What's Your Excuse?

0:12 We are continuing in our series, Required Reading. If you didn't join us last week, what we're doing is we are looking at the books in the Bible that most Christians don't read. The smaller books, the more obscure books that you might not find in your Bible reading plan unless you try to. So that's what we're looking at. We're in Philemon. If you're having trouble finding it, it is really only about a page and a half. Go to Hebrews and then hang a left. That's the easiest way to find it. But one of my favorite stories of all time, and I'm sure for many people, is Les Miserables. Who's familiar with that story? Les Miserables, a book by Victor Hugo, turned into the incredible musical. But I love that story. One of my favorite stories, loved it as a kid. But you'll know that it centers on this character, Jean Valjean. He's a convict.

1:04 When we meet him, he has just left, having served a 19-year prison sentence for stealing a loaf of bread and breaking a window. And as he leaves prison, he's finding that there's no hospitality. People don't want to take him in. But the local village bishop takes him in and cares for him, feeds him, clothes him. But the issue is that Jean Valjean's kind of criminal tendencies that were built during those 19 years reawaken. And what he does is he clears out the bishop's silver cabinet. So everything that was valuable that this poor bishop had, he steals and he goes on the run. The issue is that he's caught by the village police that next morning. And this very interesting situation happens where the village police bring Jean Valjean back to the bishop. Jean Valjean is thinking, oh my goodness, I'm out of luck. He's going to tell me that's the man who stole my silver and I'm going to go back to prison for the rest of my life.

1:59 But surprisingly, when the police question the bishop, the bishop says, no, I gave him that silver. It's his silver. I gave it to him. In fact, let me go get the candlesticks. Those are actually the most valuable. Jean Valjean, how do you forget the candlesticks? Let me give those to you. This brilliant, radical act of forgiveness is so surprising that Jean Valjean is dumbfounded. The police leave. He's not charged with any crime, but this is what the bishop says. Do not forget ever that you promised me to use this silver to become an honest man. I love what it says. Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of such promise, stood dumbfounded. The bishop continued solemnly, Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil but to good. It is to your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts, from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God. This radical act of Christian grace, Christian forgiveness, transforms the entire story of Jean Valjean's life.

2:58 This is the hinge point of the entire narrative. But I believe that this story, this sort of forgiveness isn't something that we should leave in the fiction section of our bookstore. This should be the norm. This should be how we as Christians live our everyday lives. And last week, if you were here, we talked about that one of the results of disobedience is decreased blessing, that we receive less of God's favor and blessing in our lives when we are walking in disobedience. And I believe, especially as a pastor, that so many Christians do not live and experience all that God has for them because they are continuing to walk in unforgiveness. They are unwilling to forgive those that they have been hurt by. And so they miss out on what God has for them. And the Bible has a lot to say about forgiveness.

3:53 Jesus offers a kind of dire warning, if we're being honest, in Matthew 6, 14 and 15. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses. In other words, how can you receive what you refuse to give? How can you expect me to forgive you when you choose to not forgive those who have hurt you? It's a tough question that we got to wrestle with. And as I've been wrestling with this topic of unforgiveness, just this week, even frankly, looking at the unforgiveness that I realized I still had in my heart, and as I pour over the New Testament, I am left with the conviction that forgiveness is not optional for the Christian. That is not something that we get to pick and choose whether we forgive or not.

4:48 It is not an option. It is required. So what I'm calling our study tonight is, what's your excuse? What's your excuse for not forgiving those who have hurt you? So what we're gonna do is we are gonna cover the entire book of Philemon. It's a short book, so that's not that much to sing praises about, but it's a short book. We're gonna jump in, verse one. Paul, prisoner of Jesus Christ and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved friend and fellow laborer, to the beloved Aphia and Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we realize that we are confronting what is a stronghold for many in this room, for many of us, that of unforgiveness, God. So we just simply ask for exactly what verse three promises, grace and peace. We ask that you would inhabit this conversation, that you would be present, God. We want to be people who can show that sort of forgiveness that Victor Hugo talks about.

5:57 So we need your help to do that. So we just invite you here. Give us ears to hear, eyes to see what you are going to tell us. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Amen. I love the Apostle Paul. you read about him, clearly he is not a man who ever had to be told, Paul, could you talk more? Could you speak up more? I wonder what Paul is thinking. I relate to him. I have a tendency to be verbose and to use many words when few are necessary. So I get it. This is the Paul who in Acts 20, he's preaching a sermon, preaches so long that poor Eutychus takes a header out of the second floor and hits the pavement, dies. Paul has to resurrect the man and then finishes preaching. He's not just like, you know, hey, I get it, guys. I get it. I'm done. I'm done. No, he keeps going. Okay? This is saying Paul who in Ephesians 1, verses 3 through 14, it's a single run-on sentence in Greek.

6:52 12 verses are single run-on sentence in Greek. This is the sort of man Paul is. But here, fascinatingly, he confines himself to only 25 verses and less than 400 words total. But what is interesting is that these 25 verses force us to confront three excuses that I think Christians often have when it comes to remaining in unforgiveness. Three excuses that we will often use to justify why we will not forgive someone. And I want to say this too, I'm speaking primarily tonight to those who have been hurt, those who have been wronged. I'm not directing this message towards the wrongdoer. If that is you, you need to repent, you need to turn to Christ, and you need to seek forgiveness from the person you've wronged. But to be honest, I love you. God bless you. You're not really the focus of what I think we need to talk about. I'm speaking to those who have been wronged. You have been sinned against, and you are struggling to figure out how do I forgive in light of that sin.

7:58 And if that is you, and if perhaps you're realizing, I have been living in unforgiveness. There is somebody or some people in my life who I am still harboring unforgiveness towards, then please understand, the intent tonight is not to put you on blast. The intent tonight is to encourage you to do what you know is right. To encourage you to do the right thing. Because that is the approach that we all see Paul take with Philemon. So if you're taking notes, I do hope that you are tonight. This is the first excuse that I will hear Christians use, and you've probably heard it, maybe you've even said it, is that I'm still healing. The reason I can't forgive is because I'm still healing. I need to heal and then I can forgive. Let's jump into verse four. Paul speaking, of course. I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing of your love and faith, which you have towards the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith might become effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.

9:01 For we have great joy and consolation in your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. And sometimes my wife will be talking on the phone. She'll be having a phone conversation. And I obviously, I can't hear the entire conversation, but I've been with my wife for 15 years. So I can kind of, I can understand her vocal tone pretty well, especially when it's like, oh, this is a juicy phone call. Like there's some details that are being shared that I want to hear about when this call is over. But again, the issue is at the moment, I'm only hearing half of the conversation. I don't know what the other person is actually saying. When we read these epistles in the New Testament, Philemon, Ephesians, Colossians, we are reading half of a conversation. There was a conversation that was happening, but only half of it was preserved as inspired scripture. So what we have to do when we are reading this, when we're studying the epistles in the New Testament, we have to do our best to reconstruct the probable circumstances that led to this letter being written.

10:04 We don't know for sure, but what we do is we look at context, we study, we scrutinize the text, and we do our best to try to figure out what caused Paul to write this letter. And so this is the best reconstruction that I think that I can offer you, is that Paul writes this letter from behind bars or more likely house arrest in Rome, the same house arrest we read about at the end of Acts. So this would put this letter between 60 and 62 AD. We got a pretty good idea of when this letter was written. And while Paul is in prison, he writes four letters, which surprisingly called the prison epistles. Who would have gathered? Who figured that? But Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon are the prison epistles. What's interesting is that two of those letters, Colossians and Philemon, are headed for the same destination, for the city of Colossae.

10:57 One of the letters, Colossians, is basically written to all of the Christians in that city. Philemon is written specifically to, you guessed it, Philemon, and those of his household, Archippus, Aphia, and what it would appear is the house church congregation that he was hosting. We are pretty sure that Philemon was a pretty well-off man, pretty wealthy man. We know that he had at least one slave who we will get to know here in a moment. But if you are familiar with Shakespeare, you've probably heard this. It's out of Hamlet. One of the characters says, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. And Paul, this letter to Philemon is basically saying, something is rotten in your household, Philemon. That's what Paul is communicating. Look at verse 10. We're going to skip down real quick. Paul says, I appeal to you now for my son Onesimus, whom I begotten while in my chains. And as you will see, Philemon, the master of the house, is at odds with his slave.

12:01 Yes, I said slave, Onesimus. Again, we're not entirely sure what transpired to cause this, But what we can assume is that Onesimus was probably a highly skilled laborer in Philemon's house. And because he was highly skilled, he was probably highly valuable. Slaves were not just for heavy labor. Oftentimes they could be highly skilled workers like doctors and lawyers. So we assume that he is probably pretty well off. He's a valuable slave in Philemon's household. And for some reason, Onesimus has done Philemon dirty. He could have been embezzling money from Philemon's businesses. He could have pulled a Jean Valjean and just stolen money in the dead of night. Or perhaps he was in charge of managing Philemon's household, his businesses, and was just really bad at it and caused a lot of financial loss. The fact is, we don't know what caused Philemon to go on the run, but we know that he went on the run, likely with at least some measure of money that he took from Philemon, and travels more than a thousand miles to the city of Rome.

13:06 It's a long journey, a very expensive journey. So he was likely going to Rome to blend in because to be a fugitive slave was a very, very bad thing to be in the Roman world. Very strict penalties, very harsh punishments if you were ever caught. So he was likely saying, I'm gonna head to the biggest city I know and blend in there. Be the equivalent of us saying, I'm gonna go move to New York or to LA to try to blend in there. It's a little bit harder to blend in in a smaller city like Albuquerque. So that's what Onesimus is thinking. But what Onesimus probably did not predict was that there was a man named Paul there. Onesimus may or may not have even met Paul, but his master had. He meets Paul, again, could have been by accident. Certainly it was by divine providence. Perhaps Onesimus even went to seek out Paul, thinking, man, I have messed up so much.

13:59 I know that Paul's in Rome. Maybe he can help me out. We don't know, but we know that Paul and Onesimus meet, and there Paul leads him to Christ. We've got to talk about the elephant that is in the room, slavery. Would love to be able to avoid it. I'm sure if you brought your friend to church, you were like, come on, man, like, hoping for an encouraging, inspiring message, and talking about slavery. And what I would say is at least we're not talking about giving, right? I'm kidding. Churches should talk about giving. But the fact is, we need to talk about slavery in the New Testament because it is something that we might want to ignore, but it's a reality. But we need to understand this because this is often a point where Christians are attacked by people who are not believers, by atheists, by critics. We need to understand that the Bible nowhere ever endorses slavery and said that slavery is a good thing. It's a good thing for you to own other people. The Bible never says that. God never puts his stamp of approval on it.

15:00 However, what we do see throughout the story of redemption is that God meets people and cultures where they're at in that moment. He meets people where they are at and progressively shapes and forms them to be who he wants them to be. And at this point in human history, slavery was commonplace. It is projected that at least a third of the Roman Empire were slaves. Slavery was so commonplace, it was so normal, that when God encounters his people in revealed scripture, he's encountering them in the culture that they're in in that time. But unlike what is happening in the surrounding pagan cultures, the surrounding pagan cultures in the Old and New Testament didn't value human dignity. They didn't value human life, so they treated slaves very poorly often. So what happens is that God says, okay, I understand that your culture does slavery.

15:59 I'm gonna give you a bunch of rules and protections and restrictions to make sure that you can't treat slaves the way the culture tells you that you want to. God is protecting slaves in an unjust system. That's how God works. The fact is that abolishing slavery in the ancient world would have required massive global power and influence, something that the newly freed Israelites leaving Egypt didn't have. and the fledgling Christian movement also didn't have. They had no power, no influence to speak of. So abolishing slavery across the empire was not an option. However, given a couple centuries, we see that the power of slavery in the Roman Empire directly as a result of Christianity's growth begins to die and wither. The reason that the transatlantic slave ended was started, was pushed on, was because of Christian activists saying, this practice is against what we know the Bible tells us to do and how to love our neighbor.

17:01 So when slavery dies, it is because Christians are living out their witness. We also need to understand this, that unlike the transatlantic slave trade that we understand happening up to the Civil War, the slavery that existed in the Roman Empire was a little different, sometimes very different. Like I said, slaves often in the Roman Empire were actually there because they chose to be. They had some debt that they had to pay. And so they chose willingly to be the slave of a wealthy patron. Oftentimes these slaves were well-educated. These were highly skilled people in society. Like I said, could be doctors, lawyers. There's even some scholars who say that Luke, the apostle who wrote the book of Luke, might have been a slave, might have been owned by Theophilus, who he writes Luke and Acts to. It's possible. Again, we don't know. We also know that slavery in the Roman Empire was not based on ideas of racial inferiority or superiority.

17:58 The Romans were not going around enslaving people based on the color of their skin the way people were 2, 3, 4, 500 years ago. So there is a difference in that regard. Yes, sometimes slaves were taken as captives following a defeat of a nation in war. Yes, that is horrific. Yes, sometimes slaves in the Roman Empire endured abuse, mistreatment, wickedness from their masters the same way that slaves in the south of the United States did prior to the Civil War. But oftentimes, it was not that case. And that seems to be what we're looking at here, because we do have to kind of confine ourselves to what Scripture gives us. And when we're reading Philemon, there's nothing in the text itself to suggest that Philemon was an especially horrific or oppressive master. In fact, if anything, verses 4 through 7, which we just read, he seems to be overall a decent man, a loving, kind man, well thought of, well regarded, compassionate.

18:57 I don't think that Paul is just saying these things just because Paul's a straight shooter. So yes, Philemon was a slaveholder. That was a problem, and it remains a problem. However, from everything else we can see, he was probably a pretty good master. From what we can see in this text, it seems that Onesimus is the one guilty of the cry. Onesimus is the one who has sinned against his master and likely stolen or embezzled from him. But what's interesting is before Paul even addresses the Onesimus situation, he first takes time to remind Philemon of who Philemon is. Paul says, I need to remind you, Philemon, about your identity before we even get to the main point of this letter. And I think that's because before we can forgive someone else, we need to remember who we are in Christ.

19:51 We need to remember, we need to re-appreciate what Christ has done in our lives before we try to show grace to someone else. Again, you might read verses four through seven as Paul's going on about how great Philemon is, and you might be tempted to read it cynically and say, well, Paul's just buttering him up. He's flattering him. It's like when you laugh at your boss's bad jokes because you need your boss to approve your PTR requests. I just don't think that that's what's happening here because again, Paul's a straight shooter. He says it like he sees it. So I don't think Paul would take that approach. I think he means what he's saying, but before he addresses the issue with Onesimus, he needs to remind Philemon of what God has done in Philemon's life. and I think by application, when we've been hurt by somebody, we need to remember who we are in Christ, because it is very easy to identify ourselves based on what other people have done to us. We identify ourselves as the victim that, oh, this person sinned against me this way, and that's why I'm like this, and I think that scripture would challenge that and say, well, who are you in Christ? Who has Jesus made you to be in spite of what's been done to you. And let's be honest, for being real, sometimes it's actually kind of nice that when you've been sinned against, you're kind of stewing on what was done to you, and you're angry.

21:22 You're almost fantasizing about ways you can get the person back, or you can embarrass them, or you know, whatever you need to do. And then somebody tells you about like, hey, have you forgiven them? Maybe you're listening to a sermon about forgiving somebody and you're just like, hey, nope, I know that I need to forgive them, but I'm not ready yet. I'm focusing on me. I'm not ready to forgive them yet.

21:48 I want you to hear me if that's you. Again, this is not a time to put you on blast. Hear me. I am not saying that what happened to you wasn't real. It was. I'm not saying that what happened to you wasn't serious and life-altering. It was. I'm not saying that we should minimize the hurt that you endured, because we should not. And I'm not saying that forgiveness ought to be an easy no-brainer for you, because it probably isn't. All that I'm saying is that for us as believers, we have no other option than to extend forgiveness towards those who have hurt us. That is the only option we have, biblically speaking. You're probably familiar with the story in Matthew 18 of the unforgiving servant. Jesus tells a story of a man who had this astronomical, unpayable debt, couldn't pay it off. So he pleads with his master to forgive it.

22:44 And the master surprisingly does. He frees him, but that servant then goes and finds all the people that owe him money, and he starts collecting on the debt. He starts getting them thrown into debtor's prison for insignificant amounts of money. So the master finds out and says this, you wicked servant, I forgave you all the debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you? I've heard people say in counseling offices and conversations, I'm not ready to forgive. I'm still healing. I'm still working through it. But ironically, the people who hold on to that long-term never seem to be healed. In fact, they usually seem to be some of the more bitter, the more angry people that I've interacted with. Rather than moving forward, they'd rather relitigate and relive the past over and over and over.

23:42 Forgiveness isn't something we do after we heal. Forgiveness is something we do so that we can heal. That's why we forgive, so that I can start the healing process, not waiting until I've decided that I'm healed enough to forgive. But before you can forgive someone else, you need to first remember who you are in Christ. What has God done for you? Before you try to show Christ-like love, you need to remember that you are a recipient of that Christ-like love. That's why Paul says, verse 3, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Skip down to verse 6, where it says this, that the sharing of your faith might become effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing that is in you in Christ Jesus. Paul is acknowledging that Philemon has received God's grace and that God is doing a work inside Philemon's life. Forgiveness doesn't start by what has been done to you.

24:43 forgiveness starts when you remember who you are in Christ, what has been done for you by Jesus. That's where forgiveness starts. Second excuse that we often find that I've heard that you've probably heard, maybe you've said, is that they're never going to change. They're never going to change, so why would I bother forgiving them? Look at verse 8 with me. Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake I'd rather appeal to you, Being such a one as Paul, the aged and now prisoner of Jesus Christ, I appeal to you for my son. The Greek literally says more my little child. So it's likely that Onesimus was pretty young. Whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me. Note Paul's tone here. Very different from when Paul is confronting false teaching in Galatians. Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?

25:40 His tone is very different to Philemon. He's not compelling Philemon to do anything. He's not ordering. He's not demanding. Though he could, he is the Apostle Paul. That's not the tone that he takes. And I would say this is a good lesson for any of us in leadership or you have influence or authority over other people. We ought to take a page out of Pastor Paul's handbook where he says, I appeal to you that your good deed might be done not by compulsion, but voluntary. he doesn't he doesn't steamroll philemon he doesn't coerce philemon into doing what philemon doesn't want to do he says no i want to win you over i want to convince you to do what's right paul also understands that what he's asking for the reconciliation between philemon and onesimus can't be forced it can't be forced this has to be real it has to be genuine right you probably remember when you were kids and maybe you and your friends got in a fight with somebody got a fight and your mom's forced you to basically, you know, figure out, hey, you say you're sorry.

26:42 And so, I'm sorry. And the other person's like, you know, I forgive you. That's not the sort of forgiveness that Paul wants to see, something that is compulsory, that is just simply an act. That's not the sort of forgiveness that we want to see. Forgiveness has to be an internal decision before it can become an external reality. You have to decide that I want to forgive you before you say, I forgive you. In fact, I would even say this, because I hear this a lot in church contexts, where somebody will say, well, I said that I forgive them, but I don't think I have forgiven them. It's like, then why'd you say it? Don't say that you forgive them if you aren't ready to forgive them. Say it when you mean it.

27:25 Forgiveness has to be an internal decision first. You must choose that you want to forgive them before you do anything else. Let's talk about Onesimus. We talked a little about what he did, but let's talk about who he was. Onesimus was a very common name for slaves in the Roman Empire. It might not have even been his birth name because Onesimus basically means useful. Hence, you can see why it was a popular slave name. So they probably, whenever, maybe that was Philemon before he knew Jesus, maybe it was the person who first bought Onesimus, said, I don't care what your birth name is. Your name is Mr. Useful. Come on, Mr. Useful. That was his name, Mr. Useful. which is very interesting. Again, there's a play on words happening because, well, Mr. Useful turned out to not be very Mr. Useful to his master. And that's kind of where we get the conflict of this. We also know that when Onesimus meets Paul in Rome in verse 10, he wasn't a believer yet.

28:24 He wasn't a believer because Paul says, I have begotten him in chains. In other words, saying I led him to Christ behind bars. Onesimus was not a Christian until he met Paul. And Paul, once again, he's very good with words. He uses some very clever wordplay where he's basically saying, Onesimus, you know, Mr. Useful, he wasn't profitable to you. Now he is profitable to you. He's not just profitable to you. He's also profitable to me. Mr. Useful is now finally living up to his name. And isn't that the heart of the gospel right there? that Jesus can take somebody who is in every other sense unprofitable and he makes them profitable. Take somebody who believes that they are useless and worthless and makes them worthwhile and valuable. That's the gospel. And more importantly, Paul gives Onesimus something that he didn't have when he was with Philemon.

29:18 He gives him an identity. Because again, when a slave was bought, their family name was stripped from them. They often were given a new name and they had to take the master's last name. They were seen as a silent part of the master's household, and that's it. That was their identity. They had no lineage. They had no heritage. They had no legacy other than working for this person, and their value was determined by how useful they were, which again, Onesimus, for whatever reason, Philemon didn't feel that he had been very useful to him. But now this young man who had no other identity, not just a slave, now he's a fugitive slave. He's scared to show his face. It was lucky that he made it to Rome without getting caught. Now Paul says, now he's my little child. I've begotten him. I led him to Christ behind bars. Paul is basically saying, I have become his spiritual father.

30:12 I have adopted him into the family of God on God's behalf. Paul is doing for Onesimus what Jesus did for Paul, and Jesus did for Philemon, and Jesus did for you and me. He takes us when we are unprofitable and he adopts us. He brings us into his family graciously and gives us a new name. Look at verse 12. I am sending him back. You therefore receive him. That is my own heart whom I wish to keep with me that on your behalf might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. So you're thinking, man, if things were so much better with Onesimus when he's with Paul, why would Paul say, well, I'm sending him back? Why would Paul do that? The issue is, while Onesimus had a new spiritual status as a child of God, in an earthly sense, his only status was that he was a fugitive runaway slave. Bad thing to be in the Roman Empire.

31:08 If he was caught, he would have been taken to prison, sent to a forced labor camp, or maybe even killed. Punishments for runaway slaves were horrific. That was still his status. and I'm convinced that Paul hated slavery. I'm convinced that Paul was resolutely opposed to slavery and I'll explain more as to why I think that but nevertheless, Paul also realized that because the Christians were a small, marginalized movement at this time, they had to work and exist within the existing legal systems of their day. Paul understood that. Paul was a realist in that sense and that's why I believe in Romans 13, one, that he says that all souls need to submit themselves to the governing authorities. No one's favorite memory verse, I get it. It's definitely not mine.

31:58 But despite desiring that Onesimus would stay with him, Paul's saying, you know, I actually would prefer to just keep the guy. He's awesome. He's really helpful to me. He's very profitable to me for ministry. Paul realizes that all it will take is one person to recognize Onesimus, that if Paul can recognize Onesimus, somebody else can. A slave hunter could. A bounty hunter could. One of the Roman government officials who's connected with Philemon might recognize him, and it's all over. The only legal hope that Philemon had, or that Onesimus had rather, is to go back to his master, to go back to Philemon and say, will you accept me back? That was the only legal hope that Onesimus had. And if that didn't happen, he was out of luck. But again, I love Paul. He's a very good negotiator. He gives Philemon a heavenly perspective.

32:50 In verse 15, look, for perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose that you might receive him forever. He's saying, Phil, buddy, big man, Habibi, is it possible that God is actually behind this whole thing? That God is actually the one who caused Onesimus to come to me and that God is actually wants you and Onesimus to fix this. Is that possible, Phil? Like there's almost, I believe, a hint of sarcasm in this verse. But real quick, look at the words that Paul uses. Verse 7, For we have great joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. Look down at verse 12. I am sending him back. You therefore receive him. That is my own heart. Paul uses that word heart three times in this very short letter.

33:45 so that ought to catch our attention. What's also interesting is that this word for heart isn't the normal Greek word for heart cardia. It's the word splanchnon. Look at your neighbor and say splanchnon. Splanchnon, we have it up here, in case you're a nerd like me. Splanchnon, what it means is that this is the gut. This is your inward being. The ancient world saw that the heart of emotions was really more of your guts, your entrails. That's where you get the term gut feeling, right? We would say heart, but it means your deepest emotional sense of being. So you can look at your name and say, I hope that your splanchnah, plural, are doing well today. I hope that your splanchnah are well, right? Paul uses this term three separate times, and he's basically saying, hey, Philemon, hey, Phil, you have a reputation for refreshing the heart and caring for the emotional well-being of other Christians.

34:41 so will you refresh my heart? Will you care for my emotional well-being by caring for somebody that I value very much, Onesimus? That's what Paul is saying. Will you care for somebody who you thought was worthless but is very valuable to me because of who he is and what God has done with him? I think Christians struggle to extend forgiveness because quite frankly, we struggle to look at the people who've hurt us the way Jesus looks at them. We want to say, they hurt me. They are therefore worthless to me. They are dead to me. And yet Jesus is saying, no, I love them. I died for them. We are struggling to look at them the way Jesus looks at them. And so the challenge for all of us is that when we have been wronged, we need to look at them with what I'm going to call gospel glasses. I'm going to look at them through the lens of the gospel, that I want to see them the same way that Jesus sees them.

35:39 yes they're a sinner but they're beloved the holy spirit that changed my life might just change their life too at least i have to believe in the possibility that the holy spirit can change their life in verse 15 again for perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose that you might receive him forever no longer as a slave but more than a slave a beloved brother especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. And I'll just say this. I believe that right here, Paul is strongly implying that he expects Philemon to grant freedom to Onesimus. I believe that. I think Paul is strongly implying, buddy, you need to free Onesimus when he gets back to you. You don't get to keep him as a slave. It doesn't say that explicitly, but that's what I believe. We might wish, especially in our context, especially post-antebellum slavery, saying, man, I wish that Paul would have just said, Paul, save Philemon, free this man. That's not what he says.

36:44 And again, I think that's because Paul's being prudent. Because what would have definitely not been good for the Christian movement is for the runaway slave to be caught by the Roman officials to have a letter that's calling explicitly that all slaves should be set free. Because what's going to happen is the Romans are going to say that and be like, oh, cool, the Christians, they're enslaving a slave revolt. Let's squash them the way we have every other slave revolt. So I think Paul's being prudent. I think he opposes slavery outright. And we can see that by the words that he chooses. Look at how radical this statement is. No longer as a slave, but more than a slave. As a beloved brother. We miss that. We miss how radical that is. But in this world, this is so radical. because the Greco-Roman world was all about status. It was all about class.

37:36 It was all about you knowing your place in society and you staying there. They didn't really care about upward mobility. They cared that you did what you were supposed to do in your place. And here's Paul saying, hey, Philemon, your slave Onesimus is your brother. He is on equal footing with you in God's kingdom. He may not be equal footing with you in Caesar's kingdom, but he is on equal footing with you. You have equal standing with your slave in the kingdom of God. It's exactly what Paul says in Galatians 3.28 where he says this, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. You are all one.

38:26 So when we read that phrase, no longer as a slave. I truly believe that Paul is implying, though not saying explicitly, that he expects Philemon to grant freedom to Onesimus. I believe that that's what Paul is saying. None of us in this room, hopefully, are slaveholders. If you are, then boy, do you and I need to have a conversation when I'm done. But I'm going to assume, for sake of argument, that no one here as a slaveholder. Praise God. I believe that when we forgive somebody, that it is like granting them freedom. When we choose to forgive somebody, it is granting them freedom because if I sin against you, yes, I can ask forgiveness from God, but if I want this relationship to be restored, I have to go to you and I have to ask forgiveness. I can't go to your friend. I can't go to your coworker. I have to go to you. If somebody breaks into your house and they take your TV, they take your air fryer, and then they feel really bad about it, and they say, pastor, can you forgive me? I'll be like, no, I can't. You need to go back to them. I can't do that. I can't forgive them on your behalf. If they've done wrong to you, they got to go to you, and you have to choose to forgive or not. That's how it works. When you forgive somebody, you are freeing them of the slavery, emotionally and spiritually speaking, of being unforgiven, of being unreconciled.

39:55 But even beyond that, maybe more importantly, when you forgive somebody, you are freeing yourself from slavery. Because when you hold a grudge, when you hold bitterness and hatred towards somebody, it's a weight, right? It's a weight that we feel. And things just don't work right. Things just don't feel right. You're weighed down because you have not forgiven someone. Many, many years ago, my wife and I, we were part of another ministry in town, not part of this church. But some of the people of that church mistreated us, to say the least, that we were hurt. Some very hurtful, very toxic things were said to us, spoken over us, very, very hurtful. And it took me about a good year after leaving that place to realize how much hatred I actually had towards those people, to realize how much bitterness I was still holding on to. I didn't realize it.

40:51 And it took me another year to really be able to say, I can stand before God and say, I forgive them. It was a journey. And I know that many of you in this room, you have experienced so infinitely worse than I did. Forgiveness is a journey. But what I know is that when I said and meant it for the first time, I forgive them, it's like a literal weight was taken off my shoulder. I felt lighter. I wasn't bearing the weight of that anymore.

41:18 Forgiveness isn't optional for the believer. It is not optional for us as Christians. Why? Because forgiveness is the closest thing that we can do in this life that tells people the story of our justification. Let me explain that. If you know your Bible, Romans 5.1, therefore having been justified by faith, having been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Favorite verse in the Bible, best promise of the Bible, I think. We have peace with God. Same peace, same grace that Paul is talking about in verse three, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. What happens when we're justified? Again, kind of quiz time. What happens when we're justified is that God looks at us and because we have believed in Jesus that Jesus' righteousness has been credited to our account so that God looks on us and he sees Jesus' innocence.

42:18 He sees Jesus' righteousness. He chooses to not hold our sin over our head. When I forgive somebody, I'm choosing to not hold their sin over their head anymore. I'm choosing to say, I want to look at them the way that Jesus looks at them. I want to forgive them. I'm not gonna hold this over them for the rest of their life. When we forgive somebody, it's the closest expression that we have on this side of eternity for what it means to be justified. Forgiveness is tied to justification. So beloved brother, beloved sister, as Paul would say,

42:57 because of the promise that is for you also, verse 3, grace to you and peace from God our Father, Lord Jesus Christ. because of that, because you have been justified through faith and have peace with God. I know that there's some of you, you know the person that you need to forgive. You need to do it. You need to set them free. You need to set them free. You need to set yourself free from the weight of holding on to this. I know that whatever they did to you was bad. There's a reason that you've held on to it for so long. But Christian, the same grace and peace that God has given to you is also on offer to them. It's time to set them free so that you can also set yourself free of this grudge. Amen? Why?

43:48 Because if God did it for you, he can do it for them. Don't withhold from them what you've been given freely by God. Don't hold it back from them. so the third excuse the last excuse we're looking at is it won't get better anyway because i believe it won't get better i'm not going to forgive them i'm not going to bother and if you know my daughter nora she's my youngest she loves winnie the pooh and when i when i say loves i don't think you understand how much this little girl loves winnie the pooh i have a video that I'd actually like to show you about this. My daughter loves Winnie the Pooh. And I love Winnie the Pooh because of that.

44:41 One of my favorite characters in that entire movie is Eeyore. I think he's hilarious. In fact, we all know an Eeyore, I would assume. The perpetual pessimist, the cynic person who can never see anything good in life. If you're thinking, I don't know an Eeyore.

45:01 Well, tough news. You probably are the Eeyore, right? But we love Eeyore, right? The phrase is that, you know, he says this, if it's a good morning, which I doubt. When Christopher Robin puts his tail back on, he says, you know what? I'll most likely lose it again anyway. Okay? We all know an Eeyore, but the problem is that as Christians, We can be spiritual Eeyores. We can refuse to see any good coming from a situation when we've been hurt. We refuse to believe that things might actually get better. We just assume they're gonna get worse. I'm not gonna bother reconciling with this person because they're just gonna do the same thing again. I'm not gonna reconcile with this person because they haven't changed. They can't change. I'm not gonna reconcile with this person because I'm just gonna be hurt again as though you know the future.

45:58 We fail to imagine a hopeful future or maybe our relationship with this person who has hurt us might get better. What if, just throwing this out, there's a possibility. What if your relationship with this person improved? What if after reconciling with this person, you actually discover a deeper connection than you ever had with them to begin with? again we don't know the future but grace and hope and love demands that we look optimistically at it so you might be thinking though hey taylor this is great it's great dude thanks for sharing this man love that that sounds good from a stage you're reading the bible you don't know what i've been through you don't know what's happened to me and you're right i don't i don't know what's happened You don't know what's happened to me either, but you're right.

46:53 There are elements in your story that I just simply don't know because I wasn't there for it. So let's ask the question. Is it actually possible to restore, to reconcile with somebody who has hurt us? Look at verse 17 with me. If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me. But if he has wronged you or owes you anything, put that on my account. I, Paul, am writing with my own hand. I will repay, not to mention to you that you owe me your own self besides, yes, brother. Let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart, there's that word, in the Lord. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. So let's just say you eventually decide to forgive the person who's hurt you. You choose to do it.

47:44 You say, you know what? I'm gonna live out the way of Jesus. I'm gonna choose to not hold their sin over them anymore because I know that I've been justified. I want to forgive them. I want to practice my justification and forgive them. What happens when you see them again? What happens when you bump into them at work or at church or at home?

48:05 You're remembering that you've been forgiven. You're trying to show them that same forgiveness, but what will you do? Now what? is it possible to rebuild a relationship? Is there even a relationship to salvage? If we're being honest, sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is no. Because sometimes when Christians talk about forgiveness, especially when talking to people who've been victims of some pretty horrific things, they'll hear a message like this and think, oh my gosh, I have to reconcile with the person who abused me. I have to reconcile with this person who did some sort of violence to me. So please, please hear me. There are some relationships that are so damaged by human sin and evil that reconciliation is not possible, that it's not possible, that it's not safe. Hear me. Nowhere in the Bible does God ever command somebody who's the victim of abuse or violence to say, hey, go back and go restore that relationship with the person who did all of that to you. That's just not in the Bible.

49:19 God understands human brokenness better than we do, and he understands that sometimes to reconcile with somebody who has hurt you would actually cause more damage. It might be putting you in harm's way to try to restore a relationship. God understands that. And that's where everybody's favorite therapy word that is so often misused but is appropriate here. Boundaries are actually appropriate. Boundaries are something you put in place to protect yourself from somebody who wants to harm you. You might be thinking, how do I know how it's supposed to be? How do I know how to navigate this? And the good news is I think that Paul gives us an answer that's very helpful in Romans 12, 18, where he says, if it is possible, as much as it's up to you, live peaceably with all people. Two operative phrases, if it is possible, and as much as it's up to you, live at peace with all people. Sometimes it isn't possible to see reconciliation. But when it is possible, when it is possible, reconciliation is something we need to pursue. Restoration is something we need to pursue when it is possible. And that's why we have to reimagine our relationship with this person through the lens of the gospel. Again, verse 17, receive him as you would me.

50:43 But if he's wronged you or owes you anything, put it to my account. I, Paul, am writing you in my own hand. I will repay, not to mention, and I love this again, Paul being a little snarky, not to mention that you owe me even yourself besides. He's reminding Philemon, hey, before you get too superiority complex with this, just remember the only reason you're a Christian is because I led you to Christ. I led Onesimus to Christ the same way I led you to Christ, buddy. so Paul is asking, so I'm sending Onesimus back to you. I want you to receive him back, not as Onesimus the fugitive, but as Onesimus, my representative.

51:27 Onesimus is going back to represent me, so treat him the way you would treat me. But nowhere does Paul ever say, just pretend it didn't happen. Let's go back to the status quo. Things were good back then. Let's just pretend this whole thing never happened. Instead, he proposes that these two men, master and slave, rebuild an entirely new relationship, entirely new dynamic that is built on their shared faith. Where there was mistrust, where there was hatred and bitterness, now there is a shared faith and a shared love. Philemon, you have refreshed the hearts of the Lord's people. Guess who Onesimus is now? He's one of the Lord's people.

52:10 Look at verse 20. yet brother, yes brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say. Again, this is where I and many commentators think that Paul is strongly implying that Philemon is supposed to free Onesimus. Don't just do what I'm saying. Don't just receive him back like you'd receive me. Paul wasn't a slave. Don't just do that. Do even more. I know that you're going to do even more for him than you do for me. When we forgive somebody, when we are striving to reconcile, we need to remember that consequences don't go away. The past may be in the past. Past still happened. Consequences are still real. Forget and forgive and forget is not a verse that is in the Bible, despite what some might think.

53:06 And guess what? There are consequences. Philemon, I'm just guessing, probably didn't let Onesimus near the money for a while. Didn't mean he didn't receive him back as a brother, forgave him, which I believe he did. But he also, because of that, be like, I love you, bro. I still can't necessarily trust you with the money yet. Okay, there's consequences.

53:29 Your relationship with the person who wronged you will never be the same. So don't try to reconstruct the way things were because the way things were is the way things, the reason that things are the way they are now. Because things were bad back then, that's what caused the hurt. So why are you trying to go back to that? You need to rebuild something new, something rebuilt and based upon and founded upon your mutual love and grace.

53:56 Again, dare to just imagine that maybe my relationship with this person might actually be better. don't just be an Eeyore. Don't assume it's gonna be terrible, no matter what you do. What we also see here, and we'll see this in the last couple of verses, is that forgiveness and reconciliation happen best within the context of community. Look at verses 22 through 24. But meanwhile, also prepare a guest room for me, for I trust that through your prayers I shall be granted to you. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow laborers. forgiving somebody and then reconciling with them is a hard road to begin with. It is nearly impossible to do on your own. It is nearly impossible to forgive somebody and to be reconciled with them in isolation.

54:50 And notice that Paul didn't just write this letter to Philemon only. He wrote this letter to Philemon and to Aphia and to Archibus and the entire church that meets in your house. So at least 12 people knew about this and heard this letter. And on top of that, Paul also names his posse, right? He's got Mark, he's got Epaphras, he's got Luke, he's got Aristarchus, all these people. The point being, there's accountability. There is community support. He is not expecting Philemon to deal with this situation on his own. He's also bringing some accountability that, hey, dude, this wasn't exactly a private situation, so this is going to have to be resolved publicly as well. Because Philemon is not a private letter. It's written to multiple people. If you are unsure about how to begin the journey of reconciling with those who've hurt you, your first step, other than asking God for help, needs to be to consult other brothers and sisters.

55:50 Hey, I need to rebuild this relationship. Hey, I've been really hurt, but I know that I need to forgive them and I want to try to rebuild something. Will you help me? So they can pray for you. Maybe so they can be with you when you go meet with these people. Who knows? Reconciliation happens best in the context of community. And what I love, look at the first three verses of chapter 24. As do Mark. As do Mark. Paul practices what he preaches. If you know the book of Acts, you'll know that Paul and John Mark didn't have an awesome relationship. John Mark is the reason that Paul and Barnabas, the dynamic duo of ministry, split over irreconcilable differences.

56:36 John Mark was the cause of it. Paul pretty much believed that Mark was, guess what, unprofitable for ministry. I don't want that dude on my mission team. He's not worth it. He's not up to the task. But we see in 2 Timothy 4.11, which is probably the last letter that Paul writes, he says this, bring Mark because he is useful to me for ministry. Paul practices what he preaches. 2 Timothy 4.11, the fact that Mark's name is listed in this letter, prove that what this entire book about is doable. So don't you walk out of here and say, oh man, that's just for the Bible, that's just for Christians, that's just for religious people. No, Paul lived it. It's possible, you can do it. Forgiveness is a hard road. Let's not pretend that it's not.

57:28 It's a hard road. It is a hard journey. But the biblical fact is that it's a journey you and I must walk. We must walk it. Even though it's difficult, even though it's painful, there is no biblical excuse to withhold forgiveness from those who've wronged you. Is reconciliation always possible? No. Sometimes it's not. Is forgiveness required? Yes. Even if you are never able to tell the person that you forgive them, even if you are never able to be in a room with them because they are unsafe, you need to move towards forgiving them. And the longer you hold on to unforgiveness, the longer you will be enslaved to that. You will never heal until you forgive them. It's that simple. You will never heal until you make the decision, not out of compulsion but willingly okay God I forgive them yes they've hurt me yes they've wounded me greatly but I'm not going to hold that over their head anymore because you don't hold my sin over my head and I know that for some of you that perhaps this time with Philemon this little letter maybe it's been shaking to you maybe it's been convicting because there's somebody there's some people who are coming to mind that, man, I haven't forgiven.

58:53 You're feeling conviction. And I just want to say this on one hand, good. It's the Holy Spirit. It's not me. It's his word. Convicting you, challenging you, which is what God does through his word. He confronts us. Confronts us with what we need to do. But again, the purpose of tonight isn't that we leave with our head hung low, feeling condemned. Oh my gosh, can't believe I've been walking in unforgiveness this long. No, like Paul, I can't compel you to forgive somebody. But like Paul, let me encourage you to do what you know is right. Let me encourage you to do the right thing tonight and to forgive this person. But the good news is, this is the lens that you need to do that through. View this very hard journey of forgiving them. View it with verse 25 in mind. Let's read together. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

59:49 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. That is the word that Paul ends this letter with, grace. That there is grace for you. Father, we thank you for your grace. We thank you that you have forgiven us. We understand that we are so often the unforgiving servant, that you have forgiven us an eternally massive debt of our own sin. You did it freely. And yet we so often withhold that same forgiveness from those who have sinned against us in far lesser ways. The hurt is real. The pain is real. But God, we know that you do not want us in bondage to unforgiveness anymore, that you have come to set us free. So God, I pray specifically for those in here, my brothers, my sisters, my beloved brothers and sisters who are walking in unforgiveness and know they need to stop.

1:00:52 I pray that you would help them. I pray that they would first and foremost know that you have grace and peace for them. But that it's time to drop the excuses and it's time to do what your word commands us to do. Because when we do it, we know that there is a blessing.