The Sharing of Your Faith

Philemon 1:1-7 ESV

“Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,

“To Philemon our beloved fellow worker and Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house:

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

“I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.”

Words of Encouragement

Isn’t it great when someone speaks to you words of encouragement? Now, in this case, the person is someone who knows you, and so they can speak to the specifics of who you are and what you do. It is a lot harder to offer up such words of encouragement to people we don’t know, isn’t it? For we can’t see what people are doing who we don’t know. So, we don’t know the kind of life that they are living or if they are even living for God or not.

But when we can observe someone in person, and we can see what they are like, and when we can witness the kinds of good things that they are doing out of love for God and out of love for their fellow humans, then we have something we can encourage them about. Or even if we are getting the information secondhand from a trusted source, we have specific knowledge of their situation to where we can give specific encouragement.

But not every “trusted source” is truly a “trusted source,” and so there is the possibility that if we are relying on secondhand information that the information may not be accurate. For there are people out there who will not like you if you are serving the Lord with your life and so they may spread rumors about you which are false and they may give you a bad reputation and not a kindly one.

And the same is true in reverse. For there are people out there who will reject those who are walking in holiness and in righteousness but who will embrace those who are living worldly and even wicked lives. And so they may speak kindly of the wicked and evil of the righteous, and they may give the wicked a good reputation while they give the godly a bad reputation. So, it is good if we can be aware that we can’t trust what everyone tells us.

And another thing to watch out for are hypocrites who put on a show of righteousness in front of other people but who behave wickedly when they don’t have an audience. So just saying that not everyone is who he or she appears to be. So, even if some people outwardly appear friendly and kind and thoughtful, that doesn’t mean at all that that is who they really are, in practice. They could be the wickedest people on the planet.

So, Why the Cautions?

So, why am I saying all this, when this began on such an encouraging note? It is because there are so many liars and deceivers out there and so we have to be careful that we don’t make surface-level judgments about people, either for the good or the bad, lest we should get the wrong impression and be led astray by them, and perhaps even end up rejecting the truly righteous while we embrace the truly wicked.

But it is wonderful when we can receive genuine heart-felt encouragement from people who truly know us, and who we know are genuine in their praises, and who are not those who engage in false flattery. Even by just reading this today I sensed the Holy Spirit encouraging my heart because of my service to him and because of my love for him and for the saints of God, and because of his leading in my life in the sharing of my faith with others.

And if you are a person of God today who loves God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and who is sharing your faith and the truth of the gospel of our salvation with other people, and so God is using you to refresh the hearts of the saints of God wherever the Lord takes what you have shared with others, then be encouraged! If you are walking in faithful obedience and in service to the Lord, be encouraged! God has not forgotten you!

And the reason I say that is this. If we are truly sharing the truth of the gospel, the whole counsel of God, and not a diluted half-truth gospel message, designed to appease human flesh, we aren’t going to have a lot of encouragers, and we may not even have a great reputation. For we will be hated and rejected and persecuted as Jesus was, and we will have people speak evil against our good behavior, like Jesus had done to him.

And so I just want to encourage you today that if you are following the Lord in obedience, and if you are walking in his ways, and if you are loving the people of this world and the people of God with the love of God, and if you are telling the people the truth, and not the lies, then praise Jesus! I thank and praise Jesus Christ for your service to the Lord, for not too many people out there are speaking the truth these days.

Clarifying the Truth

But let me clarify the truth. Jesus said that if anyone would come after him he must deny self, take up his cross daily (daily die to sin and to self) and follow (obey) the Lord. For, in essence, he said that if we hold on to our old lives of living in sin and for self that we will lose our lives for eternity. But if for the sake of Christ we lose our lives, i.e. we die with Christ to sin and we live to him and to his righteousness, then we have eternal life with God.

And what is the lie which is largely being spread today? It is that we can believe in Jesus Christ once in our lives (not usually biblically defined) and now all our sins are forgiven (past, present, and future), and heaven is now guaranteed us upon death, and nothing can take that away from us, end of story, or regardless of how we live. But “regardless of how we live” is not part of the gospel that Jesus and his NT apostles taught us.

So, I would encourage (exhort, urge) you today, if you have not surrendered your lives to Jesus Christ, and if you are not walking in his ways and in his truth and righteousness, and if you are not obeying him, in practice, but you are still engaged in deliberate and habitual sin, I encourage you to turn from your lives of living in sin and for self and that you now follow the Lord Jesus in obedience to his ways from here to eternity. Your eternity depends on it!

[Matt 7:21-23; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 15:1-2; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 1:5; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-17; 1 Pet 2:24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 3:6,14-15; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15] 

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,

Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;

Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;

Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg 

Caution: This link may contain ads