Authority and Love #2

Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. It is our joy to continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word. Today Don is continuing with the second part of a message we started last time.

So let's get right to it. Open your Bible as we join Don now in The Truth Pulpit. And so what's Philemon presented with here? He's got a loving appeal from Paul. He has a man here who is being converted to Christ, and now he's being asked to receive him in a way that he otherwise might not have done. What can we draw from this? What can we draw from the way that Paul handles this situation? There's three things that I want to lay out for you.

Before I get to those, let me say this. Sometimes, and we're just going to talk about the nature of life in the church, life as a Christian maybe is better, not just within the church, but speaking even more broadly. Sometimes leadership must be strong. It must be decisive, and sometimes it must deal with situations in a firm way. The Apostle Paul himself said in 1 Corinthians 5, I'm delivering this man over to Satan because of his unrepentant condition, because of the threat that he is to the church, I'm delivering him over to Satan. Our Lord Jesus established a process for church discipline in Matthew 18 that would deal with unrepentant people who are within the body of Christ, because the issue of purity and unity of the church is so vital and important. And so sometimes leadership must be decisive and deal with things like that. But in the context of trusting relationships in Christ, you see a different pattern.

You see something different that is being in place. And what I want to lay out before you, especially for you young guys that are here, new Christians just entering into adult life and asking yourself, what kind of person am I going to be going forward? How should I condition my mind? How should I think? What should be my affections? What should be my priorities? As a young Christian man, what kind of man am I going to be? As God expands my sphere of influence, what kind of man am I going to be with people that look to me, that serve me, that trust me?

How am I going to deal with them? Let me give you three things to help you think through those things. And three things that would mark even leadership in the church as well.

Just multiple applications for this. First of all, based on the pattern that we've seen with our Lord and with the Apostle Paul, first of all, humble yourself. Humble yourself.

Here's a great challenge for a young man of ability, of talent, given authority. You start to think well of yourself. You start to think more highly of yourself than you ought. And if you've had parents that have affirmed you and centered their lives around you, it's made it so that you start to think that you're the center of the universe. I know I was, you know, I was kind of raised alone in my family and was kind of the center of things. And, you know, my mom was always good to me. Thanks, mom. But you have to learn to separate yourself from the loving care that parents give you as you transition into adulthood to think about, okay, now how am I going to work?

I had parents that served me. There comes a point where you have to transition out of that and say, the idea is not for the world to serve me, but I want to be like my Christ. I'm not here to be served, but to serve. And so your talent, your ability, your resources are simply something that is given to you to be a channel to bless others with.

This totally reorients the way that you think about life. That's why we're pausing and going slow on this. You humble yourself. The Apostle Paul, here in Philemon, refused to assert his position in order to get what he wanted in the situation. He didn't say, I'm an apostle, I command you obey.

He took a much more longer route that honored relationships and dealt with the considerations of others. Let me show you how this plays out in leadership within the church. Turn over to 1 Peter 5.

This is a concern that authority be handled in love, that authority be handled with humility. 1 Peter 5 is the apostle Peter addresses elders in the church. He says, therefore, I exhort the elders among you. 1 Peter 5, verse 1. Therefore, I exhort the elders among you as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ.

Stop right there. Maybe you've never really thought about this. Peter was an apostle! And yet, notice how he describes himself here in chapter 5, verse 1. He speaks of himself simply as a fellow elder to those who were not apostles. Rather than, in this particular point, rather than compelling and commanding them using his apostolic authority, he says, I exhort you as one who is like you. He lowers himself to their level to exhort them rather than asserting his apostolic prerogatives. He says, I'm just your fellow elder.

I'm a witness of the sufferings of Christ and as a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed. Now he gets into his exhortation, verse 2. Shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion but voluntarily, according to the will of God and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness, nor, here's what I wanted to get to, nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. Peter says, authority is not given to you to lord it over people and to simply compel them and command them to do what you want them to do.

He says, that authority is given so that you could be an example, so that you could oversee them, not for your personal gain, but for their benefit as those who are in Christ. You see it? You see the humility that this calls for? Do you see the self-restraint that this calls for, rather than asserting everything that might be yours by position to deal with others in love? You humble yourself. You recognize, yes, this position is mine.

If it needs to be used, I will, but that's not going to be the mark of the way that I deal with people, lording it over them. You humble yourself in the position that God has given to you. Secondly, you honor the godly. You honor the godly. Paul honored Philemon by... Go back to Philemon.

Paul honored Philemon. He elevated him. He elevated him, saying that, your faith, your love, has been a cause of me giving thanks. I recognize the way that you have refreshed the hearts of the saints. That has brought me joy.

It has brought me comfort. He elevates the man that he's writing to because he's a godly man. Look at verse 14.

How much did he honor him? So much so that he deferred and even submitted to what Philemon's desires might be. In verse 14, he says, without your consent... Well, go to verse 13. He said, I wish to keep Onesimus with me. I wanted to do that because oh, do I love him and oh, is he useful to me.

But verse 14, I set all of that aside. I set my desires aside because without your consent, I didn't want to do anything. Philemon, it was too important to me that I would not compel your goodness by not even giving you the opportunity to speak into the situation.

It was more important to me to set aside my self-interest so that I could honor your desires and your position and your prerogatives as Onesimus' master. He's honoring him. He's deferring to him. He's affirmed him, and now he honors him to the point where he submits his own self-interest to Philemon's determination.

Wow! He has the authority to get what he wants and doesn't use it. He honors him. Romans 13, verse 7 says that you give honor to whom honor is due. Well, when you have godly men in your midst, if you have a godly spouse, if you have children that are trying to walk with the Lord, well, you honor them, and you start to realize that I deal with them differently. I don't assert my prerogatives over them and just demand what I want out of them. That's not godly!

That's not like Christ! I use my position to serve, to encourage, to help them, you say, to yourself. And so you honor them, you respect them, you deal with them.

Beloved, here's the thing. Whenever possible, whenever possible, you cultivate willing agreement, even if it takes a little more time, than external compliance by the force of your position. Those are big principles to take and to work out in life. You see, you and I are only going to live rightly in life with the position and authority that the Lord gives to us. If we have first thought through why we have authority and position to begin with. Only then, only when you're thinking about these deeper spiritual principles, only when you're thinking about the priorities of authority and service that Christ laid out in Matthew 20, and say that you're not to be like the world, you're not to be like your unsaved father and the way that he did things.

That's not the standard, beloved. You have to step back and think through what it is that you have been given and think through how it is that you are to use it, rather than simply going through life pushing buttons in order to get what you want. This matters. To lay hold of these things is to lay hold of the nerve center of what a Christian man should become. Finally, we said you humble yourself, you honor the godly. Finally, you help the weak. You help the weak. And go back to verses 8 through 11 one more time.

Verses 8 through 11 one more time. And in a sense, Paul is helping both Philemon and Onesimus here. He's helping Philemon walk through the right way to think about the situation that's being presented to him, and so he's helping him from a position of perspective. And he's also helping Onesimus, who is completely vulnerable in this situation.

If his master turns on him, he is subject to severe punishment as a fugitive slave. And so he's vulnerable. And notice this.

Notice this. Onesimus, being in that vulnerable position, nevertheless deferred when Paul sent him back to Philemon. He is compliant. And yet his very compliance, his obedience to Paul, puts him in a position of vulnerability.

Well, what does Paul do? He protects him. He helps him in his time of weakness. He says, Onesimus, you're not going to have to stand before your former master alone. I'll give you my protection.

I'll write a letter that I know this man will receive well. I'll help you in your obedience to Christ. And so Paul uses his position of superior authority to help the one in the most vulnerable and weak position. That's what Christians do. That's the way that church leadership operates, is to help the weak, to protect them, to protect them from unseen dangers, to protect them in their spiritual struggles, to give them strength, to give them help, to, as it were, get under them and establish them. That's what you do with spiritual authority. Look over at 1 Thessalonians 5.

This isn't just done indiscriminately. Different people come who are dealt with differently. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 14, though, I just want you to see this one thing. We'll begin in verse 12.

As again, you see these principles laid out in different contexts with different theme words being used, but you see these principles woven through the way Christian relationships are handled. Verse 12. The Apostle Paul, it's incredible. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 12. Here's the Apostle Paul with the authority to command.

Look at what he says in verse 12. We request of you. He humbles himself. We request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction. He says, I want you to honor the godly. He humbles himself and makes a request rather than asserting a cold command. And he says, I want you to appreciate them, esteem them very highly in love because of their work, live in peace with one another.

What is he saying? Accept honor the godly in the way that you live in the church. And then in verse 14, he says, we urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the faint-hearted.

Here it is. Help the weak. Help the weak.

Be patient with everyone. He says, there are going to be those among you who are suffering, those who are doubting, those who are unsure of what to do next. They have not yet grown in the grace and knowledge of Christ to a point where they stand firm on their own. He says, you view such ones like that with tender affection. You care for them. You help them.

You be patient with them. The end of verse 14, be patient with everyone while the Lord does his work to build them up and strengthen them. He says to the church at Thessalonica, use your position, use your strength to help the weak. Paul wasn't simply one who said, do this.

Out there, he modeled it. When a fugitive, helpless, vulnerable, recently converted fugitive slave was in front of him, the great apostle Paul said, I'm with you. I've got your back. I'll help you in this situation.

Now go back to Philemon, give him this letter, and we'll ask Philemon to do what is right. You see, beloved, what do we do in the church? We protect the people that are vulnerable. We protect the unsuspecting. We protect those who are newborn babes in Christ and give them a place where they can grow and flourish. That comes in an atmosphere of love where established, mature men are humbling themselves for the benefit of them, looking out for their welfare, honoring the godly, and as it were, spreading their protection over those who are weak and vulnerable in the process. Look, compared to the world in which we live, isn't that a wonderful place to be?

Isn't that a wonderful realm to know that something like that exists? The people with power and authority as we see them in the world using it to hurt and take advantage of people to realize that we're called out of that? Do you see why we don't want to be like the world? Because Christ does not like the world. We want to be like Christ. How do we do that? In part, we humble ourselves. We honor the godly.

We help the weak. Let's bow together in prayer. O Lord Christ, we thank you that in you we have someone who came not to be served, but to serve. We thank you that you laid down your life for us. That in our vulnerability in sin, vulnerable to the impending judgment of God, our vulnerability of being dead in trespasses and sin and completely unable to do anything to save ourselves, helpless as a squirming babe unable to do anything to provide or care for itself. O Christ, we thank you that from your position of the supreme authority in the universe, stepped into time, stepped into human flesh, in order to serve and to save sinners just like us.

We thank you that you humbled yourself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Lord, we ask that you would help us process what this means for our own lives. For those of us that are a little bit further down the road of life, Father, may we be like Paul the aged and handle ourselves in a gracious, godly way. For the young men that are with us, some whom I'd love to name by name, but I won't do that, Lord.

Those who are just stepping into life, just beginning to sort out the way that you've gifted them and getting established in the kind of men that they're going to become. O God, I pray for the work of your Holy Spirit upon their hearts, that you would go far beyond the feeble words that have been expressed from this pulpit this morning and establish in them the profound depths of character that is willing to humble themselves for the sake of others, to use the immense ways that they've been gifted and the ways that you have blessed them and say, this isn't for me. This is for me to serve others with. Help them to work through what that means in their lives. Father, help us to be a people that give honor to those to whom honor is due, to honor the godly. Father, sometimes godliness isn't found so much by who's up front.

It's found in the quiet outworking of life of men and women who simply, with godliness, fulfill the duty that is in front of them even when no one is watching. I thank you, O God, that you have filled this church with people like that. And I pray that you would bless and encourage them as they raise their families, as they deal with little ones. Father, as they wait on you for life and marriage, would you honor them in their godliness? Would you bless them? Would you encourage them?

Would you keep them? Would they see the hand of God richly upon them? Father, may we be a people that gladly affirms others without a sense of pride or manipulation. And Father, we would ask you for the grace to help the weak, to recognize, to see the ones that are vulnerable, perhaps those that have stumbled along the way, to pick them up, to dust them off, to love them, to encourage them. Perhaps where failure has entered into life, spiritual stumbles have marked them, and they have that sense of isolation from God and condemnation of self because they haven't fully grasped the position that they have in Christ.

God, may those of us who are a little stronger come alongside and lend that strength to them that might strengthen their limbs to be able to walk in an assurance and in a confidence of life of the goodness and the blessing of God. Yes, Father, ultimately what we ask is that you would make us like Christ as we walk through life together. And perhaps, Father, someone has been convicted today of how separate they are from this life, and it opens their eyes to the fact that they've never even been born again. Lord, would you take this occasion to work repentance and faith in their hearts that they might respond to Christ. Come to Him for salvation, to leave the world behind and say, I want to embrace this Christ.

I need Him to save me. I want to pick up my cross and follow Him. Lord, make Christ and make the service to Him something sweet and attractive in their lives that they would gladly pick up the cross and follow. Sanctify us in the truth, O God. Your Word is truth. We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, my friend, there is no substitute for reading the Word of God for yourself and spending the time day by day going through the Bible in a systematic way so that you have a full exposure to everything that the Word of God says. It's remarkable the way the Spirit of God works through the Word to minister to our hearts in that way. And to help you do that, we have a couple of different Bible reading plans available on our website, thetruthpulpit.com.

If you would go to thetruthpulpit.com, click on the link that says About. You'll find a sublink there that takes you to two different Bible reading plans that you can choose from. It's free, it's there available to help you in your reading of God's Word, and I know that the Spirit of God will use that in your life if you're not used to reading God's Word on a regular, systematic basis. Make this the day that you start something new and move in that direction, and join us again next time here on The Truth Pulpit as we continue teaching God's people God's Word. That's Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's Word.