Philemon: Ethical Excellence

Philemon: Ethical Excellence – September 18, 2022

Philemon 1:8-14

Pastor Tim Nguyen

For Christians, one of the most important things that we can do is to teach, invest and develop the growth of other Christians. That is how deep friendships are made. How community is grown. How the goodness of Jesus is spread. How we can save others. This is called the process of discipleship. And we know it’s one of the most important things because this is the process Jesus used to grow his ministry. And it’s been booming since 2000 years ago.

But like all valuable things, discipleship is costly. It requires us to give up things for the sake of another person’s growth.

Today, we’re addressing the question; What is the cost of discipleship? The cost of discipleship is:

1. Immediate results

2. Immediate resources

Philemon: Ethical Excellence – September 11, 2022

Philemon 1:1-7

Pastor David Cay

Too often at church we talk moreabout evangelism and discipleship, and character development (and of course that is important), but we can’t neglect community and friendship.

It is a necessary ingredient for life change and this is what I want to show from the Bible today. Our Bible passage today comes from Philemon 1:1-7.

At first glance, it feels like nothing is really going on. Paul is just saying some nice things about some guy named Philemon. But if we dig deeper, we see that these nice words between friends are leading to something life changing and greatly important not just for them two but for all of history.

And it’s a reminder to us, that if we want to be agents of change and people who make a difference, we need to invest in friendships too.

My plan today is to show you two ideas from our passage:

  1. We need to build personal friendships
  2. We need to build community