Philemon’s Perspective

Introduction

If you’ll join me in Colossians chapter 3, we’re going to start there in just a moment. Colossians chapter 3 and verse 22.

I appreciate so much Jonathan’s good work last week, and I wanted to mention a couple of things that he talked about. I wanted to kind of echo some of his sentiments. Just finishing a parenting series, it is a difficult thing to do as a preacher. And he did such a great job. We’ve talked about this a number of times just between each other that we have small children. I have some children that are a little bit older, as he mentioned. And of course, that just means I have had more time to realize my own faults and the things that we’ve done wrong.

And so the effort over those sermons about parenting was not, “Look at Jonathan and look at me and see how we parent.” As he said, it was, “Look to Scripture.” And I hope that you got that concept as we went through that and we were stepping on our own toes the whole way through that, as well. And that’s as it should be. I mean, we all are working to grow, and to better ourselves, and to encourage each other. And so I wanted to give that final thought, as well, that as parents, we have a lot of parents here in this congregation, that we are working to lift each other up, to encourage, to help. Even when we’re going through difficulties and struggles, we’re not sure what to do and things seem hard, that’s why we have each other. And that’s the wisdom that God has in having us be in congregations, being together in that way.

And so, I appreciate Jonathan’s good work in doing that. And with what we’re about to do over these next few weeks, most of this comes from the mind of Jonathan. We worked together on this as we were thinking about what we wanted to do next, and this idea of preserving fellowship. A lot of it comes from some sermons he had already did, and us adapting and working through that in the book of Philemon. And so, I’m excited about that. He’s kind of pushed me a little to look deeper into Philemon and come at this from different angles, which is exactly what we’re going to do here over the next few weeks. This morning we’re going to talk about Philemon’s perspective, but we’re going to look at this from Onesimus’s perspective and from Paul’s perspective. And then we’ll have some other sermons that sort of connect with all of this partially in Philemon, but also probably in other parts of Scripture as well.

And so, I’m excited about this, and I hope that you are as well, getting into the book of Philemon and talking about this idea of fellowship together from these various perspectives. I think it’ll be a really rich study. Paul, when he finishes one of his letters, often includes a lot of greetings, maybe travel plans, and typically, we sort of kind of rush through those sections. They don’t often mean a whole lot to us: the places he’s going to go next or the people who are there. Sometimes we’ll point them out in a Bible class, you know, as we go from text to text: “Oh, he’s already mentioned this person or that person.” And this is what happens in Colossians 4.

And I what I want to do as we begin this morning is connect some things in Colossians and Philemon. But at the toward the end of Colossians, he mentions that Tychicus is bringing this letter to Colossae. But then he throws in another name. In verse 9, he says, “and with him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you.” Well, to us, as we’re reading through Colossians, we may not think a whole lot about that, but I am certain that at the church in Philemon’s house, when that statement was made, it would have been something that stopped them in their tracks.

They would have been thinking a whole lot about, “Why is Onesimus here? What is Philemon going to do?” Just imagine that scenario with me for a moment. Tychicus walks in, door opens, and with him is Onesimus. These things have not happened in secrecy. You may know a little bit about this story, but you probably remember that Onesimus was a slave in the home of Philemon. In this situation, somewhere along the way, the relationship fell apart. We don’t know exactly how it fell apart.

I think we can be fairly confident that Philemon was wronged pretty substantially in this, and there’s various ideas about what happened after that. Onesimus fled Colossae, he ends up in Rome. Does he just by chance run into Paul? I think that’s probably unlikely, but maybe that’s the case. There is a part of Roman law where a slave could run to a friend to seek help, and I think that’s maybe more likely. Paul is in prison; he’s under house arrest. I don’t think Onesimus was just going house to house to prisoners to see people. Probably understood where Paul was seeking some sort of help from Paul.

We can’t quite know exactly, but in the course of all of that, some really good things happened for Onesimus. And Paul, through his influence, doesn’t necessarily change the things that have already happened between he and Philemon, but he does bring Onesimus to Christ. And Paul, being the kind of person he is—and we’ll speak a lot more about him later on—realizes what needs to happen from here, although he would like to keep Onesimus with him, realizes he needs to send him back. And so in doing so, Onesimus walks into this assembly probably on a Sunday morning carrying this letter for Philemon. And you can imagine the tension that would have been in that room, how puzzling it would have been to see him, not only the congregation that meets in the home, but the home itself, him being a slave in that house. Everyone would have been aware that things were not right, there were problems, Onesimus had run, and now he’s back, and everyone’s wondering, “What is Philemon going to do?”

Let me just stop for a second and talk about the idea of slavery because probably in our minds, we hear the word slave and we immediately think about American slavery. And that is very understandable because of how much it’s been talked about in our country, and the kind of the mark on the past of this nation because of it. But I want us to understand that is not what’s going on here in Roman slavery. Roman slavery is a very broad institution. It has a lot of different circumstances. But in a general way, it is actually the term that’s used often in Philemon and in other places is bondservant, and that describes pretty well how these situations often went. Let me first say, there were very terrible and horrific forms of slavery in the Roman world, as well, particularly for criminals who could be condemned to the salt mines or other types of things like that.

However, as an institution, it is not like that for the most part. They were encouraged to be educated. You have a lot of slaves in homes who were doctors, who were accountants, who had very socially acceptable jobs and actually benefited society in a very big way, and were promoted to do so. Slaves themselves could own property, and many of the urban slaves would be manumitted by around the age of 30. So, this is very different from the kind of slavery we think about in our world, in America. And so, I want us to understand, importing a 21st century American concept to an ancient Roman system can really give us some bad ideas.

Paul is here not trying to correct all the ills in the world. What he’s trying to do is deal with the situation as it is. He’s trying to deal with the situation, the relationship between Onesimus and Philemon, and he’s working on how can they be brought together into one. We love stories of reconciliation. And of course, if you know anything about Philemon, you know this is where we’re headed with this story. We love Joseph. You know, his brothers, they sell him as a slave. This was a horrific event, right? They’re going to kill him, and then they sell him as a slave, and he ends up in Egypt. And of course, they can’t even imagine what all happens with him. It is by God’s providence that he rises to power. And we love this story where they come in and they don’t realize it’s Joseph, and even though he has every reason to condemn them and hate them, he embraces them. What a great story.

We love the story of the prodigal. Makes all these mistakes, he runs off, he’s wasteful. And when he comes home, the father runs to him, and reaches out, and embraces him. Those stories move us, probably because we realize how badly we need God’s mercy and compassion.

But they always also move us because we’re just spectators. What do we do when we’re the one who’s hurt by a brother’s action? I mean real hurt, not just we disagree about some things or we feel offended about something.

I’m talking about real, tangible hurt that’s been caused by someone in our life. Maybe their actions cost us financially in some way, or because of their actions that cost us friends, relationships. Maybe they lied about you or your child, and it brings some kind of damage to your family. Maybe they’re a bit shady in business and somehow you get burned.

Are we moved then to show compassion and to grant forgiveness like Joseph or like the prodigal and his father? Philemon was undeniably wronged by Onesimus.

And what I want us to understand, what’s great about this story is it’s not a parable. Parables are great, and they teach us lots of good things, but they’re they’re not real stories. They capture real ideas. This is not just a story. This is not just a parable. It is something that really happened. It’s something we can look at and we can see the dynamic of what takes place when someone has been wronged and then how they are supposed to act and how they should act as a Christian in that scenario.

It’s easy to admire forgiveness when someone else has to practice it, but it’s different when you’re the one who’s been betrayed. And so these are real people and a real church with real hurt, and real fellowship hangs in the balance based on how these people are going to act, which is why we want to go through the different scenarios with the different perspectives.

And so many New Testament passages teach us about fellowship in principle, but Philemon shows us what it looks like when life gets messy. And I really hope that we learn a lot as we look through these different perspectives. This morning we’re going to focus primarily on Philemon. By consequence, because Paul writes the letter, we’re going to have to say some things about Paul and what he’s doing, and so I want to start there.

1. Remember Who You Are

I think what Paul is really wanting Philemon to see first of all are some things about his identity. This is where Paul wants to shape the mind of Philemon. I think we’ll deal some more with this later when we talk about Paul. He’s not trying to force Philemon into anything. He’s not trying to make him do something or even command him or guilt him by saying, “Your duty is to do this.” He wants to persuade, for sure, and we’ll we’ll talk more about that later. But what he’s really trying to do is direct or guide the mind. He wants Philemon to think through this in the right kinds of ways and not get caught up in a wrong perspective when Onesimus walks through the door, and now he’s thinking about how he is going to handle this situation. So, Paul wants Philemon thinking in a godly way.

And when we have been hurt, when we’ve been wronged, when we’ve been betrayed, it is very hard to think in a godly way. We want vengeance. We want to take care of the person who’s wronged us. We want justice. And there the warning that James gives us, right, that our vengefulness does not accomplish the righteousness of God. The feelings that we have, the emotions that we want to carry on out, very often do not at all represent what true righteousness actually looks like. We allow ourselves to get caught up in the wrong kinds of things.

The first thing that Paul does in this moment is to remind Philemon who he is. Now, interestingly, I asked you to be in Colossians chapter 3, and I wanted to show you a couple things there before we look at the first part of Philemon, that these books are related and a lot of what Paul is doing as he writes these prison epistles is very similar. In Philippians, you have some ladies who are at odds with each other, and Paul’s dealing with that. In Ephesians, he talks about the importance of forgiveness. He’s going to do that here in Colossians chapter 3. In verse 13, he says, “bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” Kind of a Jesus principle that we’ll look at here in a little while, but I want to direct your attention more to verse 22 of chapter 3 where he has some things This is the middle of what’s called the household code. So, he talks about the relationship between wives and husbands, between parents and children, and now he’s going to talk about bondservants.

And we might think, “Why would he talk about this situation with bondservants with masters and slaves, what in some ways is a little bit like our employee-employer type relationship?” Not exactly, it’s a little bigger than that, but that maybe a helpful way for us to think about this. How do you act towards your employer? Do you talk bad about them all the time? I mean, do you look at all the problems that you think they’ve caused and you complain? I think I think these passages fit with that scenario as well, even though the system’s slightly different. But he says here in verse 22, “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.”

Now, I want you to think for a moment about this. Tychicus, Onesimus walk into that assembly as we already talked about. They’re bearing these letters from Paul. And the way this works, we can tell even in Colossians it talks about this, they’re going to open this letter, and they’re going to read it to the whole church. And in fact, Philemon is not just addressed to Philemon, it’s also addressed to the church. So, the church is going to get both of these letters, and part of what Paul’s telling them to do in this letter is, as bondservants, you serve your masters in a certain way: you’re respectful, you honor them, and you work hard, just as if you’re working for the Lord. And masters, the other side of this, you treat your bondservants justly and fairly.

Interesting that in Colossians or in Colossae, Paul has some things about this relationship already, even in the major letter to the church itself. And then we come to the more personal letter in Philemon. And what he’s going to do with Philemon here is remind him about the kind of person he is. He starts out addressing Philemon, and then probably it’s his wife and his son, and talking to the church that’s in their home. And I it’s interesting the way he starts. It’s I don’t think he’s trying to flatter or be disingenuous or anything like that to just get his way. He’s using some good rhetorical techniques, but a lot of this is trying to set the stage for what he’s about to do with Philemon. And he says things like this: “I thank my God always when I remember you.” Do you have people in your life like that?

Maybe things haven’t always gone perfectly or there’s been difficulties or struggles, but when you think about that person, you thank God that person is in your life. Maybe they’ve had to tell you some hard things you didn’t want to hear, but as you reflect on that more, you’re so grateful that you have someone like that in your life who is a close companion and a true friend. Paul wants Philemon to understand that’s the kind of person he is, reminding him of his identity, his identity in Christ. He’s a beloved fellow worker. I mean, Paul considers him like an equal. This man has done all sorts of good things for the Lord. Even mentioning here that the congregation meets in his home.

This is the kind of person who is hospitable, who opens his home to others. He says, “I’ve heard of your love—“ this is verse 5 “—I’ve heard of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints.” This is the kind of person you are, Philemon. Not only do you love the Lord, and you have faith for Him, but also, you’ve shown love for all the saints. Do you kind of see how he’s setting this up, even by the language he’s using as he’s addressing Philemon here in the very beginning? He speaks personally. He says, “I have derived much joy and comfort from your love.” It’s not just all these other people, but when I look at our relationship, Philemon, I think fondly of this. You have loved me, you have comforted me. Probably, as he’s going to mention later to prepare a room for him, he’s probably stayed with Philemon. Philemon has helped him in other ways in the past. That’s just the kind of guy Philemon is. And Paul wants to lean into that and remind him that this is the type of person he is.

And then in verse 7, at the end, “the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.” Philemon, just an outstanding person. He loves God, he loves the saints, he has a strong faith. He’s the kind of person that when you walk away from that person, you think, “I just really love that guy.” There’s so many people here in this congregation that I feel that way about. I won’t single any out to embarrass them, but I mean there’s friends I’ve had here for years and years, and when I’m with them and when I walk away from them, I just think, “That is just such an amazing person,” for a variety of reasons. That’s Philemon.

Whoever that is in your life, that’s who Philemon is to Paul, and he wants him to know that before he gets to some of the more difficult stuff. But I want us to understand part of why he’s doing this is because our hardest moments do not form our character, they reveal it. It’s easy to do all these things when everything’s good and there’s no problems. It’s in those moments we should be forming this type of character and this kind of identity, but it is in the hard moments that it’s really made manifest, that it really comes to the surface. It’s sort of like bitterness. I mean, bitterness is the same way. When I’m truly a bitter person, I may be able to hide it when things are okay. But when the difficulties come and there’s struggles and I begin to get shaken up a little bit, that’s when the bitterness starts to spill out.

And on the other side of that, Philemon’s the kind of person, Paul’s convinced, that when things get shaken up, when things get difficult and hard, his goodness and his love and his faithfulness is what’s going to emerge and pour out of him. That’s the kind of guy he is. And the reality is, it is in our hard moments, when things are difficult for whatever reason, whether it’s a strained relationship like it is here or various other struggles that we have in life, it’s in those moments that we actually figure out who we really are. If who I am during a struggle is someone who is unmerciful and hateful and selfish and mean and unfair and a bully, and unwilling to listen and unforgiving, that’s just the kind of person I am. Maybe I can hide it when things are okay, but if that’s what comes out when things are hard, that’s the kind of person I am.

The question I have to ask myself then is, who am I really? When I look at what Paul’s trying to do here with Philemon and he seems to identify the kind of person Philemon actually is, that’s what I should be thinking about myself. Now, this could manifest itself in all sorts of ways. When I’m upset with my spouse, what kind of person am I really? I can come here and I can convince you I’m a really friendly and happy person, but when I’m in an argument with my spouse, am I a bully? Am I mean? Am I hateful? Am I not willing to listen? Because that’s who I really am. Or maybe we just talked about parenting, maybe in how we treat our children. Are we unyielding? Do we extend no grace?

Well, the harsh reality is, if that’s what happens when things are hard, that’s who I really am. And if that’s the case in my life, I need to pause and really think about this, and think about how I’m going to form my character in a way that is like Philemon, or at least has aspects of that, because what Paul’s doing there is saying, “This is the kind of person who’s like Christ.” And if I’m following Jesus, I need to be making moves in my life, and I need to be transforming things in my heart to be more like Him, so that when the difficult times come, what’s pouring out of me is faith and love and gentleness and compassion.

Or maybe we can think of this another way. What kind of person am I known to be? This is where good friends can help us. Sometimes it’s hard to see ourselves for who we are, but a good friend can maybe help us recognize some of these things in our life. And maybe they’re subtle, often they’re going to be subtle. I would hope that most of us are not going to just be belligerent and bullies and unmerciful and hateful in all kinds of scenarios in life. This is the blessing of having a spouse. As we deal with our children, “I think you were a little harsh,” Katie might say, and I have to think about that. Maybe I wasn’t merciful enough, or graceful, maybe I didn’t consider the full situation, or maybe I didn’t know the whole story. And it’s so easy for us to jump in and think we know, and to punish the wrong child. Maybe they weren’t the one who actually caused the problem, and so we need that sort of back and forth. But if I’m unwilling to listen, if I am lacking in showing humility, that’s going to create big problems. And it may be that I need to be looking to how other people view me to find out what kind of person I actually am.

What I want us to understand about this as we look at how Paul’s dealing with Philemon here, Philemon’s identity coming to the surface, is that preserving fellowship in a body like this—and this is important—begins long before a conflict ever arises, in how I’m working to shape my character so that when those moments do come, the right things are pouring out of me.

2. Remember to Whom You Belong

The next part of this, which I think is kind of a companion to this idea of who you are, is remembering to whom you belong. One of the things that Jonathan and I talked about as we were working through this idea that it seems very important to this is the familial concept as it’s coming out even in this letter. It’s not just in Philemon, it’s all over the place. In fact, it’s in Colossians, where we already read, where he talks about Onesimus being a faithful and beloved brother. He’s a brother. And so, the idea of family is extremely important, that spiritual family is actually greater than physical family. Jesus Himself makes some points about this. You may remember in Matthew 12, he’s here working among the crowds, and they say, “Hey, your mother and your brothers are outside.” And remember how he responds?

He says, “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” The point he’s making here is that spiritual family in reality is even greater than physical family. He tells them in another place that if you, whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. He’s not telling us not to love our fathers and not to love our mothers, but he’s he’s making a point about priority and the significance of our spiritual family.

And so, we think about who we are, right? This is not about who Onesimus was, Paul wants his mind shifted away from that. And when he talks about remembering this idea of who you belong to or to whom you belong, it’s don’t remember how he wronged me. Remember the situation we’re in, these huge principles in Scripture, the importance of spiritual family, and how much this matters. The letter is addressed, we go back to the very beginning, the letter is addressed, Paul says, “to Apphia, our sister.” This is not her his physical sister. We use this kind of language all the time. The fancy term for it is fictive kinship. I don’t really like that. You’ll you’ll see that maybe in writings about this, that there’s fictive kinship. The idea is it’s not real, it’s kind of like it’s fictive. But I want us to understand it’s real. This is supposed to be real family. And that’s the point Paul’s making. This is not a biblical term, the idea of fictive kinship. It’s just the way people talk about it sometimes. But I want us to get this is a real thing, a real family.

“Onesimus is my brother,” he says in Colossians 4. “Apphia is my sister.” And then he says, “I appeal to you,” in verse 10, “for my child Onesimus, whose father I became in imprisonment.” These are important relationships that matter to Paul in a familial kind of way.

And then there’s verse 16. Paul is kind of musing over the events that took place, and I’ll say as well, Paul is very careful about how he talks about Onesimus, and he’s also careful about how he talks about Philemon. So, more on that when we get to Paul later. It’s interesting how he does that. But he’s talking, it seems, a little bit about providence, saying, “You don’t know why all these things happen the way they did, and maybe it was good that he had to part from you for a while, and that he’ll come back, and now he’s going to be with you forever.” Verse 16: “no longer as a bondservant—“ so no longer just a slave in your house “—but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.” A brother in the things of this life, right? I mean, Onesimus and Philemon, again, often in the ancient world, in the Roman world, slaves and masters didn’t have terrible relationships a lot of times. In fact, even when a slave was manumitted, they would get their freedom, the master would often still continue to help them in a variety of ways. And so this relationship, it didn’t have to be one of animosity and hate and difficulty.

They actually were men who spent time together. He was someone who was helping him in his house. And Paul’s saying, “Hey, not only are you gaining him back in a good way, he used to be useless,” right? I think there’s some real hurt and some real wrong here, “and now he’s useful, but not only do you gain him back in a in a real way in your home and in an earthly way, but also he is a brother in the Lord.” These relationships matter.

And what we get from this, and what we ought to understand from this, is the importance of the reality that we are family. A family that is greater than just physical family.

I think this is why Jesus gives us the instructions he does in Matthew 18. Matthew 18 has a lot to say about this subject in general, but it kind of begins with this whole idea of going tell the brother his fault between you and him alone. “If he listens to you,” he says, “you have gained—“ what? “you have gained your brother.” That’s a family. It’s a family we should care deeply for. He doesn’t say you’ve gained a friend, you’ve gained an acquaintance, you’ve gained somebody else who shares a pew in the building with you. You’ve gained a brother, and that’s why it should be handled carefully and appropriately. That’s the idea, that’s the concept. It’s bigger than just being right or wrong, it’s about the relationship that also exists.

Let me think through it this way with us: when your child has done something wrong, I’ve been in this scenario. My children are great. I should probably praise them more from the pulpit than I do. They are all exceptional children in so many ways. But they do things wrong, just like children do. And when they do, does it matter to you how someone approaches that and deals with it? I mean, when your child makes a mistake, they’re clearly in the wrong, do you just say, “Well, you messed up. I mean, you just got to deal with how someone handles this with you”? Is that the way we think? No, we would like to think that even when our children mess up, that this would be handled in a way that’s appropriate. They don’t just have carte blanche to do whatever they want because your child has been in the wrong, now they can berate them, and be ugly to them, and be unkind, and exclude them, and avoid them, or whatever the things may happen.

No, as parents, we would like for this to be handled in a way that is beneficial for all. Do we not think God cares how His children are treated, even when they’ve been in the wrong?

Remember to whom you belong, that this is about family. When we go through struggles or conflicts and the way that we handle this, the identity that we carry with us like Philemon and the kind of person he is, this is something bigger than just the relationship itself. In fact, in Philippians 4, when he’s worried about these two women and he’s asking them to get back together in the Lord, it’s because it’s affecting the gospel. It’s affecting the work that’s going on there. Sometimes we think, “Oh, these are just relationships, and they aren’t that significant. I can just avoid this, or it’s not that big of a deal.” I would caution us against that kind of mentality because it actually affects the body. Every member in the body is supplying what is needed, and when that is not happening appropriately, when there is tension and when there are problems, things are left undone.

The atmosphere is not one that leads to where a body needs to be going to grow, as Paul talks about in Ephesians chapter 4. And so, we remember to whom we belong. It’s not about me, it’s not about you, it’s about something bigger. And even we’re when we’re at odds, it’s not purely just about fixing the things between us, there’s something much bigger at stake, which is the third concept here.

3. Remember What's at Stake

It’s not, remember what he cost you, Philemon, right? Paul’s trying to get him out of that mentality and think about, remember what’s at stake here. Remember the significance of what takes place when we handle things the way we handle them. It isn’t neutral. It’s It isn’t that it just doesn’t matter very much. No, it matters greatly.

Philemon verse 6, in the middle of this introduction, Paul says this: “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.” Paul’s praying about the sharing of Philemon’s faith, that it’s effective. I want us to think about that for a moment.

How effective is the sharing of my faith if I say, “I love Jesus, I just avoid some of the other people who love Jesus. I love Jesus, I just I just can’t forgive. There’s some people that love Jesus, I just can’t forgive those people. I’m just not going to talk to those people”?

Do we not think that affects the sharing of our faith and what people think about us and how they see Jesus in us and what that says about who Jesus is and the kind of love and forgiveness that Jesus has? We are very misguided if we think that. It’s one of the reasons I think Paul leads with this in the beginning of this letter, saying, “Hey, I’m praying that your faith will go out.” That’s the idea. The way you act is essentially what he’s saying below the surface. The way you handle this situation I’m about to bring up will influence the sharing and the effectiveness of the sharing of your faith and what is said to others around you.

We have to consider what’s at stake even as we’re dealing with difficult circumstances. In the words of Alexander Pope, he said, “To err is human, to forgive, divine,” in his essays on criticism.

Said in maybe a slightly different way by John MacArthur, may have been said by others, he said, “Of all attributes, forgiveness is what makes us most like God.” Some of that’s because of what we talked about at the beginning: it’s hard. When you’ve been betrayed, when you’ve been hurt, when you’ve been offended, it’s hard to then turn that around and offer and grant forgiveness.

But it’s what we’re called to do. It’s what God tells us we should be doing all through Scripture. If we look at Jesus and what He does, it’s the example He sets for sets for us. We should understand that all humans fail, and to hold on to something a person said or did, especially not even telling them, is infantile behavior. It is not Christ-like behavior. It is not modeling the image of Christ at all.

And it’s done in selfishness, it’s done in pride. Onesimus clearly wronged Philemon. Philemon has a clear wrong here. Sometimes we can’t even define, or we can’t even make clear, or sometimes it’s vague, the offense that takes place that has upset us, and we don’t even want to discuss it.

Maybe we experience this most sometimes in our marriages. And what’s interesting, the people that we love the most, sometimes we take out our frustrations on, even when it’s not their fault. So, identifying what is actually bothering me is probably pretty important in many of these scenarios, and it may not even be the person that I imagine. I just have built that up as a story in my mind as the reason why things aren’t right.

But there are significant things at stake when it comes to how we handle the reality of being wronged. And I understand it’s very sensitive, and I want to come back to this in just a minute. But I want us first to see what’s happening here in Scripture, and then I want to talk about the difficulty of being the one wronged and how sometimes you get heaped on even in the midst of that. But we do need to consider passages like Colossians 3:13, which we’ve already read, this principle that to be forgiven, we have to be forgiving people. That’s the concept here, time and time again. And this is just a sampling, there’s there’s more of this. But, “Blessed are the merciful,” Jesus says. This is in His address in the Sermon on the Mount, “for they shall receive mercy.” If I want to receive mercy, I have to be merciful. If I want my debts forgiven, I have to be the kind of person who forgives debts.

We look at the story in Matthew 18, the unforgiving servant, right? And he has this insurmountable debt, he cannot pay this. And the king’s going to settle accounts, and he said, this is after, right, what we talked about in Matthew 18, how you should go to someone if they’ve offended you, right? And Peter says, “How often do we have to do this?” And Jesus says, “70 times 7. You keep doing it.” And then he tells this story and shows how wrong it is when we don’t forgive like God does. This guy’s forgiven this huge amount of debt, he’ll never be able to pay. And upon the forgiveness of his debt, he goes out and begins to strangle his brother who just owes a little.

I want us to consider the cost of that behavior. They are heavy things at stake, because at the end of that story, what happens because this guy, he’s already been forgiven, he’s been forgiven of his debts, but when the master sees the way he treats somebody else, he sends his handlers out and they arrest him and they throw him in jail and say, “You’ll never be let go until you pay the debt off,” which is never.

And so, if I have a spirit that is not a spirit of forgiveness, if I have a spirit that is not like Christ and say, “I could never forgive that person,” now, I realize some of this may take time, and so I’ll come back to that like I just said. But if I have a spirit where I will not forgive, those are hard costs to pay. He says he will be there forever.

James reminds us essentially the same concept from the mouth of Jesus, “For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” Jesus, in Matthew 7, He warns, right, this famous passage to “Judge not, that you be not judged.” The idea there is not that you can’t ever make judgments. He goes on to actually say you should make good judgments. But the point he’s making there is, you better make sure you’re fair about your judgment. Whatever measure you use on somebody else, it’s going to be measured back to you. And so, if you’re unfair and you’re unmerciful, if you’re unforgiving, you can expect that same thing back on you. That’s the point Jesus is making in Matthew 7.

So, I want us to get that this is extremely serious. And what Philemon’s having to wrestle through is not just some minor thing. He has been really hurt by someone who’s now standing in his presence, and he has to make some decisions about how he’s going to handle this, probably knowing quite a bit of what we just said from these texts, that to be forgiven, you have to be a forgiving kind of person.

To truly embody the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of forgiveness, I think there’s really a couple ways we have to handle this. One of them is, we just say, “I’ve probably done something similar, and I’ll move on.” Ecclesiastes deal with deals with this a little bit, you know, you think, “Oh, I heard this person say something about me,” but maybe I should stop and consider I’ve probably said some things about other people, too. So, before I get all high and mighty and get upset that somebody said something, I should consider that maybe I’ve done that, as well.

The other is, if I really am seriously hurt or offended or upset, I humbly approach them, understanding the importance of our spiritual family and how significant it is that we get this resolved, not just letting it hang, not just pretending everything’s okay when it’s not, but actually addressing the issue. And I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen this take place where two people think they’re at odds with each other, they get in the same room and they talk and they realize mostly it was a lot of misunderstanding. Not always the case.

But so often, it’s, “I heard this, but then it’s that’s not really what I was saying. You heard it in the wrong context or you didn’t understand what I was talking about.” And the they leave the room with it resolved and mostly reconciled.

Because so often, there’s a lot of misunderstanding, and a lot of misinformation, a lot of assumptions, and stories people have told themselves. And that gets cleared up much better when we humbly approach each other and deal with the matter at hand.

Sometimes we hear things that people haven’t said, we’re telling stories in our mind because we make assumptions about what we think they mean, and we just need some clarification.

That can’t happen when I simply ruminate over it over and over again in my head and let it consume me, but never actually talk to them.

And so now I want to come back to the difficulty of being the one who is burdened by hurt. Paul asks Philemon to receive Onesimus, and he’s not doing this because what happened didn’t matter. He’s not saying, “Hey, you’re really blowing this out of proportion, Philemon. This really isn’t a big deal. You just need to get on with it and just take this guy back and not make such a big deal about this.”

He’s not doing this because justice doesn’t matter, it’s not important to get things right. He’s doing this because something even greater is at stake: the fellowship that Christ created through His death, the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace that comes through the unity in Jesus Christ, and how fracturing that is so damaging. And the need for even someone like Philemon who has been hurt, who’s been damaged in some way by what’s what happened from Onesimus, to be able to humbly consider what is best for everyone; to no longer be consumed by the hurt, to no longer be consumed by being the victim, but realizing victory comes by actually reconciling this problem and coming back together with the one as best you can who’s even been the perpetrator of your hurt.

It’s hard to be the victim, and that is often the case because it’s so easy for bitterness to settle in. But it’s also easy for others to want quick, no-pain solutions. They just want it to be over. “Let’s just all get along. Let’s all act like it’s okay.”

And the reality is that solves nothing. And Paul does not push this at all. He wants Philemon’s goodness to come from the heart because he wants true fellowship, not pretend peace. He doesn’t just want it to be over, he wants them to actually reconcile. And for that to happen, Philemon is going to have to set aside his pride, set aside the vengeance he might feel, the need to be repaid. And Paul will handle some of that, as well, with how he deals with this as kind of the go-between. And realize what’s most important is that he and Onesimus and the people who worship in his home, that they all come together with the Spirit of Christ as a family who are joined together for the glory of God.

Just like I’ve seen many people meet, and the misunderstandings dissipate, and they walk away with a better feel for what actually happened, I’ve also seen the other side of this quite often, particularly in physical family situations where the one who has perpetrated the wrong gets all the sympathy and the compassion, to the point that the true victim is harped on because they didn’t just immediately receive them back without any thought. That’s not what Paul’s dealing with here, and that’s not at all what I’m encouraging. I am encouraging that we look at these lessons from Philemon, and we see the seriousness of this. We don’t dismiss it, we don’t act like it doesn’t matter, but we say it does matter, but what also matters is resolving it and getting people back together for the glory of God, just like in Philippians 4, where he wants that true companion to get these two women back together so they can begin working together in the Lord again.

Conclusion

I hope that you’re beginning to see, as we haven’t even talked a whole lot about Onesimus and Paul yet, that there’s a lot of depth here. There’s a lot that we can go into more than what I had considered before Jonathan and I started working on this. There’s a lot to think about when we think about the perspective of Philemon, and Onesimus, and Paul, and how they all work together toward resolving this very significant situation.

And I hope that we can humbly consider these texts and the perspectives within them, particularly this morning the thought of Philemon as the one who’s hurt. If you’ve been hurt by somebody this morning, your hurt’s real. I’m not trying to diminish that at all. In fact, I think what Paul’s doing is the very same thing. He’s not saying your hurt didn’t matter. He’s saying it actually did matter a lot, and Onesimus hurt you, but now how are we going to handle this? How are we going to move forward for the betterment of everyone? Remember the kind of person you are. You’re in Christ, and you’re a person who’s kind and hospitable and loving. You’re a person of faith, and you are the Lord’s person. You’re His child, and now Onesimus is too, and you’re a family together. And what’s at stake if I am hardened, and I’m stubborn, and I’m unwilling to forgive is I am not acting like Jesus, and there are consequences that come from that. And what we really want is to be preserving and upholding the fellowship that comes in Jesus Christ.

Could be this morning that what you most need to do to be in fellowship with Christ is to give your life to Him for the first time. Maybe you haven’t done that before. You’ve you’re interested in it, you understand it to some extent, but you haven’t fully given your life over to Him. In Romans 6, he talks about how you’re a slave to sin, and He wants you to get out of that slavery, and He wants you to let Him be your master, to be a slave of righteousness. And the idea there is you give yourself over to Him, and whatever comes with that, you’re there for it. And that’s what we’re calling you to this morning. Whether it’s to fix relationships, or how you walk through struggles and difficulties of various other kinds, being in Christ is the answer, and you can do that this morning by giving your life to Him, being baptized into Christ for the remission of your sins, becoming a new person. And now you’re in fellowship not only with God, but with God’s people. 1 John tells us that. Can we help you with that this morning? Maybe you’re someone who is out of fellowship with God’s people and therefore God, because in a scenario like Philemon and Onesimus, things have been handled poorly, and with ego, and with pride, and with stubbornness, and with lack of mercy, and you realize that needs to change.

If we can help you with that this morning as well, why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing?