Faith Activates Love
“Faith activates love”
Philemon 4-7
Good Morning. It’s nice to see everyone here today.
Introduction:
I have a friend who has just entered into a new phase of his life. He is transitioning from a life of school and ministry to a full time position in the food service industry while still maintaining his ministry schedule. I saw him the other day and he looked pretty worn out. Our conversation revolved around His faith which was being tested repeatedly through out his days. As I listened to him pour out his heart to me, though he seemed to be in hurry, I could not let him leave me without asking him if he had time for me to pray for him.
Today, we’re going to look at the importance of being intentional about making your relationships redemptive ones because God has us all in process where we will need the love, care and support of those around us.
Running this race of faith can be tiresome at times and the challenges that we encounter can really test our faith and wear us down. But it is exactly through our faith in Christ that we will find reprieve and renewal.
Prayer for Illumination
First, I want to begin by talking about the ingredients of a redemptive relationship.
1.) A redemptive relationship involves both our individual relationship with Christ alongside our relationships with others (vv.4-5).
2.) A redemptive relationship meaning doing life together (v.6).
3.) A redemptive relationship refreshing the heart (v.7).
And secondly, talk about the benefits
Prop.
God’s people are blessed when they share their faith.
Org Sent.
Faith in Christ activates love, giving God’s people a deeper understanding of the blessedness of being in Christ while refreshing our hearts.
Please turn with me to Philemon 4-7.
Scripture Introduction:
In this personal letter, Paul writes to Philemon, a slave owner, on behalf of Onesimus, a runaway slave who had wronged Philemon. While on the road, Onesimus runs into Paul, is converted, ends up working in ministry with Paul and is now being sent back to Philemon in hopes of reconciliation.
In this letter of love, Paul desires that Onesimus be welcomed back not as a slave, but as a Christian brother which can be taken as Paul asking Philemon to in effect free Onesimus. What actually happened we may never know. But, since this book is included in the Canon, we can confidently assume that a happy outcome did happen and Paul’s wishes were most likely fulfilled. To us today, Philemon’s faith is a reminder of what the love of Christ can do.
Now, from what I know of Paul through his letters, I think it’s pretty safe to say that he knew the importance of redemptive relationships.
Read Philemon 4-7
Verse 4 begins…
4 I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers,
5 because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your
love for all the saints.
What a wonderful praise Paul gives Philemon.
6 I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith,
so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.
First Main
Because faith in Christ activates love, God’s people experience a deeper understanding of the blessedness of being part of God’s family (v.4-6).
Validation:
If we want to truly experience life in Christ, we need to be actively living our faith.
Explanation:
In verse 6, the exact meaning of active in sharing your faith is unstated; the Greek used here is κοινωνία τῆς πίστεώς, which a few noted theologians suggest could mean:
Ø “The communication of your faith” (Vincent)
Ø “The kindly deeds of charity which spring from faith”(Lightfoot)
Ø “Communion (with Christ) by faith” (Lohse, Stuhlmacher, Jang)
Ø Or “The participation of other Christians in your faith” (J.Y. Campbell).
When we take all of these into consideration, what Paul most likely means here by active in sharing your faith is the outwardly expression that comes from embracing faith in Christ, which than produces, experientially, a revelatory understanding of the blessedness of being a part of the Body of Christ. This outwardly expression of faith exhibits itself in a combination of both words and deeds. James 2:18 sums this up well when he says, “I will show you my faith by what I do.” It is this active sharing that will be effective in helping Philemon experience a fuller understanding of the blessedness of being in Christ. From verses 1 and 2 we can conclude that Philemon was a fellow-worker of the Gospel, possibly even a church leader because his house was the meeting place for the church. In essence, Philemon was an example of someone actively living their faith.
For us, living out our faith means doing life together with our fellow brothers and sisters, like Philemon, we can do ministry together or we can open up our homes for fellowship possibly even hosting bible studies or we can invite people over from church that we don’t know to share a meal together. All of these things are wonderful expressions of our faith that builds community. But for these things to happen, we need to be available. As part of Christ’s body, we have a responsibility to care for and edify His body.
We live in a fast paced and compartmentalized world. So much so that when a person takes time out of their life to genuinely care for someone else’s needs, this speaks volumes to a society that is longing for a more personal and intimate touch of Christ’s love. But, pastoral care shouldn’t be a switch that we turn on and off; it should be part of who we are and not something that we do just on Sundays, at youth group, in our small groups or on mission trips. We need to push past this compartmentalization of pastoral care. Pastoral care needs to be infused into who we are, so that no matter where we are, we are living as God has called each of us, which is to first and foremost love Him but also to love one another. When we are living our faith, we will be caring for one another in genuine community as a family, uplifting the Body of Christ. And we as God’s people will experience a deeper understanding of Christ’s love for us.
Illustration:
This same friend of mine whom I mentioned earlier has had some pretty disappointing experiences with the Body of Christ. His story begins in a mega church, with a population in the thousands. He often went to church with his family, but would then sneak away. He enjoyed the freedom to breeze in and out unnoticed, unchallenged, and unsaved. Him and his friends were often labeled and written off as trouble makers. No one cared if they showed up or not. After 10 years, he moved to the States where the next church he experienced was one with a population in the hundreds. This church was filled with people who gossiped and whose phoniness was blatantly evident. This went on for about a year and half, until he eventually left the church altogether and fell into a life of drugs and alcohol. Up to this point in his life, he was yet to meet a Christian who was different. It wasn’t until years later that the Lord, in His faithfulness, drew my friend to a small house church, this time, population 25. When he first went to this church what struck him was their love, not only for each other, but for him. Some Sundays he would be hung over sometimes even drunk but what amazed him was that these people didn’t judge him but actually talked and listened to him. He actually thought their genuineness was phony. So he went back week after week because he just couldn’t believe that their love was real. And week after week after week he felt the same genuine love until he eventually decided to enter into their faith, into their family, into new life in Christ because through them, he felt the realness of God because of the love he felt through their faith.
When I first heard my friend’s story, what moved me was the realization of the importance of truly living out our faith and the importance of being Christ’s representatives and how His love that flows in and through us is so contrary to the world. Our faith in Christ moves us to love as Him. His love impacted and changed this world for all eternity. So if we are to understand this correctly, then we must come to the realization that this same love actually lives in all us and is the blessedness of being part of the Body of Christ. This story is not about church size, but about faith size. It is through the active sharing of our faith that we will experience the fullness of God’s love not only in our lives, but in the lives that we touch. Like my friend and so many others, seeing and experiencing the love that faith in Christ produces will forever be part of his testimony.
Paul continues on in verse 7 by saying…
7 Your love has given me great joy and encouragement,
because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints.
Second Main
Because faith in Christ activates love, the hearts of God’s people as refreshed (v.7).
Validation:
It is through the active expression of our faith that produces a refreshing love which recharges the saints.
Explanation:
What does it mean to refresh someone’s heart?
To Paul, just hearing about Philemon’s love gave him great joy and encouragement. Now this love as I mentioned was an active sharing of faith, which could have been a variety of things. It could have been that Philemon because of his faith in Christ was moved to be generous with his possessions; maybe he was active in providing for others in material needs. Or maybe he was an evangelist who actively proclaimed the Gospel. Or possibly he was a man of great faith who held fast to the teachings of Jesus and was actively living in spiritual union with Christ. Whichever it was, if not all, one thing is for certain, Philemon was actively living his faith in community where he was actively refreshing the hearts of the saints.
When I hear the word refreshed a whole slew of other words comes to mind; rejuvenated, renewed, revived, restored, relaxed, regenerated, recuperated. Whatever other words comes to mind for you I imagine they are also words related to renewal. The words refreshed heart also brings to mind many images; for me the image of relaxing in a hot tub comes to mind. For you it could be sitting in a sauna or maybe gardening, possibly it’s spending time with family. Maybe it’s walking along a beach with your spouse or maybe it means spending time with your children or maybe it means relaxing in your favorite chair while reading a book. Whatever it maybe, I think we can all safely say that it’s a good thing, a blessing, to have our hearts refreshed.
Illustration:
I know being in seminary is not easy, there always seems to be something that needs to be done for a class, a book on systematic theology that needs to be read or some Greek or Hebrew vocab cards that need to be memorized. It’s real easy for me to let my schoolwork consume me. When this happens, what suffers the most is my devotional and prayer times. Too often my devotional times are non-existent and in prayer, instead of being present with the Lord, I often find myself just rattling off a list of requests at Him. Other times when I am studying, if the Holy Spirit prompts me to call or go talk to a person, my first response is: “I don’t have the time because I have way too much schoolwork to do.” And just like that my priorities get rearranged.
It’s in these moments that I’ve had to stop everything, take a breath, and remind myself why I’m here and that it’s not about me, or my grades, but about Christ and His love that transforms lives, that’s what brought us all here. Isn’t it? Wanting to impact and penetrate this fallen world with the hope and love of Christ, refreshing people’s hearts through the sharing of the gospel of our faith. I’m not saying that we need to not be doing our very best while we’re here at Trinity. What I am saying is that we need to be obedient to the Lord first and foremost and take a hard look at our priorities and weigh them against God’s word and the convictions they bring through the Spirit to our hearts. We all have this massive amount of vertical love towards God and that’s great. We are commanded to love the Lord God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. But if that’s all we have and the horizontal love towards our neighbor is missing then we need to remind ourselves again, about why we’re all here.
Application:
So how can we share our faith in such a way that refreshes the hearts of God’s people? I think our Savior said it best, by loving that person as you love yourself.
To be more specific God’s word tells us:
- We need to be devoted to one another in addition to honoring one another (Rom 12:10).
- We need to be united with one another (Rom 15:5) by being accepting of one another (Rom 15:7)
- We need to be admonishing one another (Rom 15:14) as well as bearing one another’s burdens (Gal 6:2)
- We need to be serving one another (Gal 5:13) while submitting to one another (Eph 5:21)
- We need to be encouraging one another (1 Thes. 5:11) and bearing with and forgiving one another (Eph 4:2)
- As we confess sin (James 5:16) and pray for one another (James 5:16)
We have to remember that it’s our faith in Christ that activates love and empowers us through the Holy Spirit to be grace and truth to people. And that when we are these things, people’s hearts will be refreshed which will not only bring renewal, but will also inevitably impact their lives with the transforming power of God’s love which will deeper their understanding of who God is and His love for all of us.
So what does this mean for us, maybe it means that you need to do something that refreshes your own heart, possibly even what came to mind earlier. But maybe it means that you need to get into some meaningful fellowship with other believers whose faith will minister and refresh your heart while your faith in turn will minister and refresh their heart.
Conclusion:
When we are really living our faith, people are going to notice. They are going to feel the love that our faith in Christ activates and we will experience a deeper understanding of the blessedness that comes from being part of the Body of Christ. But we have to be actively participating in fellowship, friendship and ministry, not out of obligation, but because our faith in Christ compels us. When we are regularly sharing our faith, the Lord, through the fellowship of the saints, deepens our understanding of Him while helping other receive a fuller experience of the Gospel.
Paul’s prayer for Philemon is one we should all hope can be said about us.
4 I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers,
5 because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus
and your love for all the saints.
6 I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith,
so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.
7 Your love has given me great joy and encouragement,
because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints.
Let’s make it a priority to refresh someone’s heart today.
Let us pray.
Father in Heaven, thank you Lord that Your love impacts this dark world. Thank you Lord for building faith in us to believe in who your word says you are. Give us the grace to be more like Jesus. Help us Lord to be passionate about what you are passionate about. Open up opportunities and give us the grace to refresh hearts with the Gospel not only in our words, but more so through our actions so that people will praise you because of us, because they feel your compassion through us. Empower us Holy Spirit to be grace and truth to everyone we encounter.
In Christ’s name we prayer. Amen.
Go in peace.
