Philemon: Intro & Overview Pt. 2

This is Philemon part 2. We started speaking last week on the brief epistle to Philemon, and we talked about a number of different things, and it was sort of a, started tiptoeing through it, but I also kind of gave an overview and touched on different topics that I wanted to expand on this time.

So if we remember the letter, for the sake of time

I'm going to hold, who remembers the letter? Who read the letter? Philemon?

Get it? Alright, who has spent any time thinking about the letter since last week?

Okay, good to know. Alright, so we'll read it again then, to refresh our memories.

So, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to Philemon our beloved fellow worker, and Apphia our sister, and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house, grace to you and peace from God our

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the love that you have toward the

Lord Jesus and for all the saints. And I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.

For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.

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. 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. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.

I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. 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.

For this is perhaps why he was parted from you for a short while, that you may have him back forever, no longer as a bond servant, but more than a bond servant, as a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the

Lord. So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. If he has wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge that to my account.

I, Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it to say nothing of your owing me even your own self.

Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you and the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ.

Confident of your obedience, I write to you. Knowing that you will do even more than I say. 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. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you.

And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the

Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. So again, a short letter, but if we consider it rightly, it's a very powerful letter, okay?

It's personal, and yet it's also somewhat public, and we talked about that last time. The focus is clearly on Philemon.

He is the first mention. It's his slave that has run off and has now come back.

No longer an unbeliever, but now as a believer, as a brother in Christ. And yet he has a past that he is coming back to face.

He's coming back to deal with that sin and those that he sinned against.

But it wasn't just him who's aware of this situation, Philemon, but his, I would believe it to be his wife,

Aphia, possibly his son, Archippus, and the church in your house.

So as we mentioned, this letter came by way of Tychicus and Onesimus, and it also came with the letter to the

Colossians, to the church of Colossae. And so that letter is to all the believers in the city of Colossae.

This is a more personal letter speaking directly to those who are part of the house church that meets in Philemon's house.

And our understanding is that Archippus was probably, based on what it says in Colossians, he's probably the actual pastor or elder, the spiritual leader, but Philemon is the host.

And we don't know what other roles he might have played in that local church, but here he is hosting the church.

So these believers are aware of Onesimus' sin against Philemon. The believers that are with Paul that he says sends greeting, they're also aware of Onesimus' sin because they're with Paul and Onesimus has come and he's received the gospel, he's repented, but they're aware of his situation and what he's going back for.

So it's somewhat personal but somewhat public because those who are in the know and who are aware are being addressed as well.

We talked about who's in the hot seat, you know, and I just remember being younger and saying how it really seemed for my unsanctified little spirit that this was a massive guilt trip that Paul was laying on Philemon and, you know, just pressuring him, hey, listen, you got to take this guy back and remember you owe me everything and I'm sure you're going to listen.

I'm on my way to your house so, you know, I'm sure everything's going according to plan. And what you'll see if you look at it rightly and as we go through it, we'll understand that's actually not a view that we should be having.

Paul is not just some master manipulator just trying to strong -arm Philemon to, you know, accept

Onesimus back. Onesimus himself is coming back and remember as a slave in those times to run away from your master was a criminal offense and you could get in a lot of trouble, perhaps even put to death, and he stole from him as well, right?

So he is a criminal, he's a fugitive from justice, and yet the amazing thing about God and his providence and the kindness is here is, you know,

I want to talk about these men in a little bit and point out the fact that we know none of them were perfect, right?

And yet we have this commendation from Paul regarding Philemon about what a godly man he is.

He's hosting a church in his house. Onesimus is exposed to this believer and his family and their church, their worship, their presentation of the gospel, who knows how many times, and obviously he rejects all of it.

For some time, however long he's there and the church is going on, makes no difference to him, he steals and runs off.

But somehow in God's providence he goes from this household and I think it's possible that he ended up in Ephesus where we talked about where is

Paul imprisoned at this point. Could have been Rome, that's 1 ,300 miles away.

Could have been Ephesus, that's about 120 miles away. So he went all the way there and he came all the way back.

I think it's possible that it was Ephesus, but we don't know for sure. Either way, he gets over there and maybe he runs into Epaphras, who is from Colossae, he's one of you, right?

And maybe Epaphras sees him and says, hey, what are you doing all the way over here? And maybe he introduces him to Paul.

Who knows? Paul says, you're my partner, you're my fellow worker. Maybe he had known about Paul already.

Maybe he came to conviction or realized he was in trouble and he goes to appeal to Paul to get help.

We can only speculate how he came to meet up with Paul and his imprisonment.

But we do know that he got saved. So God in his mercy, he was exposed to the gospel over here and he runs away and yet he gets the gospel again and he gets saved.

But he's coming back as a fugitive from justice. Hoping that Paul's letter,

I'm sure, will be effective in persuading Philemon to receive him,

God bless you. But he also has to realize he could be arrested, he could be thrown in jail, he could be perhaps even executed.

And he has to face these people whom he sinned against. So there's a lot going on there.

Philemon and Onesimus both have to face their obligations to one another. And so does the church. The church is getting ringside seats to this as far as this conflict and how it's supposed to be resolved, how the apostle

Paul is saying it ought to be resolved. And how are they going to respond to Onesimus?

I mean Philemon is getting instruction, Philemon is being appealed to, but they likewise have to respond to him.

So this brief letter is a powerful epistle regarding the ravages of sin, interpersonal conflict, and the grace of forgiveness and restoration.

When we were talking last time and talking about, I mentioned about family worship and trying to just open up a book and go through it and see what patterns do we see, what examples do we see, what things are being taught.

And so we talked about the prayer, and someone even brought up, you know, it seems to have elements of the

Lord's Prayer in there. And I was like, yeah, and I mentioned a couple of things and I moved on, but I was thinking about it again,

I'm like, you know what, I like that. The more I thought about it, the more I appreciated what we were seeing as far as the model, you know, the

Lord's Prayer is a model for us. There is nothing wrong with reciting it word for word. It's a good prayer, right?

But the themes and the concepts in there have far -reaching application. And so having that idea and praying in that manner is beneficial for us as believers.

And we see how it comes through here. You know, he says, grace to you and peace from God, our

Father. And he goes, I thank my God always when I remember you. So here in the Lord's Prayer, our

Father in heaven, right? And it's right there, hallowed be your name. And we're recognizing,

Paul's recognizing the Lord Jesus Christ, that God has set his king on the throne, right?

And his king is the one who's reconciling the world to God the Father, right? And so his name should be hallowed through all of that.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When we look at verse 6 and following, and he says,

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.

That sharing of your faith, there's really an aspect there, that they'd have the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us in Christ or for Christ's sake.

There's aspects of that of the coming of the kingdom and of his divine will being obeyed. When he's talking about the sharing of your faith, what do we normally think of someone sharing their faith?

What is that? If you were to say, what do you mean sharing my faith? What would you say?

Evangelism? What was the other one? What is it called? Oh, what is it called?

What does it look like? So, I mean, evangelism, right? We're thinking good news, right?

You're sharing good news. That's part of it. Can there be more to sharing your faith?

Right, sharing it experientially. This is my faith and this is what it looks like when

I live according to my faith, right? And so, that it may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing, every good thing that is in us.

You know, that is something that is powerful when said, when we point out all the good things that are in the world, that are in Christ and how we should be with one another.

You know, sharing the gospel in that way, speaking the truth of what Jesus has done to reconcile rebels to himself and to his father, that's excellent.

But when you show it, you know, when you live out accordingly like Christ has loved me and that's why

I love my neighbor the way I'm supposed to. That's why when Jesus says, who is your neighbor?

And he gives the story of the Good Samaritan and then we go down to the mill and say, normally we would not agree on much, right?

We're coming from two different world views. I'm staunchly pro -life, I don't think you should kill children in the womb.

And here you are actually going to kill a child in the womb and I'm trying to offer you everything

I can to help you out to avoid that, right? As a church we're saying, we can provide you with health care if you don't have health insurance.

If you're worried about the cost of having a baby, the prenatal care, the vitamins, the delivery, all that, we can help.

If you're worried about the cost of having diapers and formula and stuff like that, we can provide that.

If you need, like I can't get to the doctor regularly for these visits, I'm just going to do this. If you need transportation, if you need a safe place to go, if you need counseling, what did the

Good Samaritan do? For a guy who would normally be his enemy and cross him on the other side of the street and not talk to him, go miles out of his journey just to avoid stepping foot through his territory, he provided him medical care, he provided him transportation, he provided him hospitality, he showed him love, right?

Sharing our faith means not only sharing the good news, but living in a way that demonstrates we understand the love of Christ and we want to live that Christ out.

We want to live the love that he has given us out. So not only talking about it, but living it out, that it would be effective for the full knowledge, not just words and concepts, but actions and how we live our lives.

It's not just, I'm repeating myself, it is what

Christ has provided. And so here he's saying,

I know that the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. And so perhaps their physical needs have met and they've met encouragement that way.

Perhaps their spiritual needs and encouraging them and counseling them and praying with them. This is the essence of seeing his kingdom come and his will be done.

By speaking the truth and living according to it. That's that.

Give us this day our daily bread. Again, probably being accomplished through Philemon, he's refreshing the saints, he's meeting their needs.

Both physical and spiritual are very likely. And so he's helping provide for them.

He's helping sustain them. He's being the conduit of grace that God uses to answer that prayer.

Give us this day our daily bread. Now we're going to come to the part about forgive us our debts as we forgive those who have transgressed against us, who have their debtors to us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Is this what he's saying? I'm praying for you that you would be able to forgive

Onesimus as you've been forgiven. That you would not be led into temptation to be hard -hearted, but that you would be delivered from evil.

And so it really all is in there. Probably what Paul is praying, the model of the pattern that he's praying.

And out of that is going to flow the remarks that he has for Onesimus. And if you're going through the

American Standard, I propose the ESV. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Because God is the sovereign one. Philemon is called to do this in recognition of his obligation as a citizen of the kingdom of God.

And he's empowered by the king and for the glory of the king. And so there's actually a lot there about the pattern of the

Lord's prayer. That model, praying it and then living it out.

So I really appreciate that as I thought more about it.

And so I want to make sure I shared that. So the themes that are there in the

Lord's prayer are present here in Philemon. And it's showing how practical and how it's really good.

How practical and far -reaching. That's what it says. Far -reaching it is.

I have to do my own tongues and interpretation on my notebook.

It's terrible. All right. So this model and the remarks that flow from it helps provide context and perspective for this letter.

And Jerry had reminded us that, well, he had suggested, I should say, that Paul was reminding

Philemon of who he is in Christ, what his obligations are. And I would say that that's accurate, that he's encouraging him.

He's giving this commendation to say, listen, I appreciate you as a brother. I thank God for you as a brother.

And look how the Lord has used you and your faith to refresh the saints, refresh the body of Christ, including myself, the great

Apostle Paul. And, of course, he wouldn't address himself that way. We'll talk about how he addresses himself later on.

But he's reminding him of just how much God has already done in his life and how much he's using him already.

And so in light of this, that God is our Father, Jesus our Lord, and the sharing of our faith is not just in words but experientially in how we live, effective for the full knowledge of every good thing in us for the sake of Christ, as an

Apostle, Paul could command what's required.

He goes, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required. He's an Apostle. As I said last time, he could have just wrote a letter to someone else and said, hey, by the way, go tell

Philemon he needs to make this right. He needs to accept this guy. He's a brother now and thus and thus.

He says, Paul, an old man. And, again, the Greek here, depending on your translation, old man, ambassador, is actually very close.

So he could be saying an ambassador and now a prisoner also for Christ.

So he's saying, you know my devotion to the Lord. You know my service to the

King. You know the authority I have. He goes, forget about all that for a second.

He goes, I'm not here in this letter trying to command you what is your obligation.

He wouldn't have been wrong to do so. Being a Christian, Jesus is our

King. And sometimes, well, not sometimes, we have obligations to our

King. And it's not always a matter of whether our feelings have caught up yet. We're called to obey, trust and obey.

We're called to listen to him, to do what he has said. And hopefully our hearts will catch up.

We pray that our hearts would match up to our actions, what he has called us to. But Paul is recognizing this is a mature believer who has blessed others.

And so he goes, rather than just command you for love's sake, he says, take this as me appealing to you on his behalf.

I'm appealing to you on behalf of Onesimus, my child, for love's sake.

He could command, but recognizing who Philemon is, I think he wants to see

Philemon grow still in his sanctification.

He wants to do it not as, okay, this is just merely my obligation, but he wants him to embrace what he's asking him to do with a willing heart.

He wants him to do what is right because it's right and because he wants to do it.

That's why he makes this comment later on about, I would have kept him, but I'd rather send it. I don't want your good to happen out of compulsion.

You know, like you didn't have a choice in the matter. I wanted you to do whatever you were going to do with him on your own initiative.

I wanted you to decide what to do with him, but I'm appealing to you on his behalf.

I'm sending him to you as is sending my very heart. And I think, what do we see here?

What do we see here when Paul is appealing to him in this way? What does that demonstrate to us about this situation?

A reminder of how we should be long -suffering, I suppose. A reminder of how we should be long -suffering.

A reminder of how we should be long -suffering, yes. Grace. Grace, yes.

Actual brotherly love. Right. But, no, yes, yes and amen to all of that.

What strikes me is the fact that he has to, he's making this appeal shows just how hard this situation is.

You know what I mean? It's a difficult situation. It doesn't seem like this is just some minor offense.

Like, hey, you know, he ignored you that day. Like, let it go. He had something else on his mind entirely.

No, he really wronged him. You know, he really sinned against him. And so Paul is aware of how hard this is, humanly speaking, to not just offer forgiveness, but to receive him as a brother.

Philemon is appealed to as a fellow worker in Christ. That's what he calls him.

A partner of Paul, is what he says, in the advancement of the kingdom. And yet he's being challenged to grow, right?

To love and embrace as a brother one who has wronged him significantly.

And now this interaction, this relational drama, is on display for his local church and for us as well.

So it's easy for us to... Yes? I find it interesting, too, in verse 9, he says,

Yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you. And you really see, it's kind of two -tiered there, right?

Like, I think Paul is saying, because of my love for you, I want you to grow.

But he's also encouraging him to learn to love Onesimus as well, right? There's more to it there than just Paul's love to Philemon.

Oh yeah, absolutely, I agree. There's so much here. I feel like I'm just screaming past some of it and hoping that I'm hitting enough of the highlights to benefit.

What I'm seeing in verse 8, Paul could have said, Hey, I'm an apostle, I can command you to do this.

Yet, I'm also a prisoner of Christ Jesus. We're all, as born -again believers, we're all servants of the

Lord Jesus Christ. So this isn't about title. Yeah, you might be running the Bible study, right?

But let's make the main things the main things. We're servants of Jesus Christ. The way

He saved and served me and had mercy on me, do the same to Him.

This is the flow. Keep in mind, I mentioned last time,

I showed a couple passages from Colossians. I'm going to refer to one of them again this evening.

Look at Colossians and realize these things are on Paul's heart. And there are similarities with the letter to the

Ephesians as well. But he talks about them and how they should respond to each other.

Even the masters, recognize you have a master in heaven. He says we're all equal.

You know, slave and free. Men and women, Greek and Scythian and all.

There's Christ levels the playing field for all of us. We all stand on the same ground when it comes to Him.

We all serve Him. So yeah, excellent. Kind of on the same vein of what

Anthony is saying, and Aaron said it quietly, he's humbling himself. But you see, Paul is humbling himself to Philemon in order to exhort him to humble himself to Onesimus, right?

Like he's leading by example there. He's showing like even I, an apostle, am capable of humbling myself to you and making this request for love's sake.

And you should be doing the same thing for him and forgiving him for what he did for love's sake and humbling yourself.

You're leading this church, but you should be humbling yourself to him. We're all sinners. We're all brothers here.

I mean, stealing my thunder on what I'm going to say about Paul in a minute. I gave it away to a couple of people when

I was talking to them after about just how much Paul is being an example and to what great extent he's being an example.

But we're going to touch on that briefly soon. So saying that this drama is on display, they have to deal with it, their local church is watching and wondering how they have to respond to it.

What about us? It's easy to sit back and be the armchair quarterback and say, I wonder how that worked out.

I'm guessing that the fact that we have this letter worked out. If only we didn't rip it up and go, yeah, right, that guy.

I guess that's two people I don't talk to anymore. Off the Christmas card list they are. Obviously having the letter bodes well that the thing's worked out.

But for us, how do we look at our relationships? How many times are we quick to cut ties with people who have offended us even after we've said we forgive them?

I mean, we're Christians. We know we have to forgive. We know the parable of the unforgiving servant. I forgave you all this.

How could you not forgive your fellow slave? So if we don't forgive them, we don't get forgiveness.

So now we know the deal. I got to forgive you. But do we have to have anything to do with that person after the fact?

Can we just shake hands and walk away? I won't be bitter.

I won't bring it up anymore. And we can say that sincerely. Fine, I forgive them.

I'm a sinner. I'm in need of grace. But I don't like them. Do we have to?

Can't we just call it quits? Can't we just go our separate ways? Can't we just avoid them to avoid what's sure to be future drama?

Is that what Paul is saying that we can do? Shake hands with Onesimus and just send him right back to me.

Is that what he's saying? No. Waiting for someone to say, yeah, yeah it is.

He said I want to keep him. He wants you to send him back, right? No, he's saying prepare a place for me.

I'm hoping to be delivered to you soon. He's saying receive him as you would receive me.

Is that a let bygones be bygones? We're clear.

We're done. Let's just walk away. What does the letter seem to indicate?

Paul says I would have loved to keep him with me, but I didn't want Philemon to do good out of compulsion.

I didn't want him to have no choice in the matter to say you know what the right thing to do is, and I know you'll just have a good attitude.

He sent him back to him. He sent back a fugitive to him to say he's in your hands, but I want you to receive him as you receive me.

Philemon has a choice, doesn't he? I mean, yeah, Paul's mad, but he's in prison. Who says he's getting out?

Especially if he's in Rome. He's 1 ,300 miles away. Sure, Paul's coming to visit me. He has a choice.

What could he do? Wanted fugitive? Stolen funds?

Just bring him to the authorities. Say, listen, I'm a theonomist. You need justice, right?

And that's not a shot against theonomy. That's a shot against a mischaracterization of theonomy.

He could just say this man needs justice. He did wrong, and he can go and be a repentant person in the

Roman jail, right? Tell it to Jesus. He could do that.

He could show mercy, forgive the debt, forget the crime, and say, all right, peace be with you, and take it with you when you go.

Just have a nice life. We're square, right? Or he could receive him as if he was receiving

Paul himself. Would he be quick to kick Paul out? Would he be quick to just try to avoid him?

Like, oh, he's having dinner at that table instead of that table. I'd imagine if I even went on the same table as Paul, I'm like, tell me.

Tell me about all the things that the Lord has been doing, all right? Breaking bread with him, discussing life and godliness with him.

I'd imagine he would love him and want to spend a lot of time with him. I think of the parable of when the prodigal son left, and then when he came back, like, the great offense he gave against his father, but the father literally ran to meet him.

Yeah? That's, yeah. And how many would say, yeah, but that's his dad, you know?

But do I have to do that? We're not even related by, you know. Do we have to?

Do we have to be friends? You know why I'm asking this question? Because I've heard it many times.

More times than you would believe how many times. And I've heard it from, I was pointing, not at my children.

I have heard of people referring to their own siblings like, I think we should just part ways.

Both believing they are united by blood and united by Christ, but they just felt like they can't really get along.

And I've heard it like, we're better apart than we are together, so let's just, us being together is just fueling fire.

Like, we can't work together, so I will love you from afar, you love me from afar, and we can just part ways.

Yeah. Is that what this letter is pointing us to? No. But how many of us, go ahead,

Dan. That's like, being lazy. You don't want to put in the work. I think of Ephesians 4.

Paul says, being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and bond of peace. It's not easy.

You have to die to yourself. Because you have these sinful feelings in you, where you might have bitterness against someone, but you have to put that to death and show them love.

So what does that mean? I'm sort of belaboring this point because I think it's one of the reasons why the church is, one of the reasons why the church universal is sometimes weak and ineffective.

Jesus says, they will know, you're my disciples, by your love for one another.

But do we have a love for one another that exceeds the love that even the world can show for itself?

And he says, even tax collectors love each other. Even the enemies of God have a love for one another.

Does our love exceed their love? So much goes, those freaks, they must be Christians. They got some crazy love putting up with each other the way they do.

I mean, what does he write in his letter to the

Colossians? That letter that goes along with the letter to Philemon.

Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

Bearing with one another. I'm pretty sure there is a version that says tolerating. If one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the

Lord has forgiven you, so you must, you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Why does the Apostle Paul have to write Christians and tell them, put on.

I think I was looking at the New American Standard kind of differently. Put on. Why is he telling them, put these things on?

Why does he tell us that? It doesn't come naturally.

No. I mean, we're Christians, we're born again, but we're growing in our sanctification.

We're not yet glorified. We're not yet sinless. And so we struggle with our flesh.

We have the inner man, the spirit, knowing what's right and wanting what's right. Being frustrated and heartbroken when it's not right, even when it's us who's not being right.

We have our flesh, our members, waging war and going back and forth against what the law of God calls us to do.

Why do we need these things? Because we're not the only sinners in the room.

Everyone else we know is a sinner. And they're all worse than us, isn't that always the case? Everyone else is a worse sinner than me.

So hard. Right? So we have to be compassionate. We have to be kind.

We have to be humble. We have to be meek. We have to be patient. Bearing with one another.

If you have a complaint, forgive. Put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

This is what he's calling us to. I mentioned last time, so I won't belabor the point. Everyone these days thinks

I can only fellowship with those who are in my little demographic niche.

Married, not married. Kids, no kids. This age group, that age group. This economic income level.

Whatever it is. If they're different, what do we really have in common anyway? So I see it all the time.

Think about Paul and Philemon and Onesimus. How different are their situations?

And yet he's telling them this whole household situation needs to change. You need to love one another.

You need to forgive one another. You need to be bind together. And as Christians, how many of us just bypass the whole thing by avoiding the difficult people that require all these character traits?

How often we just say, well, I don't want to be. I was actually just talking about this with the girls at book study the other week.

There was a chapter about self -esteem and different lives. She had written different quotes from,

I don't know who it was. But one of them was, respect yourself enough to walk away from something that doesn't serve you or make you happy anymore.

And I was like, okay, let's talk about this. That sounds, people say that. It sounds maybe nice, but what if Jesus did that to us?

We didn't serve when he came to earth. Where would we be if Jesus applied that philosophy to us?

And I was like, that's about like in the church. It's not always going to be easy, but we have to show love and deny ourselves sometimes.

You know, just talking about this. We have to love people who are different than us.

We have to love people who are difficult to love. You know why we don't do this?

Because it's hard. It's why most churches don't practice church discipline. And that's a leadership problem, first and foremost.

But the entire church has a responsibility because it starts on the member level, right?

If your brother sins against you, go to him privately. And if he hears you, you've won your brother.

If he doesn't, then bring in one or two more that the facts may be established by two or three witnesses.

If he doesn't hear them, bring it to the church. And we go through this whole process. But the idea is reconciliation.

The idea is not only restoration of relationships, but our own growth.

Discipline is meant for a couple of different things. It's meant for our sanctification. It's meant for the purification of the church.

It's meant for the growth of the church. It has all these benefits, but it's hard work.

There's a reason why Jesus says, where two or three are gathered in my name, there

I am in the midst of them. Like, well, God is omnipresent. He's always with us, right?

But he's talking about that. That quote is in the context of church discipline.

And what Christ is saying is, when you obey me in this very, very difficult, messy thing,

I'll be with you. I'm going to give you the grace that you need to try to pull that brother back to yourself and to be reconciled for my name's sake.

We don't do that because it's hard. Most of the time, I've asked plenty of people, if someone had a problem with you, would you want to hear it?

Would you want them to come to you? Let's put that out here right now. Is there anyone? Let's see who the brave ones are.

Is there anyone in this room that if another believer had a problem with you, would you want them to come to you and share with you?

If they felt you had sinned or you had offended them, if you had done something that was impacting your relationship with them, where they were going to go,

I'm just not going to spend time with that person. If I can avoid them, I'll avoid them. I'll just say love covers a multitude of sins. Meanwhile, my whole relationship has changed with them, so it really hasn't covered.

There's a need at times to lovingly confront. Do any of you, if you knew that a brother or sister had a problem with you, had an offense against you, would you want them to come to you by a show of hands?

Everyone want them to come? Who wouldn't want someone to come to them if they had a genuine complaint against them that was going to affect their relationship?

Put up your hands. All right, so either someone's lying. Hopefully not.

Hopefully we'd all want that. How many times have you not gone? How many of us here?

How many of us here have not gone to someone who we think is in sin and possibly they've sinned against us, they've offended us, and we've decided not to go to them to address it because we felt like they wouldn't receive it?

Raise your hand. I should have put up my hand before, but I was like, right?

How many of us have done that? We've all sinned, right? We didn't obey our

Lord and Master. He wants us to be reconciled. He wants us to work it out. Now, again, if it's minor things, we don't have to hammer each other over every little thing, right?

Love does cover a multitude of transgressions. If we were just going to nitpick, we'd be here all day. We'd never leave.

Like Martin Luther in the confessional booth, just spending hours in there with one another. He did this and this, and do you have to breathe so loud?

What's your problem, right? But those things that are hurting our relationship, those things are going to cause us not to want to have a relationship with that person anymore or really curtail it back.

We don't go to them because we think they won't accept it, and yet we know that we'd want to be approached.

So we're lying about something. Maybe we really don't want people to come and address us. Maybe we really wouldn't, but we have that obligation to help each other grow and to help.

We have blind spots, and we don't recognize it because people don't tell us. Sometimes, you know, people are telling us.

You know, we just think, ah, you're blowing that up. You get my point, yes? And God puts these people in your path for a reason.

Paul says, the Lord gave me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger to keep me from becoming conceited.

So these people who you may be looking down on, oh, my goodness, what do I have in common with that guy?

Look what he did to me. We'll just part ways. No, God put that person in your life to help you.

They're a help. So not to belabor that point, but it's a glaring omission in most churches and in most of our lives.

Dealing with people the way we ought to deal with them because it's too hard, you know? And no one else is doing it, and so we're comfortable.

We're comfortable because no one else is really doing it. It's not as obvious. I think it probably happens most in family situations because we just know each other, and we're very comfortable with each other.

And so we tell each other when they're annoying us, right? Like, you know what? It really bugs me when you do this. But outside of that, we kind of keep each other at arm's length.

See each other on Sunday, Wednesday. Hi, how you doing? Great. Good, good. See you next week. Praise God. We don't really share life.

We don't really know each other, and we really can't speak into each other's lives. We need to put these things on.

We need to be in harmony with one another. It's difficult. Our flesh will wage war against such things.

It's hard. We have to grow in it. We have to mature. We have to progress in our sanctification. It's a holy calling, but it's not an optional calling.

And these were not supermen. You know, we think of the Apostle Paul, and you think, spiritual giant, right?

Apostle Paul says, wretched man that I am, right? And I don't think he's exaggerating.

I don't think he's – I'm really good, but, you know, for these guys, I'll tell them. You know, I want to be an example that way.

In Romans 7, he shares his struggles, right? You know, knowing what's right and finding his members, waging war against it.

And listen, the more you mature as a Christian, you will overcome certain things. You'll find victory.

And the sins that you're wrestling with that you say, these are offensive to Christ, my Savior, and so they're offensive to me.

Other people are like, that's nothing. I do that every day, like 20 times a day, you know.

But we still recognize our sin before a holy God. So whatever stage he's at, he's still recognizing his sin.

Pastor Anthony mentioned he had the thorn in the flesh given to him. For what purpose? That he wouldn't become conceited, which implies what?

His pride would have reared up to some gigantic monster if God didn't give him a physical something to remind him, you got to be humble, right?

So Paul is not a perfect man. Onesimus is not a perfect man. He's a runaway slave, right?

And now he's newly saved, and I believe he's sincere. He's genuine. He's showing fruits of repentance.

He's coming back to face his past, his sin, the consequences, whatever they're going to be.

But if Onesimus does accept him in, how mature is he in the Lord, you know?

How much growth and sanctification does he need? You know, I don't know about you. I used to watch, like, old

Christian movies, you know, when I was a kid and teenager, and they show, like, you know, someone's a mess, and they have a bad attitude, and they're disrespectful to their parents, and they're not getting along with their siblings, and they're fighting at school, and then they get saved.

And all of a sudden, they're angels, right? Every day they've got a smile on their face. They're getting along with their kid brother.

You know, they're listening to mom. Everything's way better. And sometimes that happens as far as, like, that initial excitement and change, and they're doing stuff, that's all.

But we don't know how old Onesimus was. We don't know what his work ethic was and all these different things that he's going to have to overcome.

We know as believers, if we have a sober estimation of ourselves, that we still struggle with sin, right?

We still struggle with bad attitudes. We don't always respond to people the way we ought to respond to people.

How much does Onesimus have to grow? Now he's coming back and looking for forgiveness and looking for full acceptance and looking for love, as he ought to, right?

We say Christ has welcomed us. Christ welcomes you. We welcome you in the name of Christ. And so we should be accepting one another, bearing with one another, being compassionate and kind and humble and meek and patient.

But so here's an imperfect man coming back to be a member of the household once again.

And Philemon, not a perfect man, because we know there's no perfect man. He's a godly man, but he's also a slaveholder.

And I touched on it a little bit last week about slave and slavery and that situation.

And what does that mean? Was he evil for being a slaveholder? We don't know the context.

As we said, pointed out in the Old Testament, there was slavery.

There was indentured servitude. You basically sold yourself into slavery because you could not provide for yourself. You couldn't sustain yourself.

So you went to someone who could. They had work for you to do, and they provided you with food and clothing and protection from the elements.

Or there were consequences. You were caught stealing, and you couldn't repay. So you're sold into slavery to pay off that debt.

Or you're a prisoner of war. Your nation is at war with the chosen people of God. And rather than surrender, you went to war.

They could kill you, or they could make you a servant, a slave, but they had laws for how they were supposed to treat you.

You'd hear about the Yahweh covenant -keeping God. Better than the alternative of just dying, right?

So that was the slavery that they had in the Old Testament that was ordained by God. Not perfect.

I mean, in Deuteronomy, in Exodus, Deuteronomy 15, you should jot that down and go look at that.

And Jeremiah 34, and look at that if you want to consider slavery. One second.

Six years that they were supposed to serve and then be set free. And then the owner, the master, was supposed to give them things, like give them from your flocks and this.

And he goes, and don't feel like you're being robbed. Just give it and realize that God will bless you in what you do.

And he says, because you were enslaved by the Egyptians. And so he doesn't want these people enslaving one another, enslaving themselves.

So every six years they were to be set free, right? Jeremiah 34, they were supposed to be all set free and then they took them back.

And God is very displeased. Go ahead. So just for clarification. Yes. Onesimus is the slave, right?

Onesimus is the slave. But that's a Roman name. So I just think it would be doubtful that he would be an unlawful slave at this point because he would have been a freeborn.

No, I agree. I don't. When you say an unlawful slave. Right. Right.

Exactly. And that was what I was going to bring up next. These are not Hebrews. They're not Israelites.

Right. And slavery, again, 10 to 20 percent of the population, maybe more in Rome. They were slaves.

Right. So they had this massive slave population. And we talked about some of them rich and wealthy, had possessions, had families, all these things.

And some of them didn't. You know, there was a huge spectrum there. But as far as Philemon, now he, there's no correction that you shouldn't have him as a slave.

You stole him. He was stolen, whatever. There's no indication that he was in sin to purchase

Onesimus. By all means, a Christian purchasing a slave is probably the best thing for them.

However, is slavery God's ideal situation for mankind?

Is that what he wants for mankind? Really? Yes? No? No.

Right. No, it's not. He ordained it because of the hardness of heart. Just like he ordained, he allowed, gave permission and instruction for polygamy in the

Old Testament. But that was not the ideal. And we see it clearly in the New Testament that, you know, he made man and woman, you know, there to be one.

You can't be a leader in the church unless you're a one -woman man. So we see this is what

God's ideal is. And we see it, but even in the law of God, in Deuteronomy 15, for example, that slavery was not meant to be a long -term thing, but to help them get back on their feet.

If they wanted to stay, they could. If they felt there was a better situation, they could. But we weren't meant to enslave one another.

So even God's law, even in the Old Testament, is showing this should not be a forever thing, right?

And so Philemon, now he has a man.

Now, we don't know how many slaves he had. We don't know how many were believers, not believers. We don't know what their situation was.

But it seems to be that in verse 16, he might be suggesting to him to not take him back as a slave, but as a brother, right?

Now, some might say, well, he's just saying he's not just a slave, but now he's a brother.

But it seems to me that he says, perhaps this was why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever.

No longer as a bondservant, but much more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother.

Like he's far more valuable to you. He's a far greater worth to you than just some slave.

He's your brother in Christ. So I think he's actually encouraging Philemon to set him free.

You know, there are obviously Christians all in our history who have defended American slavery, the chattel slavery that God calls man stealing.

And how they did that and acknowledge, you know, fail to acknowledge Deuteronomy 15,

Jeremiah 34 is beyond me. But sometimes we see what we want to see when there's just something that we want to do.

So we cherry pick our verses. But so he's basically asking him to not just forgive him, but to free him.

Not just to shake hands and be like bygones be bygones. He's asking him to receive him as his own brother.

He says, this is your brother, brother to me. How much more to you in the flesh and in the

Lord? I mean, now they have this. They have this relationship. They share a household together and they have the same spiritual father in Paul.

Paul brought both of them to Christ through the gospel. And so he goes, you have this relationship and how wonderful that should be.

So they're imperfect men. But Paul uses his relationship with him, with Philemon to demonstrate the glory of justification.

Talking about him using him as an example himself, humbling himself. Now he's putting himself in Christ's position, right?

He's saying, love him as you would love me. This is what Christ calls us to do. But we say, well,

Christ is perfect. So it's easy to love him. And Christ loves us perfectly, but he's perfect. So of course he can, even though we're sinners.

But two sinners loving one another, that's very hard. That's very difficult. And Paul says, I'm imperfect.

Love him like you would love me. Debts removed, fellowship restored. When he talked about the sharing of your faith, the

Greek word behind that is a koinonia. It's a word that has a root, a semantic domain of fellowship.

So sharing it is fellowshipping. So it's what we say and what we do. And now he's saying, have fellowship with him because of Christ but because of me.

He goes, if you love me, love him. Have you ever had that happen where someone's like, for my sake would you do it?

Where we give each other like a human example. Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ. So now he's imitating

Christ and he's saying, love him, right? It's a radical application of the gospel.

Paul says, love him as you have loved me. Accept him as you accept me. Put his debts on my account.

And that's what Christ has done, right? Christ takes our debts and he doesn't count them against us.

He gives us the ministry of reconciliation. He reconciles us to the Father, reconciles us to himself, and he says, go and do likewise.

And so that's what Paul is asking him to do. So what do you think?

I need a napkin. Thank you. Could we say, like, you know, we see something similar with, like,

Jacob and Esau? You know, after they re -meet and, you know, Jacob realizes that he wronged his brother and he offers to be, you know, to provide a blessing for him and to some degree

Esau met him out there and the Scriptures say he kissed him out there and, you know.

Would you say that there's something to take away from that? Yeah, I mean, here

Jacob had wronged Esau in a sense and people debate over that.

Well, he was entitled to those things and it's – but Esau sure felt like he wronged him.

Esau was willing to kill him over it. And so he's trying to show him favor. God has blessed him and he's trying to win him over.

But he's also very concerned that he's going to kill him. He's even splitting up his family and he's doing a very ungodly, unparenting thing to decide who's not his favorite kid by putting them – putting certain family members up, you know, further that the rest could escape if things get bad.

I forget how he broke it up. I know he broke it up in the party so wouldn't want to be in that first party except for the grace of God.

But yeah, showing him that kindness and looking to be reconciled and by God's grace they were.

Esau's like, that's old. That's old news. And they were fine with one another.

So there's something of that. But here is saying – Paul says, if he owes you anything – and he knows he owes him.

He knows he's wronged him. He goes, put that on my account. He goes, I'll pay it. To say nothing that you owe me yourself, right?

You know, and again, but that's a picture of Christ. You know, we forgive others because we've been forgiven.

You know, what would we have to worry about if someone owes me $100 if I owe the

Master a million dollars? That $10 isn't a hundred dollars. That's not helping me. I'm thrown into prison until I can pay it up and I can't.

So he's just there with me. So if God has forgiven me, how can I still hold those trespasses against others?

But we still struggle with it. So Paul is – he's humanly being an example of Christ.

And he's putting himself into the situation saying, I'm an imperfect person. And we have this relationship.

And for the sake of love and loyalty to me, I want you to love him. Right? And so he's being a picture of Christ.

He's being a picture of the gospel. And he's saying, listen, he recognizes – he goes, consider me a partner.

Receive him as you receive me. He goes, I want some benefit. Right? I want some benefit from you in the

Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. And he points him back to what he started off with. He says,

I have joy and comfort knowing that you have been refreshing the saints. Right?

You have shown love. You have met physical needs. You have met spiritual needs.

It's very likely that he was generous. It's very likely that he's given away far more than what

Onesimus might have taken from him. And he says, would you do this for me?

Would you love me? And so love him. That's what Christ calls us to. And so he's asking him to do that.

And he says, I know you'll obey. And again, this is not – from an unsanctified spirit, you know, you're like, man, that's not fair.

He's just really strong -armed him to do this. But if you recognize the love that he's saying, look what

Christ has done for us. And look how we're supposed to love one another. You look at Colossians and you get a more full -armed view.

You look at the whole entirety of the scriptures. But he goes, I know where you are in the

Lord. I know you love him. I know as I've explained these things, you'll understand. I know you're going to figure out a way to do even more than I could have even thought of.

And he goes at the same time, prepare a guest room. I want to come and visit. I want to have that fellowship. Again, like Christ, Jesus says, if your brother has something against you and you're at the altar to give a gift, you're there to worship.

He says, go and be made right with your brother and then come and give your gift.

Right? If you're going to worship God, you're going to get before God and give him glory and give him sacrifice.

And he says, don't do that until you made right with him. When you're right with him, you can be right with me.

Right? And Paul says, take in my brother and I can't wait to come there and fellowship with you all.

Right? This is what Christ has done for us. And this is what he's saying. When you are joined together out of love for me, there

I am in the midst. There I am glorified. There the love is refreshing to all the saints.

Their hearts are refreshed. My heart is refreshed. God is looking for benefit from us.

Not that he needs it. Not that he needs anything. But he says it gives him great joy.

And so this is what God has called us to. He has called us to radical gospel living.

To forgive debts as we've been forgiven and to be in harmony with one another by his grace and for his glory.

So, now I started late when I ran later. But you've all been wonderful.