Exposition of Philemon

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If you want to take out your Bibles, I would ask that you turn with me to the book of Philemon.
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And, actually, I would say turn to the page of Philemon.
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Typically in your Bibles, it will only be one page.
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All right, so we are going to be reading the whole book.
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My goal tonight is to study the whole book in one shot.
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I don't plan to take two or three weeks as I have with some of the other little letters because there is one overarching message in this book, and I don't think it's a message that necessarily needs to be belabored, even though it certainly is a message that could be, it could be expounded upon for as long as we wanted.
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But we are going to focus in tonight and really dive in and spend our time with it.
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So we are going to be reading the entire book, again, it's only 25 verses, so we should be able to get through that relatively quickly.
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Let us stand and read the Scriptures.
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I know you just sat down, but we are going to stand again to read the Word.
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So, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved fellow worker, and Aphia, our sister, Archippus, our fellow soldier, and the church in your house.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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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 Christ and for all the saints.
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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.
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For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.
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Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you.
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I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus, I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment.
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Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.
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I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart.
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I would have been glad to keep him with me in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel, but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion, but of your own accord.
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For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer a slave, but more than a slave as a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you both in the flesh and in the Lord.
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So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me.
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If he has wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge that to my account.
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I, Paul, write this with my own hand.
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I will repay it to say nothing of your owing me, even your own self.
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Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord.
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Refresh my heart in Christ.
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Confident of your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say.
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At the same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that through your prayers, I will be graciously given to you.
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Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ, Jesus sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.
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The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
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Father, tonight as we seek to look at this word together, I pray first and foremost that you would keep me from error, for Lord, I am a fallible man, and as I've prayed hundreds of times, Lord, I know that I can make errors, but your word never errs.
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So keep me tied to the post of your word.
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I pray also that you would open the hearts of your people to the truth, and Lord, that you would draw men and women to yourself through this word, and I pray, Lord, that we would see in this word tonight an example of many things.
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There are so many themes that come out of this, themes of forgiveness, themes of recognizing authority, themes of recognizing responsibility.
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All of these things, Lord, are jumping off the page at us.
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Let us, Lord, tonight take the time to dive into these things and see how they might be applied to us.
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I pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake.
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Amen.
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You may be seated.
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We come now to the end of our series on the little letters, and we have examined so far two of John's letters.
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We looked at 2 and 3 John, and we looked at Jude.
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Our goal was to look at all of the one-chapter letters in the New Testament, and tonight we're going to be looking at the final of those, which is the letter of Paul to Philemon.
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This is, in one sense, one of the most personal, or is the most personal, of all of Paul's letters.
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So personal, in fact, that some have even questioned why it's included in the Scripture at all, because it seems almost like we're reading someone else's mail at this point.
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It seems very personal.
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It seems as if this wasn't intended for a broader audience, but rather for Philemon himself, and many have wondered why such a small, seemingly private letter made its way into the public reading of the Scriptures.
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And I hope to show by the end of tonight why this precious letter made its way into the Bible.
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Now, this is the last of what is known as Paul's prison epistles.
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Those are the ones that he wrote while he was imprisoned.
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These include also the letters of Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians.
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And he makes several passing references in this book to the fact that he is, in fact, in prison.
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He says in verse 1, he calls himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ, or rather we could say a prisoner for Jesus Christ.
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He says later in verse 10, I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment.
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Verse 13, he says, I would have been glad to keep him with me in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment.
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And then again in verse 23, he talks about Epaphras, and he said Epaphras was his fellow prisoner.
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So, over and over and over again, Paul makes passing references to his being in prison during this time.
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And it's likely that he's writing this letter at the same time or consecutively when he writes the letter to the Colossians.
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Both this letter and the letter to the Colossians mention Timothy, as well as many of the people at the end of the book are also mentioned in the book of Colossians, so it seems to be written about the same time.
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And Onesimus, who is a main character in this book, we're going to see he's the runaway slave, is also mentioned in Colossians chapter 4.
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He is mentioned in Colossians 4.9 as being a faithful and beloved brother.
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So it's very likely that these two books are being written either consecutively or at the same time.
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The story behind Philemon is really a simple story, but it is one that comes with a little bit of difficulty because it's written in a culture that we no longer live in.
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So we're going to be talking about some cultural things tonight that may, at times, come across a little difficult, especially in our modern context.
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Because Philemon is a slave owner.
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That has to be understood right away.
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But he's a slave owner who is also a Christian.
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He's a slave owner who has a church in his house.
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So he's not only a Christian, but he's, in some ways, he's a Christian leader in the community.
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He's willing to open his home and have other Christians come into his home, some of which probably were slaves.
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And there were slave masters and slaves together worshipping in the home of Philemon.
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During the time of Paul's ministry in Ephesus, Philemon was apparently converted by Paul's preaching and the slave Onesimus had escaped his master Philemon and he eventually found himself in the company of Paul, where he too was converted by Paul's preaching.
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So we have two converts here.
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We have the convert Philemon, who is the slave master.
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We have the convert Onesimus, who is the slave.
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And Onesimus is with Paul.
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And Paul says, Onesimus is a man who is a, he's a helper to me.
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He is profitable to me.
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And actually, the word Onesimus actually means profitable.
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That's what his name means.
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And he says, he's profitable to me, however, there's a problem.
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He is still the legal property of Philemon.
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He is still technically his slave.
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And as a runaway slave, he is under the burden of being an outlaw.
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And were someone to catch him in this condition, he could be punished, he could be taken back to Philemon, Philemon could have him punished, or there's all kinds of things that could happen as a result of this and Paul knows that.
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So Paul is writing this short letter in an attempt to reconcile Onesimus and Philemon.
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And Paul asks Philemon to accept Onesimus as a brother in Christ and not merely as his slave.
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Now, I want to talk for a moment about the purpose of this letter.
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I just gave you the outline, but I want to talk a little deeper about the purpose.
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Because there have been many sermons, essays, and commentaries, and even books that have been written about this little letter.
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And they often cannot agree on what the purpose of the book is.
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What is the theme of the book? And one of the presuppositions that many people in our modern context conclude is that this book is about slavery.
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Many people in our modern context think that the purpose behind this book is to be a treatise against the institution of slavery.
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But the problem with that thesis is that the book does not say that.
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The book never condemns slavery as an institution.
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In fact, the whole Bible, in one sense, takes a neutral position in regard to the practice of slavery.
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And I'll quote John MacArthur on this.
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John MacArthur said in his sermon on Philemon, or one of his sermons, he said, quote, In no place in Scripture is there any effort made to abolish slavery.
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And at no time did any prophets or preachers or teachers or apostles of the New Testament ever attack slavery.
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Now, you may not like that, but that is true.
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What MacArthur said is the case.
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That is the fact of the matter.
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And I mention this because we are often given to reading back into the Bible the context of our modern culture.
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And many of us, even when we hear the word slavery, we automatically bristle at that because we know that even in our own land there was a major conflict and there has been a major historical issue around the subject of slavery.
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And when we think of slavery, especially if I were to go on a college campus today and say slavery, the automatic response in the mind of the students would be the slavery that happened in America, particularly in the old South, but not just in the South.
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There was slavery all around the nation.
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And that's the idea that comes into people's mind when they hear the word slavery.
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I want to read a quote for you tonight from Thomas Sowell.
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Now if you're not familiar with Thomas Sowell, Thomas Sowell is not a biblical scholar.
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So some people may take issue with this.
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I'm quoting somebody who's not a biblical scholar, but Thomas Sowell is a historian.
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And sometimes it is good for us to look at history.
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And this is what he writes in regard to slavery.
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When slavery is mentioned, too many people automatically think of whites enslaving blacks.
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That is not even one-tenth of the story of slavery which existed on every inhabited continent.
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The very word slave derives from the word for some white people who were enslaved on a mass scale, the Slavs.
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The term slave comes from the word Slavs.
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For more centuries than blacks were enslaved in the Western Hemisphere.
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Moreover, slavery existed in the Western Hemisphere before the first black or white person ever set foot here.
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The indigenous peoples of this hemisphere enslaved one another just as Asians enslaved Asians, Europeans enslaved Europeans, Africans enslaved Africans.
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Western civilization was the first civilization to regard slavery as morally wrong and it is the civilization with the most sense of guilt about it.
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That's an interesting line.
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We're the first ones to ever think it was wrong.
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We're the first ones ever to fight to abolish it and yet we're the ones who feel the most guilty about it.
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I just think that's an interesting quote.
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He goes on.
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To this very moment, slavery continues in parts of Africa, the Islamic world, but very little noise is made about it because there's no money to be made in denouncing it and no political advantage to be gained.
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Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most astonishing to an American today is that although slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18th century.
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People of every race and color were enslaved and they enslaved others.
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White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire decades after American blacks were freed.
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More whites were brought as slaves to North America than blacks brought as slaves to the United States or to the 13 colonies from which it was formed.
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That's a long quote.
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I read it for this very reason.
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Thomas Sowell is a historian and he's talking about the history of slavery.
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We only think of slavery in a very minor, miniature part of history, the history that affects our country, essentially.
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There's much broader history on the subject of slavery than that.
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Slavery was around a long time before the United States and it's still around today.
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According to National Geographic in 2003, which isn't too many years ago, there was an article that said there are still millions of people enslaved around the world today.
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There are an estimated 27 million men, women, and children in the world who are enslaved today.
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So there is not one era of slavery and there's not one form of slavery.
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Now, you might think, sounds like he's defending slavery.
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I'm not.
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I'm simply defending the idea that we cannot look at one era and one form and assume that it's always...
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All right, so I'm good.
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So there's not one era of slavery and there's not one form of slavery.
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It's existed in every age, it's existed in many ways.
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In fact, one could argue that the way it existed during the time of Paul was actually socially necessary because they didn't have what we might call today an operating middle class, the kind of workers that we have in factories and places.
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And oftentimes, slavery was how people were able to provide for themselves and for their families.
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And so it almost was a social necessity in many places.
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This is another commentary.
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It says this, slavery was based more on economics.
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It was a matter of social status.
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People sold themselves as slaves when they could not pay their debts to provide for their families.
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In the New Testament times, slaves were doctors, lawyers, and even politicians.
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Can you imagine to have your doctor as a person who is sold into slavery, but he is? That's something that would have been possible in the New Testament times.
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Some people actually chose to be slaves so that all their needs were provided for and they were able to survive.
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So are there aspects about slavery that the Bible condemns? Yes, the Bible condemns things like stealing people.
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The Bible in the Old Testament condemns kidnapping.
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So are there aspects of slavery that are always wrong? Yes, it's wrong to kidnap someone.
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It's wrong to take someone by force.
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Yes, the Bible tells us that.
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It's also wrong to abuse slaves.
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Old Testament and New Testament made it wrong to abuse people.
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And obviously these are wrong.
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If you ever go out to Kingsley Plantation, which is a place down on Hexcher Drive.
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My dad used to take me there when I was a kid all the time.
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It is a really neat place.
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It's an old house that you can walk in.
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They have pictures of some of the slaves, and some of the pictures were of them having been beaten.
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And some of those pictures are very awful to look at.
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And so many of those things, we could say, yes, this is an absolute atrocity.
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These things should not happen.
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The abuse of people, human beings, people made in the image of God, absolutely.
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No support for that.
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Yet at the same time, there are people today who would say that men like Jonathan Edwards was not a real Christian because Jonathan Edwards owned slaves.
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Now, Jonathan Edwards is one of the greatest preachers in the history of the United States.
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In fact, the Encyclopedia Britannica called him the greatest theologian to ever be born in the United States.
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That's high praise from a secular book.
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And Jonathan Edwards owned slaves.
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Some people say, well, that makes him out of the kingdom.
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Well, why does it make him out of the kingdom and not Philemon? See, there is a question there, and we have to deal with it.
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Philemon is a slave owner, and so we have to address this from the culture in which it was written.
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The little book of Philemon is not a treatise against slavery, but it could be argued that it does address the abuses of it.
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We're going to talk about that in a little while.
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But it never condemns the institution itself.
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And so if that's not what it's about, what is it about? Now, I've come up with six things.
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Here's my six thoughts.
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These are the themes I believe are present in this little book.
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Are we going to be able to flesh them all out in the next 40 minutes? Probably not.
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But these are the things, if you want to think about these things as you read through the book, I think the themes are forgiveness, substitution, authority, friendship, inter-church conflict, I'm going to talk about that a little bit tonight, and social status.
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These are the things that I think really ring out, and they are sort of in an order of importance.
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I think forgiveness is the primary theme, because in one sense, Onesimus has wronged his master by running away, and there's a verse 18 seems to indicate that he probably took some things with him when he ran, as if maybe he stole something, because he talks about him owing anything to him.
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So there's a chance that there is a need for forgiveness there.
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But we're also going to see this second one, substitution, rings out strongly in the book, as Paul makes the point, and he says, if he owes you anything, charge it to me.
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And there's a picture there of Christ, who takes our debts upon himself.
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And Paul, in that sense, becomes a picture of the Lord Jesus, who takes our debts.
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And so we'll see each of these as we go through the book.
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Now, on the other side of the board, I have the outline, and the outline is very simple.
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We have, in verses 1 to 3, a salutation to Philemon.
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The second few verses is his thanksgiving for Philemon.
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Then we have his appealing for Onesimus, his substitution.
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Now, you could say the appeal really goes all the way to verse 20, but I wanted to separate out verses 17 to 20, because that's when he really addresses the subject of substitution.
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And then finally, his confidence that Philemon's going to do the right thing.
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So these are the five things that we're going to look at tonight.
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Let's begin by looking at the salutation.
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We'll make this one relatively brief so that we can move on, because it is relatively simple.
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It says, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus.
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I've already mentioned the fact that he is enslaved right now, or not enslaved, imprisoned right now.
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So some people might say, well, when he says, I'm a prisoner of Christ, he's simply using a word that is similar to, like, doulos.
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Doulos is a bond servant.
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Maybe he means, I'm a servant of Christ.
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But no, in this sense, he's actually enslaved for the preaching of the gospel.
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So it's most likely when he says, a prisoner for Christ, that's literally what he's talking about.
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And he goes on to say, and Timothy, our brother.
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Now, it's interesting that he mentions Timothy here.
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I don't believe that what he's doing is co-authoring the letter with Timothy, even though what we do know is that at the beginning of letters, we have the author of the letters.
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And we see this all throughout Paul.
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Paul, an apostle.
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Paul, you know, called to be an apostle.
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We see this throughout his works.
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And we see now he's adding Timothy.
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And the possibility of the reason why is that Paul is moving to the position where he's going to begin passing the torch.
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Timothy is the one he's been mentoring, in a sense, to raise up as a leader in his departure.
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Paul will be soon hereafter killed for the gospel.
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He knows his time is short.
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And he's raising up this young man to be his next in command.
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Or next, not in command.
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That's the wrong way to say it.
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The next in leadership.
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And so he puts Timothy with him in the letter.
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And he says, to Philemon, our beloved fellow worker.
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Interesting enough, the word Philemon comes from the root word philos, which means love.
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So that word itself is like the idea of love.
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And so he says, the one who is love, who is our beloved.
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It's kind of the interesting there.
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And he says, fellow worker.
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And Aphia, our sister.
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Now, Aphia is probably Philemon's wife because he's addressing it to him and her.
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But then it mentions Archippus.
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Now, Archippus, it says, is our fellow soldier.
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He's mentioned in Colossians as well.
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And some people assume this may be their son.
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So Philemon, and so in one sense, is sending it to their home.
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This is to you and to your wife and to your son who lives in the home with you.
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But then he goes on to say, and the church.
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And by the way, that's a hugely important part in verse two.
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Because by mentioning the church, this is why I think it is appropriate that this book is read throughout the churches.
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Because even though this is, in one sense, a personal correspondence with Philemon, it's not meant for Philemon's ears only.
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It's meant for Philemon, his wife, possibly his son, but also the church.
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And we see the church is in his house.
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By the way, it wasn't until, I believe, the second century that church buildings became a common reality.
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Up until that time, when people met for worship, they would meet for worship in the homes of people.
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Now, recently, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because this is taking us totally off the subject.
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Recently, there's been a push back to go back to house churches.
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And the only negative I see in that, because I don't have a problem if the church meets in a house.
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It doesn't matter where a church meets as long as it's the church.
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The problem with going back to house churches that what I've seen is that oftentimes when that happens, there's a departure from church structure.
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There's a departure from elders, departure from deacons, and it basically becomes more like a glorified Bible study where there's no one leading, there's no one ordained, there's no one performing the ordinances, they're not having baptism, Lord's Supper, things like that.
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And so it becomes almost like just a fancy Bible study.
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And that's not a house church.
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A house church is where the church is structured and formed, but they meet in a home.
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So that would be my only issue.
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If somebody says, we have a church in our house, okay, tell me how it's structured.
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That would be the only issue.
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Because it went that way for a couple hundred years, and it was fine, because what mattered was that the church would gather.
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And this is one of the things that I, Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, which is a church that is like our sister church in town.
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They're very similar to us theologically, and it's named too, because we're Sovereign Grace family, Sovereign Grace Baptist Church.
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I like their sign, because it doesn't say this is the church.
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It says this is where the church gathers.
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It says Sovereign Grace Baptist Church gathers here.
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I think that's an interesting, and I'm sure that was intentional, the idea that the church is the people, and they gather in the building.
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So just an interesting, I've picked up on that the times I've been there.
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All right, so we get to verse three.
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It says, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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This is a very common expression.
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If I had time, I would dive into the fact that what we see here is an expression of the deity of Christ.
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You say, well, how do you see the deity of Christ here? Because notice what he says.
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He says, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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He's saying the grace that we have, which is how we are saved, and the peace that we have, which is the result of our salvation, comes from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Grace and peace come from the Father and the Son, and we could also say by the power of the Spirit.
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So there's an implicit reference to the deity of Christ.
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So moving on now to verses four to seven.
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This is Paul's thanksgiving for Philemon.
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He says, 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 Christ and for all the saints.
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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.
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Now, the ESV says the sharing of your faith.
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The King James Version, I think, says the communication of your faith.
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Am I saying that right, Mike? That is an interesting phrase, because many people have assumed, and many a sermon has been preached on that verse as a verse that encourages evangelism.
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Because if you hear it, especially the ESV, he says, I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective.
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Now, if you think of just that line, I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective, that sure sounds like an evangelism verse, right? The sharing of your faith, because we think of evangelism as what? Sharing the gospel.
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And so a lot of people have taken that as it's an evangelism verse.
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But the idea of sharing here, the idea of the communication here, this word is actually not so much about evangelism, even though that's important, is what he's saying is that the faith that you have would be alive within the community that you are ministering within, that you're sharing that faith within the community.
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And that's why I do think the word communication there is good.
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You're communicating your faith within the community of faith.
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And so is it true that we're supposed to share our faith? Yes, but this isn't a push so much for evangelism as it is that his faith, which is the faith of Onesim, or the faith of Philemon, would be active among the people.
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And it has been, because he said that it has been.
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He says, I hear of your love and your faith, and I pray, he says, that the communication of your faith will become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ, that it grow, that your faith is communicated and that it grows.
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And then he goes on to say in verse seven, for I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.
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He's giving him words of encouragement.
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You are doing a good job as a believer in Christ.
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Now, some people think that because Paul is about to make an appeal that he's buttering him up.
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You know what buttering up is like when my kids come to me and they say, Daddy, you're so handsome.
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Can I have some ice cream? It's always a something is a positive followed by a request.
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We all know that we have a tendency to do that.
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However, in this case, there is nothing I would say there's nothing insincere about Paul's words.
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I wouldn't say that there's anything untrue about what Paul is saying.
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In fact, he structures it in an interesting way.
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You've heard me before talk about chiasms, which are structural, just the way that sometimes arguments are structured in Scripture, sometimes stories.
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He says your love and your faith, and then he says your faith and your love.
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That's a chiastic structure which sort of focuses on this guy.
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Doug Moo, who's one of my favorite New Testament commentators, Doug Moo said, it's like a double cheeseburger.
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He said, if you don't understand chiasms, here's what it's like.
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He says you got your bun, your first piece of beef, your second piece of beef, and then the bottom part of the bun, right? Because he says faith, love, love, faith.
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And I said, that's the coolest way I've ever heard.
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And I'll never not use that illustration ever again.
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If I can ever use a cheeseburger in an illustration, I will.
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But he's focusing in on Philemon's positives, because he is about to ask him a difficult thing.
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He's about to ask him to forgive someone who's wronged him.
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And he's basically going to say, I could tell you to do this, but I'm going to appeal for you to do it from the right attitude and the right heart.
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And so understand, I know that you have this heart.
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I've seen your love.
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I've seen your faith.
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And I've seen them in action.
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And I hear of these things.
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Therefore, I'm now going to make the appeal.
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And this is beginning in verse 8.
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He makes the appeal.
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He says, accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake, I prefer to appeal to you.
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Now, I am I am of the opinion that that's the that's the key to the whole book is verse 8.
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Because Paul is saying.
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That.
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I could make you do this.
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Now, some people disagree with that interpretation.
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They don't think that Paul's being that forceful.
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And maybe he's not being as forceful as we think.
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But he is saying, I am bold enough in Christ to command this.
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But for love's sake, I want to appeal to you.
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And I don't know if you've ever been in a situation if your parents, I know you have.
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But maybe if you're maybe even some of you young folks that are not yet parents.
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There are times when you can make your child do something.
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But as they get older and they are in a situation where they're having to begin to make decisions for themselves and you know that one day you want them to make the right decisions, forcing your decisions upon them aren't always isn't always the safest route to take.
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Now, you have to be careful because I don't want anybody to think that I'm not saying we shouldn't parent our children.
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We have to we have to do those things.
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But in this case, maybe let me make a different example.
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Let's get away from the kids for a minute.
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In the church, you all know how the church is structured.
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There are elders, there are deacons, and then there's the body.
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And the responsibility of the elders is to lead and teach through the word of God.
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And we make a lot of governing decisions as elders.
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In fact, the word presbyteros, overseer, episkopos is overseer rather, it means governor.
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I mean, it really is a governing position.
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And Andy and I and Mike as well, but Andy and I specifically have talked a lot about how sometimes we want people to want this rather than just say, this is what we're going to do.
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We want people to understand why they should want to do it.
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We want people to understand why this is important to do this rather than just come out and say, this is what we're going to do.
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We want people to understand why it's important and why it's right.
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And so that may mean that before we do that thing, we're going to have to teach on it.
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That may mean before we pull the trigger on this decision, we're going to have to have a meeting and explain it.
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And then we're going to have to ask the church to pray about it so that we all come together in the end and we lovingly and joyfully move forward together.
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And as Brother Andy often talks about, you don't have, you know, half the people row in one direction, half the people row in the other direction.
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Right? Isn't that the problem with the boat? You got some people rowing, you got some people sitting, and you got some people rowing in the other direction.
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So he goes and he says, I could make you do this.
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I could command this, but I prefer to appeal to you.
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Now, Paul calls himself an old man, which is an interesting, just unique thing here that he identifies himself as an old man.
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He says, I, Paul, an old man, and now a prisoner also for Jesus Christ's sake, I appeal to you for my child.
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And he calls Onesimus his child, whose father I became in my imprisonment.
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Somehow Paul is still preaching, even though in prison, and somehow Onesimus has heard the gospel and been saved through that.
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And he says this in verse 11.
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He says, formerly he was useless to you.
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That's an interesting play on words because his name Onesimus means profitable or useful.
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He says, formerly he was useless.
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He said he wasn't useless.
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He was a slave.
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He did the work of a slave.
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He was useful.
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And slaves were expensive, y'all.
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By the way, when it comes to the forgiveness, we're talking about a minute.
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They're actually a great expense.
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And so he paid for him.
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He was doing work.
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But in this sense, Paul is addressing the issue of spiritually he was useless.
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He was just a body doing work.
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He was not profitable to you.
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But now he is indeed useful to you and to me.
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I'm sending him back to you, sending my very heart.
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Think about that.
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He says, I'm sending this man, Onesimus, to you.
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I'm sending you my heart.
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You ever hear somebody say that? They'll say something about one of their children.
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They'll say, boy, that goes my heart.
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You know, that's my heart.
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I say that a lot.
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You know, when Hope was born, I just had this special moment like Jennifer.
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Jennifer was had just given birth.
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And I'm looking at Jennifer and the baby is over there.
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And Jennifer looks at me and she knows I want to go.
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And she goes, go.
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And so I ran and I'm now hovering over my newly born baby girl.
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And it was like my heart was outside of my chest.
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And of course, I've experienced that a few more times now, and each time it's the same.
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But but that that first time seeing the child born and knowing it's it's it's your baby and it's this new new life has just come into the world, taking their first breath.
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And your heart is outside of your chest.
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And that's what Paul's saying about Onesimus.
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This is my heart.
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I'm sending you my very heart.
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And he goes on to say, I would have been glad to keep him with me in order that he might serve me on behalf of on behalf of you.
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During my imprisonment, he could have served me as if you were serving me.
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So basically, your slave becomes my assistant.
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And I would have been happy for that to happen.
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But verse 14, I prefer to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion, but by your own accord.
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Think think of that.
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I know that I believe completely in the sovereignty of God and salvation.
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I know that I believe completely in God's election and predestination and all those things that make me a Calvinist.
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But I still believe that when a person comes to Christ, it's because they want to come.
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Now, I believe God changes their heart to give them the ability to want to come, but it's still their desire to come.
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And we could talk about how that works in the changing of the heart.
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But the point is, we when we talk about being compelled, God changes our heart.
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So we want to.
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And the similar things happening with Philemon, Paul saying he said, I could make you, but I'm rather trying to appeal to you so that you'll want to do this so that you'll want to to do the right thing for this is perhaps.
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Now, this is an interesting verse, verse 15.
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He says, for this is perhaps why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a bond servant, but much more as a beloved brother.
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Especially to me, but much more to you, both in the flesh and the Lord, he says, maybe God did this for a reason.
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Maybe God took him away from you so that he could be brought back to you as a better man than when he left, because when he left, he was a pagan slave who didn't know the Lord.
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Now he has run away.
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And in the sovereignty of God, he's run from his master headlong into the face of the apostle Paul and has been converted.
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And now he's going to return no longer as just a bond servant, but as a brother.
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This is a change that God brought about.
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How can you be angry when God did something so good? You know, I I sometimes people ask me, we talk about when I was a little boy, my parents got a divorce and that was tough.
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Right.
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But I've said I've told the story to all of you, so I won't belabor it, but my parents getting a divorce brought my stepmom into my life.
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She brought me to this church.
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This church is the church I've been in since I was seven years old.
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And God raised me up in this church to be the pastor and save me.
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He did that in a different order, by the way.
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He saved me, raised me to be the pastor.
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And I'm still here over 30 some odd years later.
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I can't be angry.
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When I was a little boy, I wanted my parents not to get a divorce.
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I wanted my mom and dad back together more than anything in the world.
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But at this point, I can't be angry anymore because I know what God did in the midst of all that.
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And so Paul is saying to Philemon, what if God brought this about so that he would bring him back to you as a brother and not just as a slave? Can't you see the sovereignty of God in this, Philemon? That's what he's saying.
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Can't you see God working this out? And then we get to verse 17 and we see this section I put on substitution.
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As I said, I wanted to separate this out.
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He says, so if you consider me your partner and this, by the way, he uses the word if twice.
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If is in verse 17, if is in verse 18.
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He says, if you consider me your brother, receive him as you would receive me.
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If he has wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge that to my account.
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So Paul is giving him an if-then statement.
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If this is the truth, then do this.
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If you consider me your partner, then treat this man like you would me.
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And if he has done any, if he's taken something from you, this is why I said he may owe him something, he may have to charge it to my account.
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I, Paul, write this with my own hand.
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I will repay you.
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And then Paul does say something which I think is, at the very least, a nudge.
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It kind of feels like a jab to the ribs.
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But notice what he says next.
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To say nothing of the fact that you owe me your very soul.
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That's why he doesn't, it's written a little different in the ESV, but that's basically what he says.
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He says, charge whatever you want to my account.
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But remember this, you owe me everything.
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So before you start putting red in my ledger, before you start applying that, that debt, keep in mind that the greatest debt in the world is the debt you owe to me because I led you to the Lord.
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And I don't hold any charge to you.
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And then he says in verse 20, yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord.
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Refresh my heart in Christ.
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What's the benefit that he wants? He doesn't want anything financially.
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He wants the forgiveness that Onesimus needs.
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He wants the restoration that Onesimus needs.
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And he says, so refresh my heart in Christ.
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Now, beginning of verse 21, we have the confidence in Philemon.
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The confidence is this.
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He says, confident in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.
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I can imagine Philemon reading this, saying, well, you're not giving me much of a choice in one sense, because you just said you trust that I'm going to do what's right.
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And by the way, you've written this to the whole church.
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So the whole church is now waiting with bated breath to see if I'm going to do what's right.
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And then, by the way, verse 22, he says, at the same time, prepare a room for me, for I am hoping that through your prayers, I will be graciously given to you.
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So the idea is have a room ready, brother.
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I'm on the way as soon as I'm able.
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So guess what? I'm going to see if what I expect has actually come to pass.
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And then he goes on to finish the letter by mentioning a few of his fellow prisoners and associates.
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And then he finishes verse 25, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
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I thought about this as I was reading it today, I was rereading and making a few extra notes as I was preparing to preach tonight.
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I said, verse 22 is actually an interesting verse, because Paul says right before that, treat Onesimus like you would treat me.
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And then he says, prepare me a room.
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So what is the implication of that? Prepare Onesimus a room.
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Paul says you be to him the same way you would be to me.
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And prepare me a room.
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This little letter essentially is a loving personal appeal from the apostle Paul to a fellow brother in Christ to do the appropriate thing and receive Onesimus back.
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As a brother and treat him as such.
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If Philemon is angry, Paul is calling him to forgive.
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If he is not willing, Paul is calling him to obey.
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Not him, but Christ.
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Christ is the authority in this, and Christ is the one who's called us to forgive.
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If he's planning to punish Onesimus, Paul says yield.
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And if he's harboring bitterness, Paul says repent.
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And we don't know what happened.
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Because we don't have Philemon part two.
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We don't have another chapter.
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History is very quiet on this.
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The only thing that we know.
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Is that there was a man named Onesimus.
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Who became the bishop of Ephesus.
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Later.
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And it would have been within the same time frame.
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Ephesus, of course, is close to where Philemon would have been.
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So is it possible that Philemon received him as a brother? That they worshiped together, not as master and slave, but as brothers in Christ, and that God raised up Onesimus as a leader in the early church to the point where he even led others in following the Lord Jesus Christ? Very possible.
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Very possible.
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I'd like you to consider this thought as we close.
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This is the most personal letter that we have written by Paul.
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As I said, it is written to Philemon and the church.
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But in a sense, it's written man to man.
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It's written from the apostle to his friend to appeal to him to do what is right.
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And I ask this question tonight, a question for you to consider and maybe put this on your mind and your heart as you pray through these thoughts.
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If Paul wrote you a personal letter.
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If Paul wrote to you about your greatest need.
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Of repentance.
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What would your letter say? Father, I thank you for your word.
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And I do pray, Lord, that you would.
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Through your word, draw us closer to you and Lord, as we look at all of the themes that come out of this, Lord.
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We see the primary one is that theme of being willing to apply the forgiveness that's been given to us to others.
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To not have a spirit of bitterness.
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And Lord, when there is interchurch conflict to seek Christ.
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And to understand that he has made a way to bring reconciliation.
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In any situation.
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Lord, help us to be.
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As Paul called Philemon to be.
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One whose faith.
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Is shared within the community of faith.
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And Lord is communicated to all through love.
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In Jesus name.