Word of Salvation – Vol. 19 No.42 – July 1973

 

Refresh My Heart In Christ

 

Sermon by Rev. Max H. MacFarlane, Th.Grad. on Philemon 20b

SCRIPTURE READING: Philemon

PSALTER HYMNAL: 263; 7 (Law); 111; 453 (Sermon); 325:1,2 (Doxology)

 

Times of refreshing.

How good they are… and how necessary!

Nice to think about and talk about on a hot summer’s day.  Nice to think back on to the holidays you’ve just had, or maybe the holidays you’re looking forward to.

When you can relax in body, mind and soul.

Having time to look around about you on God’s handiwork; the stars in the heavens; the inlets, rivers, lakes; the majesty of the mountains and the peacefulness of the plains.  Listening to the music of the birds calling back and forth to one another, or just simply warbling away for the sheer joy of it.

Having time just to sit and dream.

Having time to ponder and meditate inwardly on the wonders of God’s grace, as it has been so freely given to us: in good measure, pressed down, running over.  When we know we don’t deserve a bit of it.

Having time to commune with our Lord Jesus Christ – without having to keep an eye on the clock; without having to break off our prayers, our thoughts, to answer the phone.

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You know, even Jesus needed these times of refreshing.

When He was worn out from arguing with people like the scribes and Pharisees; talking with all and sundry day after day; identifying himself with people’s problems; giving people the benefit of His advice, without it costing them a cent; healing people who were suffering from all conceivable kinds of illnesses and diseases.  After such times of stress and strain, Jesus would take Himself off to some quiet, secluded place, away from the crowds, away from His own disciples.

He often had to do this at night, when everyone else was asleep – and refresh Himself by getting together with His Father in prayer.  Out on the hills, maybe.  Where it was so peaceful and quiet.

Do you ever come to Jesus in prayer in this sort of way?  Not necessarily hiking off to the nearest peaceful mountain, but just being alone with God, for a while, away from the hurly-burly of everyday life?  It’s just a thought…. well worth your while considering.

So: Jesus needed these times of refreshing, times of quiet communion with God.  And if Jesus needed such times, then how much more do we need them?

Sometimes, you know, we carry on as though we are greater and stronger than Jesus – not seeing the necessity to drop everything and just come to Him, throwing ourselves into His arms.

Then we wonder why we start cracking up under the strain, and have to go and see a psychiatrist about it.

Crazy isn’t it?  When you can come to the Lord and be restored, be refreshed – for nothing, money-wise.  But instead of doing the obvious thing and coming to the Lord with prayers for help, we simply forget Him – or reckon He can’t do anything about it, anyhow.

So we repeat: Jesus needed times of refreshing.  So do we – only more so.  And, as a matter of fact, so did God himself need it at the time of His creative work.

We read about it in Exodus 31:16 and 17.  Listen to what God says to Moses on that occasion.  He says, “The people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a perpetual covenant.  It is a sign for ever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, AND WAS REFRESHED.”

Would this indicate that the task of creating everything in six literal 24-hour days even made the Lord God feel a bit tired?  So that He needed a rest on the seventh day?  It’s certainly something worth thinking about especially when you remember that these words are the words of God, spoken directly by Him to Moses.

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Now if God, if Jesus Christ needed to be refreshed, how much more do we, as mere human beings, need to be refreshed!

Even such a durable character as Paul needed it occasionally, you know.

We rather tend to stand in awe of Paul, don’t we?

From what we read about Paul in the New Testament, we get the impression that this man was a veritable dynamo of energy and zeal.  He seemed never to stop working.  He gave God everything he had – just as we should give God everything we have.

He tells us how he and his helpers were often pressed to breaking-point; pressed hard on every side by troubles, but never crushed or broken.

They were beaten and knocked down; they faced wild, hostile crowds; they worked themselves to the point of exhaustion and went without food.  They lived under the constant danger of death because they were serving the Lord; because they were fighting for their Lord with every ounce of their strength.

As for Paul himself, he tells us how he was lashed by the Jews time without number.  He was stoned (that doesn’t mean he was drunk!); he was shipwrecked.

He learnt to live with weariness and pain and sleepless nights.  It was commonplace for him to go hungry, thirsty and cold, with not enough clothes to keep himself warm.  But… he never gave up, he never quit the arena.  In fact, he rejoiced in his sufferings for Christ even during the course of his imprisonment in Rome.

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This short letter of Paul’s to his old friend Philemon (pronounced Phil-AY-mon): this letter bears not a single trace of bitterness or resentment.

But Paul does ask his friend a favour…. something that will give him the lift he needs; something that will help him get through those long days of waiting for his appeal to Caesar to be heard.

And the favour is this: that Philemon, who seems to have been the refreshing type, should exercise this gift towards Paul.  Or, as Paul himself says in the words of our text: he wants Philemon to refresh his heart in Christ.

It all has to do with Philemon’s slave by the name of Onesimus (pronounced On-es-imus).  It seems he’d taken off from his master’s place of residence in Colossae and, as it also seems, with some of his master’s money – for the bright lights of Rome.

Evidently our friend Onesimus knew of Paul’s imprisonment in Rome – it would have been common knowledge among the believers in Colossae and other places where Christian churches had sprung up as a result of Paul’s work.

Anyhow, Onesimus finally gets in contact with Paul.  As a result he becomes converted to the christian faith, and out of gratitude to Paul he helps him in various ways.

This would be a great treat for Paul.  But at the same time, no doubt, he would not feel too happy about taking over someone else’s slave.  Especially the slave of one of his best friends: a slave whom he had come to regard as his own child.

So he writes to Philemon (verse 12ff): “I am sending him – Onesimus – back to you, sending my very heart.  I would have been glad to keep him with me, so that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel, but I preferred to do nothing without your consent… so that your goodness might be not by compulsion, but of your own free will.

“Perhaps,” Paul goes on to say (verse 15ff), “this is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave – as a beloved brother in the Lord; especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

“So,” says Paul – and here you see this man’s true humility, and his love and concern for Onesimus – “if you consider me your partner receive him as you would receive me.”  That is, as one who is on an equal spiritual footing as yourself.

Paul goes on: “If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge it to my account.  I, Paul write this with my own hand.  I will repay it – to say nothing of your owing me your own self.

“Yes, brother,” says Paul, “I want some benefit, some return from you in the Lord.’

And what is the benefit, what is the return that Paul has in mind here?  It is this: he wants Philemon to refresh his heart in Christ not by forgetting about the repayment of any stolen money that Paul had offered to make good, but by taking back Onesimus – not on a master-slave basis any more, but on a mutual brotherly relationship, as fellow believers.

And it seems Paul had little doubt that Philemon would do what he was asked to do, as far as Onesimus was concerned.  That in fact he would do even more than he was asked to do (as we see from verse 21).

And that is the mark of the true-blue Christian, you know.  Being ready to do more than you’re ever asked to do.  To go over and beyond the line of your ordinary duty.  Out of love for your neighbour (in this case, out of the love Philemon had for Paul).  But basically, you do it out of love for Christ, whose love for you can never be matched: no, not in a million light years.

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This letter tells the story of the feelings of one saint towards another.  The story of an imprisoned saint whose heart is very much in need of refreshing.

And it’s not only the story of these two saints, Paul and Philemon: it’s the story of ALL God’s people; it’s the story of ALL of us here; of all the saints in every corner of the world.  For…. we need to be refreshed too, isn’t that right?  We too need to be reinvigorated, uplifted, encouraged…. in body and soul.  Even saints can and do faint, you know.

For…. remember what a saint is.  Not a carving out of marble or plaster or whatever, but a man.  A new-born man, with part of his old nature still with him, smouldering like a volcano deep down inside, ready to erupt at any moment.

Whoever would expect to find that righteous man Noah, for example, dead drunk, after he had imbibed too freely of the product of his vineyard?

Who would expect to find David committing adultery and murder?  Or Peter denying his Lord three times?  I tell you, if God were ever to abandon us to ourselves, we would all end up destroying ourselves in sins of some kind or another.  Why, even while we are within the circle of God’s ever-present love, we saints still have our spiritual fainting spells.

Yes, even saints’ hearts – even saints of Paul’s stature – need refreshing, encouraging, cheering up.  In fact, ESPECIALLY saints’ hearts need this in their battle for spiritual survival in what is largely an anti-God world.

Yes, the hearts of the saints need to be refreshed all right.  They need to be refreshed OFTEN.

You fathers and mothers, struggling to make ends meet; trying to give your children the best possible education; trying to bring them up in accordance with the promises you made for them at the time of their baptism. . . . and all this in the midst of a polluted world: how much and how often YOU need this refreshing and encouraging ministry from your fellow saints.

And you young people, trying to find the meaning and purpose of life for yourselves and getting knocked around and disillusioned in the process: how much YOU too need to be reassured and strengthened by your fellow saints.

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Paul’s heart and the hearts of many believers in Colossae had been refreshed by Philemon’s love and concern for them, as we know from verse 7 of this letter.  And no doubt what Paul had done, and was doing now, would also be a source of refreshing for Philemon, too.

That’s how the communion of saints operates – or should operate. Not as a one-way affair, but as a two-way affair.

We need to be helped by our fellow-saints, just as our fellow- saints need to be helped by us.  That’s true, isn’t it?  The Christian life is not all take, but give and take.

Let me ask a question.

When did YOU last give a bit of encouragement, a helping hand to a fellow saint?  To a brother or sister, young or old, in this congregation?  Or to ANYONE, for that matter?

You may throw up your hands in horror and say, “But that’s the minister’s job!”

Of course it is – among a heap of other things.

But isn’t it also a part of YOUR work, too – as a follower of Jesus?  Isn’t it the work of ALL God’s people, as a communion of saints?

Let us realize this: ALL of God’s people, including the ministers especially the ministers, and the elders are in need of this kind of ministry from the whole body of saints, and vice-versa.

That is where we look for it.  In the body of the Church.  And that’s where we expect to find it;… where we should always find it.

And if we don’t find it in the midst of our fellow-saints, and if our fellow-saints don’t find it in us… and if, on a wider scale, people who are not members of our church, or any other church, are in need of real help, and don’t find it in us, then.what other conclusion can we come to than the fact that there’s something RADICALLY WRONG with us, and our so-called fellowship, our so-called unity with Jesus Christ?

And in such circumstances we shouldn’t be at all surprised if He were to give us the same treatment that He dealt out to that Church at Laodicea in the first century A.D.

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Yes, our fellowship WITH CHRIST; our unity WITH CHRIST: that’s where we come to the heart of this refreshing work that Paul speaks about – that Paul craves – in this short letter.

Fellowship with one another, love for one another – loving deeds that are done towards one another through Christ, and in Christ…!

He Himself is the spring of water that wells up to eternal life; the fountain-head; the source of all our refreshing and reviving, which we receive from Him and which splashes over onto others.  Or does it?

Times of refreshing; times of special closeness to Christ.  They’re precious times.  Times to cherish.  Times to remember and think upon.

It’s worth noting that the Greek word used for “refreshing” in our text is the same as that used for “rest” in Jesus’ famous invitation to “come to me, all who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest…. I will refresh you.”

Let us show we really do belong to Christ; let us show we really do have our unity in and with Christ by taking hold of the limitless, reviving powers of Christ and sharing them with one another.

By way of an encouraging word, maybe.

Or an act of Christian love.

An act of sacrificial Christian love.

Where our Lord Jesus Christ is.