannot claim to
have savingly believed in Him without also
demonstrating that through loyalty and faithfulness to
Him, as well as to His people.

Remember the picture of the last judgment we dealt

with a number of weeks ago from Matthew 25? The
thing that truly separated the sheep from the goats was
the self-sacrificial love that motivated their feeding the
hungry, and clothing the naked, visiting the sick and
imprisoned, etc. Jesus words were, “Truly, I say to you,
as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,
you did it to me’” (Matt. 25:40). Jesus did not know
them because they had not ministered to Him before
through the needs of other Christians. If they didn’t love
them in these ways, they didn’t love Jesus, and therefore
He didn’t know who they were.
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It is on the basis of this theology of Jesus, James, and
John – among many others, of course – that one writer
believes, “However much we are faithful to sound
doctrine, if it is not empowered by love, our actions will
be fruitless” (Alan Morrison “Hidden Gem” at
www.diakrisis.org). Love and faith go hand in hand.
Loyalty, devotion, and faithfulness must be accompanied
by and proven by actions of love and service, else it is a
loyalty in word only.

1 Corinthians 13, the most formidable chapter in all of

Scripture on love, talks about this very thing doesn’t it?
If I don’t have love then all my giving and living are
really nothing. And in verse 7, love never gives up. It is
faithful and loyal to the end.

As it applies to Philemon and Onesimus, Paul was simply

pointing out that the grace and mercy of God extended
to them both through Christ meant that their lives were
revolving around relationships with one another,
relationships that live and breath love and service to one
another. The love that God had shown through Christ to
Philemon, Philemon was now showing to others through
Christ.

And the same applies to us today. Why do I stress these

issues of service and love again this week? First,
because it is central to the Christian faith, the very core
of the gospel. Second, because we too often see
regeneration or Christianity as a celebration of the
cerebrum, instead of a restoration of relationship
(Morrison). God didn’t save us to make us

“theologically accurate robots, able, at the

drop of a hat, to trot out by rote this or that
systematic doctrine…The cardinal design of
the new birth in Christ is to restore, in a
renewed manner, the relationship which
was torn asunder by the Fall. That means
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our relationship with God and with our
fellow men (Matt. 22:36-40)” (ibid).

It’s all about relationships and God stepped into

humanity to restore a broken relationship. And He did
so through service, through serving others in a way that
met real needs.

While God expects us to utilize our intellect for His glory,

to learn, study and meditate upon Him and His nature,
His work and attributes, and everything else in the
Scriptures, the sole purpose of it all is to restore, renew,
rebuild, and transform relationships with one another,
through service, or in short, to love one another. The
truths of God’s Word are not there solely as objects to
study or memorize. They are truths which are meant to
change our lives and unify us into intimate relationships
with one another, which only happens through service.

We can study truths and theology and doctrine all we

want. But if our doctrinal faithfulness does not express
itself in faithfulness to the saints, in real, sincere, and
practical love for one another - fervent love as Peter
called it (1 Pet. 2) and refreshing love as Paul called it in
Philemon 7 - for our neighbors, our brothers and sisters
in Christ, and even our enemies, then we are more than
likely imposters, nominal Christians, who only have a
form of godliness but have no power of God within.

Transition

Now this first observation becomes a foundation for our

second observation, making the second more
comprehendible and brief.

B. The Objects of Gospel Friendship and

Fellowship are Jesus Christ and All the Saints
(v. 5b)
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The love and loyalty that we show to Jesus Christ will be
reflected in the love and loyalty we show to all the
saints, plain and simple. We will know whether or not
we are truly being loyal to Jesus when we are being loyal
to each other. We will know we are truly ‘in love’ with
Jesus Christ, so to speak, when we are truly ‘in love’ with
all the saints.

At first glance, the phrase, “toward Jesus Christ and all

the saints,” is really nothing more than a restatement of
the two greatest commandments, to love and believe
in the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and
strength; and to love one another as we would want to
be loved (Matthew 22:37-39).

Love and Faith Toward Jesus Christ

Faith and love have as their object the person of Jesus

Christ. This is where humanitarian giving lacks. And any
service we do that is not also done out of a profound
sense of God’s love for us and is not motivated by our
love for Christ is empty humanitarianism. It is not a
good work at all.

In this kind of giving and serving, the soul beholds Christ

for who He is, as He has revealed Himself in Scripture
and in our hearts, and we reach out and embrace Him in
our affections, thus loving Him. And in loving Him we
become loyal to Him, faithfully devoted to Him. Our
souls realize that it is our natural response to follow a
Savior who has done what He has done for us.

Love and Faith Toward All the Saints

But again, as we just saw earlier, that love and faith

toward Christ will always connect us with other saints on
whom we will pour out our love and faith. Love and faith
cannot simply and only exist in our hearts towards
Christ. They must make their way out of our hearts and
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into the lives of others, by serving them. Remember
Matthew 25? When we serve even the least of the
saints, Christ’s brothers and sisters, we are serving
Christ. We love and believe in Jesus Christ by
loving and being faithful to the saints.

Now, how do we serve and love the saints? What shape

does that take? What comes to mind when you think
about loving and serving all the saints? The text points
us to the answer. In this phrase, ‘toward all the saints,’
there are three emphases you must note.

1. First, we are loyal and faithful, first and foremost,

to the saints. Remember Galatians 6:10? We must
always use every opportunitiy to do good especially to
those of the household of faith, to the church, to
believers, to all the saints. Jesus words from Matthew
25, which we just quoted, bear witness to this, with the
idea of ministering to the least of these, ‘my brethren.’
John continues the same theme in 1 John, with love
centering on our brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s not
that we don’t love lost people. It’s just that we love
those in the family of God the most.

2. Second, we are to be loyal and faithful to “all the

saints,” and not just those with whom we have a close
relationship or friendship. Cliques should be a non-entity
within the body of Christ. Sure, there will naturally be
friends with whom we are closer to than others. But
what is unnatural is when those few friends take up all of
our time, resources, energy, etc. This takes works,
doesn’t it? Paying constant attention to the needs of all
the saints, making constant efforts to forge intimate
friendships with all the saints, all of this takes a lot of
work. But we must stretch ourselves out and do it, not
becoming apathetic to the needs of other saints, and not
feeling complacently satisfied about the present
friendships we are enjoying with various believers.
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3. Third, out of the first two flow the implication of
unity or oneness of spirit. It is not in the text, but clearly
implied in it. ‘Togetherness’ is a good word to use here.
‘Family’ is another good word. We have all been
baptized into one body, as Paul wrote to the Ephesians
(v. 4). We all have one Lord, one baptism, one faith (v.
5). We all have the same God for our Father, and He is
the Father of all of us (v. 6). This means that we are all
‘together,’ unified in Christ.

Philemon’s loyalty and faithfulness to each and every

single believer in his house-church helped produce and
maintain and foster a true spirit of family and
togetherness. There were no cliques. No one was left
out. They were all in this thing together. They could
also be described by the words Paul used to describe the
Philippians in 1:27: “stand fast in one spirit, with one
mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.”
“There is accent on the word ‘together’ which many
brethren who strive for the faith of the gospel may
willfully overlook. In contending for the faith, there must
be a loving unity in the Body” (Morrison).

Conclusion

We stand to become a more unified group of believers,

truly offering others a reason to join our numbers, when
we stretch ourselves out to be Philemons – stopping at
nothing to express love and faithfulness toward Jesus
and all the saints. Unity and intimacy will come through
service and service is simply defined as loyalty in love to
others in meeting others’ needs.

And to end this sermon on the motivation again, think of

it this way. Jesus Christ stretched out His arms to die on
the cross, the most supreme act of service anyone could
ever perform for anyone else, and the most supreme act
of service anyone else has ever performed for anyone
else.
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Stretching out His arms to die to forgive you and I was

an act of service. And when we are profoundly impacted
by that act of service, that act of considering others and
their needs as more important than our own, the desire
to serve and the ways in which we serve will begin to
flow nonstop out of our hearts and lives.

He stretched out His arms to die to serve us. Will you

stretch out your arms and your hands to die to yourself
and serve others? The gospel message is at the center
of serving and giving. If we are not giving and serving
then we betray the fact that the gospel is not really
within our hearts and lives, or perhaps it has become too
covered up with worldliness, silliness, and selfishness.
Dig down deep today within and see if that gospel
message is really there. If it is, then stretch yourself out
and die to yourself to love Christ Jesus and all the saints.