Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, uses his own imprisonment and the example of Onesimus to illustrate the nature of Christian bondage and freedom. He emphasizes that believers are prisoners of Christ, not of earthly powers, and that this position, though seemingly a reproach, can lead to profound spiritual fruitfulness. The sermon highlights that while circumstances, sin, and our bodies can hold us captive, Christ's redemptive work offers true liberation and purpose, even within confinement. Ultimately, being a prisoner of Christ means being held securely by Him, with the assurance that He controls all circumstances for the furtherance of the gospel.
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Well, you turn with me again to the book of Philemon, and we're going to read in the only chapter there is, the Philemon chapter one, and we'll begin reading at verse one. Philemon, verse one. Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy, our brother, unto Philemon, our dearly beloved and fellow laborer. Verse eight. Wherefore though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient, yet for love's sake I rather beseech thee being such in one as Paul the aged and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds, which in time fast was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me. Whom I have sent again, thou therefore receive him, that is, my own bowels. whom I would have retained with me that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel. Verse twenty-three, there salute thee, Epiphrast, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus. On Monday evening we spoke of five references in this book to fellowship. Fellowship. Last evening we spoke on five references to love that are found in this short epistle.
And this evening I would like to look with you at five references to Paul in connection with his imprisonment. He refers to himself as a prisoner or in bonds or chains for the sake of the Lord Jesus. One thing that is interesting is that I think that only seventeen times in the New Testament does the apostle refer to the fact that he was imprisoned in chains for Christ's sake. five times in this very, very short letter. So there's a tremendous emphasis put to it. One thing, first of all, the fact that every one of us is a prisoner. First of all, we're a prisoner of our body. One of the fellows says in connection with the American Express card, you can't leave home without it.
But you can't leave home without your body. Sometimes you'd like to say, just park it over there. It's giving you a little misery, and you just go on without it. But unfortunately, we can't do that. Everywhere that you go, your body tags along. We sing in one of our hymns, here in the body temp, which is another way of saying it's in the jailhouse, in the penitentiary, here in the body temp, absent from him we roam, yet nightly pitch our moving tent, a day's march near home. And this old body, as it gets older, it begins to fall apart, it has its aches and its pain, And Paul in this epistle refers himself all the ages.
The ages. The ages crept up on it. And he realized he wasn't what he once was. I heard a story some time ago about a man who went into the department store and he saw some of these little music boxes. He picked one up and it played Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to You. He looked over the whole selection there, and he didn't think this particular one was the color that his wife liked, so he picked another one for her. And had it wrapped and took it home for her birthday. And when she opened it up and played it, it played the old gray mare. She ain't what she used to be. And, you know, we realize as we get older, we're not what we once were.
Alfred Gibbs said it's the first time that he saw a little... gray hair in his moustache. He took out a pair of scissors and cut it out. And he said the next day there were two others there to celebrate the funeral of the first. And we know that there's very, very little that we can do to stop the progress of AIDS. A Christian lady in Florida gave me this little poem some time ago and it said, there's nothing whatever the matter with me, just as healthy. I can be. I have arthritis in both my knees and when I talk, I talk with a weave. My pulse is weak and my blood is thin, but I'm awfully well for the shape I'm in. I think my liver is out of whack and a terrible pain is in my back.
My hearing is poor, my sight is dim. Most everything seems to be out of trim, but I'm awfully well for the shape I'm in. I have heart support for both my feet. I wouldn't be able to go on the street. Sleeplessness I have night after night. In the morning I'm just a sight. My memory is failing. My head's in a sin. I'm peacefully living on aspirin, but I'm awfully well for the shape I'm in. The moral is as this tale be unfolded, that for you and me, who are growing old, it's better to say I'm fine with a grin than to let them know the shape we're in. You know, age in the body, we're pregnant.
You know, the Bible tells us that Paul He was caught up to the third heaven. Whether in the body or out of the body, he wrote, I cannot tell. And most of us are very well conscious of the fact that we're in this body. We're his aches and his pains. We're prisoners of our bodies. And secondly, If a person is without Christ, he's a prisoner of his sins. He's held in bondage. The Bible says every man is held by the cause of his own sin. John chapter eight, they came to the Lord Jesus and said, we have never been under bondage to any man.
And the Lord said, whosoever submits sin is a slave of sin. The Son shall make you free. He shall be free indeed. And our Lord Jesus Christ first spoke at his hometown of Nazareth. He opened the scripture in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah sixty-one. He began to read, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, to preach deliverance and the debt. Man held and bonded by sin. But he came to set the prisoner free. I don't know anybody who more happily put the situation of the sinner who has come to know Christ than Charles Wesley did in that lovely hymn of his.
He writes, Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. The dungeon flamed with light. My chain fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth, and Father's grace. Isn't that lovely? What a description. Man held by the cords of his own sin of the Lord Jesus Christ King that set the chapter free. By nature, man is held by the cords of his own sin. And thirdly, we're a prisoner of our circumstances. Nobody ever asked you. And nobody ever asked me, when would you like to be born?
How about eighteen hundred and ninety? That's a good year. That's dear, dear, dear. Nobody ever asked. Nobody ever asked you. Nobody ever asked you, who would you like to have parents for parents? Well, John D. Rockefeller has a nice ring to it. Nobody ever asked you. You weren't consoling us all. No, it was all. We're a prisoner of our circumstance. We live where we live, and the weather is bad today. We're influenced by that. While we say bad, it is rainy, it's cloudy, stormy. We're a prisoner of our circumstance. We live in nineteen eighty-three. Sometimes they speak about people of being born thirty years too soon.
And sometimes it seems that way. You know, we feel like we're born thirty years too soon. But here's a fellow and he's five foot seven in height. And he's dreaming that he's going to play on the national basketball league. He doesn't well forget it, except his height. He's a prisoner of his circumstance. Now if he was six foot seven, or seven foot seven, he'd have a better chance even then. We're a prisoner of our circumstances, our health, whatever conditions that we have, determined to a good degree what we can do. But this is an indication of our spiritual health as well. Whatever circumstances that solve us as my time or in my hand, the circumstances of our life.
Somebody once asked a fellow, why were you born in Iowa? He said, well, I want to be near my mother. Well, you really don't have any choice as to those things have a big fraction in our life. I want to think we did this evening of five times that the Apostle Paul refers to himself as a prisoner or as in bonds of change. First of all, in verse one, he says, Paul a prisoner of Jesus Christ. And I called it the resource of the prisoner. Now if you're going to have a jailer, what better jailer could you have than the Lord Jesus Christ?
A prisoner of Jesus Christ. Not a prisoner of Nero, not a prisoner of Rome, but a prisoner of Jesus Christ. Then in verse nine he says, I beseech thee I beseech thee being such and one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. And I'm in connection with this, I call this the request of the president. He's asking Philemon to do something, the request of the president. And verse ten, he says, I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bond. The recompense of the president. Paul, do you know what happened since you've been in prison?
What's that? Well, since I've been in prison, God has used Nickey to bring the blessing of eternal life to this runaway slave. He says, I have begotten him in my bonds. He's a son in the faith. Is it worth it being in prison? How about that, Philemon? Is it worth it for Paul to be in prison? Yes, it's worth it. I'm going to be in heaven because Paul was in prison. How about it, Paul? Was it worth it being in prison? Yes, it was worth it because he says, He's writing to the Thessalonians. He are my crown of rejoicing in that day. Paul is going to be able to say, well, finally, Onesimus, you're here because I was there.
The recompense of the president. And then in verse thirteen he says that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds or chains really the word is of the God. In connection with this I've called this the reproach of the president. You don't get any awards for being in jail. There's a certain reproach to being in prison. And there's a certain reproach to being a Christian as well, to being a bond slave of Jesus Christ. And then in verse twenty-three, he says, "'There salutes the epiphyre. He's named me lovely or fascinated. And Paul speaks of him in Philippians chapter two.
as a very lovely self-sacrificing belief. He says, for the work of Christ, he was not unto death, not regarding your lack of service. He said, this man stood me in good stead in that prison at Rome. He was in prison, but he was not in prison alone. He had to confess the refreshment of the prison. Let's think then of these five. First of all, Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ. And this immediately tells me that he, the Lord Jesus, is the Lord of all my circumstances. If I'm a prisoner of Jesus Christ, it suggests that I'm there because he wanted me there and he saw to it that the circumstance in my life put me there.
And it tells me that he holds the key. He opens. and no man can shut. And he shuts and no man can open. And it's a reassuring thing. Always to remember that, that the one that we know is in absolute control. It says he's gone into heaven in Peter. He's on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and followers being made subject to him. There's nothing that is not under his control. God moves in mysterious ways.
It's wonderful to perform. In John chapter seventeen the Lord Jesus says, Thou hast given him, he's speaking of himself in the third person, authority over all flesh. Why? That he should give eternal life to as many as thou has given him. Thou has given authority over all flesh. And when he arose with the dead, you remember he said to his disciples, go and make disciples of all nations teaching them to observe all things whatsoever i have commanded you and lo i am with you all the way even under the end of the ages all authority is given unto me and while it is true as we read in hebrews we do not yet see all things put under him we do see him crowned with glory and honor healed by the grace of god takes the death for every man He's in control.
The Bible says in His times He will show. He doesn't show it now, but in His times He will show who is the only potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. About two years ago, I was in the Bahamas. I was talking to a brother there. He went to the Emmaus, a very gifted preacher of the word, by the way. His name is Tom Roberts, a black preacher. And Tom was telling me of an experience he'd had. He was up on the island of Eleuthera, scheduled to start meetings the following day. This was on a Saturday in Nassau. He had his ticket, went out to the airport.
When he got out there, this often happens, by the way. They announced that the flight had been canceled. No way to swim to Nassau. No way to make his appointment on time. But as he was there wondering what to do, an Air Florida flight chartered from New York flew into that airport and landed and discharged its passengers and was going back without any passengers to Miami. Tom went up to the powers that be on the plane and said, I wonder if I could hitch a ride to Miami. It just so happened. that he had his passport with him.
He didn't need it within the country, but he had his passport with him. And he had one ticket that was good either from Myanmar to Nassau or Nassau to Myanmar. And there are many flights going all day long from Nassau to Myanmar and Myanmar to Nassau. Well, the pilot or the authorities on the plane said, well, he said, we don't have any authority to pick up passengers here. But if you'll get approval from the local governmental authorities here at the airport that we'll take you in. So they checked with the customs officials there and they said it was okay with them. They took off in the plane and landed in Miami. The first flight that he could get out of Miami, he took, he was sitting down just waiting for the plane to take off and a lady came down and she sat next to him.
She opened her first. She began to read a New Testament. Tom used that as an opening. He says, I see you're reading the Word of God. She said, yes, I am. And she said, I'm very much troubled about my soul. She said, I'd like to become a Christian, but I don't know how. And on the way over, he led her to the Lord. Now, angels and authorities and powers are subject to him. Air Florida had to have that plane come in there at that time. Bahamas there in the camp for their flight at that time. And he had to happen to have a ticket with him in order to get to Miami and back to Nassau. And that lady just happened to sit right next to him.
Chance? all authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. The prisoner of Jesus Christ. He doesn't say that he's a prisoner of Nero. He doesn't say he was a prisoner of Rome. He says he's a prisoner of Jesus Christ. We read way back in Genesis that God told Noah, come thou and thy house into all the ark. And when he got in, it says, the Lord shut him in. There's the jailer. He slams the door shut and locks him in for a year. Over a year. Wouldn't let him out. The presence of Jesus Christ.
Remember what our Lord said in the book of Revelation? Fear not. He said, I'm the first and the last. I'm either livid and became dead. And behold, I'm alive forevermore. And I've got the keys. I have the keys of health and of death. When we see that loved one taken away in death, a lot of people say, well, death's got a hold of them. The body goes in the grave. Yeah, it's for a little while. He's got the key. One of these days is going to come. Those are held in bondage, in the grave, or in the grave. All is coming, and all in the grave shall hear his voice.
and shall come forth. I have said before thee, the Lord said in the book of Revelation, an opened door, not an open door. An open door. He opened the door. He opened, and no man shut. And he shut, and no man opened. Paul writing to the Corinthians says, a great and effectual door is opened unto me. And there are many answers here. In Acts chapter sixteen we read that Paul had saved to go into Asia and he had saved to go into Bethany and the Spirit of God shut the door in his face. And then there was a vision from heaven. A man from Macedonia said, Come over into Macedonia and help us.
And the Scriptures said, And immediately we endeavored to go assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them. God slammed two doors in his face and opened one door and they wanted to go. They were sent before me. and opened the door. The president of Jesus Christ. And sometimes when he shut the door, he opened the door. There's a brother down in Asia and South Carolina. He had multiple sorrows. I was there for a week having meetings this spring. He was out every night at the meetings. His wife ought to get A plus as well as he because she has to get him dressed.
And they've got a little wider aisle in this. And every night as you're looking down, preaching, there he is in the middle aisle, big, broad smile in his face, looking up at you. He can't turn his head this way or that. A white man's defeated. But you know what he told me once? He said he thanked God for his multiple sorrows. He says, I doubt if I'd ever come to Christ. And it hadn't been for that. You see, God shut the door in his life. He became a prisoner. held in bondage, as far as his body is concerned. We open heaven, though, I assure him. A prisoner of Jesus Christ. Didn't we cast three men bound into the furnace?
Held in bondage? Yes. The king said, Lo, I see, four men walking loose in the midst of that burning fire from him. He said, in the fall of the forest, his life under the sun of God. And oftentimes, when the door is closed. In our circumstance of life there's a consciousness of the Lord's presence with us that perhaps we do not know in any other way. The Lord holds the key. He opens the door and he shuts the door. And you know when you read Scripture you're impressed with how many instances of individuals who were held in prison. Joseph was in prison. Jeremiah was in prison. The Lord himself was held in prison.
Paul was in prison. Silas was in prison. And so forth. You could go on and on. But there are three prison stories and only three prison stories that are recorded in the Acts of the Apostle. And the interesting thing about each of the three is that all those who were put in prison got out of prison. You see, they were the prisoner of Jesus Christ as long as he wanted them in there, when he wanted them out. They were out. The first one is recorded in Acts chapter five. All of them thought were put in the common prison. This was following upon... Peter's preaching, you know, the man, the lame man who was healed at the temple, do you remember? And Peter looked at him and the man leaping up, he rose and he strode into the temple, jumping and praising God.
And then Peter began to preach about this and said, the way this man has been healed because of the name of Jesus Christ and Nazareth and neither is their salvation any other. So there's none of the name under heaven given among men. So they put a whole kitten caboodle, all these. men in prison because they said their doctrine is bringing the people in Jerusalem down in their heads. They put them all in prison. And they forbade them to preach any law in that name. And those apostles said, we ought to obey God rather than men. And they witnessed just the same. And the scripture says with great power, the apostle gave witness of the resurrection. There are multitudes of belief. And they're thrown into prison. when the Sanhedrin called them on the carpet and they're put in jail and then the Lord sent an angel and brought them out of that person and they told them the angel told them to preach the word continue preaching and the scripture says and they cease not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ and multitudes believe.
And they prove the power of preaching. Now God doesn't tell us to prove the Bible is the Word of God. He tells us to preach the Word of God. You don't have to prove a sword is a sword. Just use the sword and the sword will prove itself that it's a sword. That's what we're told to do. Preach the Word, not prove the Word. C.H. Spurgeon used to say you don't have to prove that a lion is a lion. turn him loose and the lion will prove he is a lion and that's the way it is with the scripture what we need to do is to circulate it to bear witness to it the power of preaching and then Peter would put in prison in Acts chapter twelve in connection with that we read that prayer was made without ceasing of the church of the God for him now I don't believe for a minute that they believe that the Lord was going to get Peter out of prison, and neither do I believe that they prayed for the Lord to get him out of prison.
I believe what they prayed was something like this. I'm even mistaken. This isn't just a judgment. I believe they prayed something like this. He said, Lord, give Peter the strength that he needs to face this ordeal. In the morning, he's going to be taken out and beheaded, killed just like his James, a fellow apostle, is killed. Lord, give him the strength. Because when Peter got out of that prison, and Rhoda said, Why, Peter's at the door. Oh, they said it can't be Peter. He said, Go! That's impossible, not Peter. But nevertheless, they proved the power of prayer.
They proved that God is able to do exceeding abundantly. Of all that you can ask, isn't it? Nothing so amazing as to see that God had freed Peter out of the hands of Aaron. They were powerless to do anything. They learned that God is omnipotent. He's able to do. In Acts chapter sixteen, Paul and Silas are put in prison. And their backs are torn by the whip of that jail. God didn't do anything to intervene to get them out of the spot where they were in. And the Bible says at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and thanked praises unto God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
And up until that moment, there was no act whatever from heaven. But then the scripture says this, and suddenly there was an earthquake, and everyone, man, will lose. When they were praising, when they were praising in spite of everything that they had to groan and complain and grumble about when they were praising God answered their prayer and brought them to them when the loveless wrote a little poem years ago a chorus we used to sing it in Sunday school keep praising keep praising when the days are lost and dreary keep praising keep praising God will guide you never fear keep praising Keep praising.
Thankful hearts to him be raised. As the Lord not said, there is glory on ahead, but he won't praise in him. You know, the world that we live in is full of signs. But when Christians are sick, what a tremendous effect it has. There's a lovely Psalm, Psalm forty, and it says like this, I waited patiently for the Lord, and he heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit. He put a new song in my mouth. says, even praise unto our God that many shall see it and shall trust in the Lord. Isn't that good? It says that if I'm sick, that new song that he's put in my heart and in my life, the result will be that others will trust to say.
God's great complaint with the children of Israel was they were sighing and murmuring and complaining in their unbelief. I heard Alfred give years ago speak on Jacob's sign and Paul's song. Jacob said when the news came that the Lord of Egypt wanted them to send Benjamin. He said, I've lost Joseph and now I'm going to take Benjamin. He throws up his hands in dismay and he says, all these things are against me. Actually, the seventeen happy years of his life were right ahead.
He was going to be restored to his favorite son, Joseph. He was going to enjoy the plenty of Egypt. That is not man. All these things, he says, are against me. Paul says, the Roman days. We know that all things work together for good. To them upon John. for those who are the called according to his purpose. Are we singing or are we sighing? Does God hear just a series of grumbling complaints from our hearts and lives and as he sees a song? He give us songs in the night, says Joseph. In the dark is night.
He does. Then we have the request of the prisoner. For love's sake I rather beseech thee being such in one as Paul the aged and now also a prisoner. this aged faithful servant of Christ, appealed to his son in the faith, Philemon, on the basis of the position he was now in. And I'm sure this had a tremendous effect on Philemon when he thought of that one who God had used to bring him to a knowledge of Christ. I want to think, however, more particular in verse ten, I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bond. If you had asked Onesimus, Onesimus Halas being a slave.
He said, well, that was rough. How do you like being put in jail in Rome? Oh, he said, that was rough. But he said, you know, because I was put in jail, I'm going to be in heaven one day. If you've been on earth, or when we get to heaven, I should say, and you ask that dying thief, what was the very worst thing that ever happened to you when you were on the earth? Well, he'd say, I thought you was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I was crucified. He said, there's nothing quite so painful as a death by crucifixion. The agony. Hanging there in agony and blood. And then those cruel soldiers came and they broke my waist. He said, I can't even describe the pain that I knew it was the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life.
And you say, what was the best thing that ever happened to you? Oh, I said the best thing that ever happened to me was I was crucified next to Christ. That's why I'm here. And you know, oftentimes the things that we think are the very things. Paul, prison, terrible experience, yes. But while we thank God as we read the New Testament, what? We wouldn't have had the Colossian Epistle. We wouldn't have had the Ephesian Epistle. We wouldn't have had this Epistle of Philemon. Some of the most precious portions of the Word of God we would not have had. and Paul had been in Christians.
And many of those royal guards, you know, the emperors' guards, Paul won to Christ. They were used of God scattered throughout the Roman Empire, no doubt, and ministering in various places for the furthest of the gospel. In fact, Paul says right in the Philippians from that prison, he says, I've learned in all things every state wherewith I am therewith to be content. He had a subtle piece about it because he says in Philippians chapter one, which have happened unto me have fallen out rather for the furthest of the gospel. The things which he thought worst of all were really the best. Just one.
If that was the only one, it would have been worth it all. Two years ago I was in Nassau in the Bahamas. I went to visit an elderly lady, eighty-six years of age, named as Gladys Kelly. Never married this lady. very fine Christian I was visiting in her home and she was relating to me that over forty years she had visited in the prisons of that city giving out dongle tracks and papers and she said just about two years ago a man visited me and said or I saw me on the street I guess and says you're Mrs. Kelly aren't you said yes I am said Miss Kelly that I was in prison quite a few years ago, and you gave me a gospel track.
And I read that, and as a result of it, I came to know Christ as my Savior. And she said, he said, rather, my wife is a Christian, and everyone in my family is a Christian. They said, I want to thank you. And she said, in all those years of going to prison, that was the only one that I ever heard of. that came to Christ through my ministry. And then she said, let that one go. The recompense, the recompense of the prisoner. Somebody told me, I don't know if it's true, I haven't really checked it out, but somebody told me that of all the correspondence courses that the May of Bible school sends out, those of men and women in prison.
I do know that there are some in prison who have taken every one of their correspondence courses into prison. And many of those men and women in prison, some of them are never going to get out in life, have been saved and they're sharing the gospel, but in prison law. I was sick and in prison, said the Lord, and he said it is enough. God is doing the work today with men and women that are in prison, put in jail for their sins against society. And then it says, verse thirteen, whom I would have retained, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel, a reproach of the prison.
If you're going to be faithful, if I'm going to be faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, it's going to cost something. It costs nothing to become a Christian. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. It costs nothing to become a Christian. It's a free gift. But it costs everything to be a Christian. Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, said the Lord Jesus. And whosoever will lose his life for my sake and the gospel, the same shall save it. And the scripture says that all that will live godly in the night of Jesus shall suffer persecution. Paul writing to the Philippians says in verse one, chapter one, it is given unto you in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but all to the suffer for his sake.
And wherever there is faithfulness to God, there is going to be a suffering connected with it. If any man suffers a Christian, Peter writes, let him glorify God on this behalf. Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God. The Bible says rather than to enjoy the pleasure of sin before a season. It was a costly choice. But if Moses had chosen the pleasure of sin for a season, he'd have never heard of him. But he was one of those that the Lord Jesus had with him on that mountaintop who spoke of his glory. one of these days we're going to see this man who is faithful to God as the epistle of Hebrews tells us the change of the gospel Paul know what that was he speaks in second Corinthians twelve he says in prison frequently it's often in prison kicked from pillar to post fooled for Christ's sake he says we're called upon to be faithful to the Lord in our day and generation perhaps not called upon to lay down our lives as these men were called upon to do, but were called to be faithful to him in our day and generation.
And it costs something. It costs time. It costs energy. And often it means that the friends that we watch in this may fall off like autumnly. It costs what it pays. There's a lovely verse in Proverbs twenty three and verse twenty three. It says, buy the truth and sell it not. And somebody has said, it doesn't say how much to pay for the truth, no matter what it costs. Buy it. Be willing to pay the price. And sell it not, no matter how attractive the price may be to be unfaithful to the Lord. Buy the truth and sell it not. Because he says, I am the truth. Buy the truth. And sell it not.
What shall it profit a man? It became the whole world and lose his own soul. These words were spoken to disciples, to believers. What shall it profit a man? It became it. All of his world has to offer. And waste his life. I think that's the thought. Where he goes on to say whosoever will save his life or lose. Whosoever shall lose his life. For my sake in the gospel, the same shall save it. Someone was telling me of a aged servant of Christ who was shortly before he passed away. Someone asked him. said to him, well, brother, soon you'll be with the Lord and receive the reward of your labors. He said, how do you think you'll feel when you see him? And he responded, I'll be utterly ashamed.
One of these days we're going to see him. And oh, that we might not be ashamed, as John writes, shame before him at his coming. And then finally he speaks of Epiphras, my fellow prisoner, in Christ Jesus. Paul, as I said earlier, said in Philippians, for the work of Christ, he was not unto death, not regarding your lack of service toward me. And I'm sure as he was there in that prison, he was refreshed by the presence of Epiphanes, this devoted, lovely believer in our Lord Jesus Christ. Notice what he said. He said, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus.
Now, in the opening verse, he speaks of himself as a prisoner of Jesus Christ. But here he speaks of himself as a fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus. What he's saying is this, that not only is the Lord Jesus Christ my jailer, he's the one that holds the key, but he's my jail. I'm shut up in him, if any man be in Christ. And that's a position of every belief. We can say, well, the fellow prisoners in Christ Jesus. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. It says, he has raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.
In the first century, there was a man by the name of Polycarp who was martyred for the sake of Christ. And the emperor said to him, I'll take all your property. He says, you can't take my property. My treasure is in heaven, where neither moss nor rust are corrupted, but these do not break through and heal. He says, I'll take your life. He says, you can't take my life. My life is in you, Christ, in God. Isn't that lovely? Fellow present in Christ Jesus. He's a jailer, and he's a jailer. Is there any greater security than being in Christ?
faith in Christ, the weakest child, stands in all God's favor. But not only a prisoner, but a fellow prisoner. This is a relationship I share with every other believer in our Lord Jesus Christ. There's a lot that can hear me in Christ. He says, I'm a prisoner of Jesus Christ. That was his name down here. But he says, I'm a fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus. That's his exalted name. God's right now. That's where I am. And I'm saved. Not only for time. but for all eternity. Shall we pray? We are, God, are grateful to thee for thy holy word. We're thankful for these precious thoughts which thou has brought to our attention this evening from thy word.
We pray that they may have refreshed our hearts and encouraged us. We're thankful that we are held securely that no one will ever be able to pluck us out of our hands. Faith in Christ. We send the weakest child, stand in all God's favor. We pray, our God, that just as many down to the ages, the apostles, and many of our saints have been faithful to thee in spite of persecution, we pray that we do, in spite of the world's wooing of us and seeking to get us interested in the things that are so soon to pass away, that we would be kept securely by thy power, kept with thyself, and useful for thy glory.
Help us, Lord, to take to heart the words we heard tonight that it has given of you the behalf of Christ, not only believe on him, but all through the supper for his sake. May we, like these early disciples, be faithful even until death. We seek our blessings as we give you our thanks for our being together tonight in the worthy and precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Could we sing in closing number... Thirteen, number thirteen. Faith of our fathers, living still, fight of dungeons, fire and so on.
What a debt of gratitude we owe to men of God who were true to him in their generations. Thirteen. Space of our Father's living still.