Sweet gum trees. They’re a great shade tree – they grow quickly and strong. They produce a lot of leaves that will often turn nice colors in the fall. And, if you’ve had a couple of them, you know they also produce about a billion spiny, ball-shaped seedpods called monkey balls or gum balls. Every spring, those dandy little things cover the lawn, and they have to be moved off. About a year ago, articles started to appear that said those gumballs are a newly-discovered source for shikimic acid, the main ingredient being used to fight the Asian bird flu. Until now, they were depending on a plant in China for this. Suddenly, my gumball trees may be useful! I’ve always said that if I could find a buy for those things I’d retire!
Onesimus was a slave, and he had really messed up. Onesimus – his name meant “Useful” – had run away from his owner Philemon. Roman law was pretty clear. A slave owner literally owned someone else’s life. If he chose to, he could treat his slave real well or could treat him horribly. When a slave ran away and was caught again, any of a number of consequences might follow. He might be tortured, branded, or killed. Somehow, Onesimus had bolted, and he ran away to Rome, where Paul was in prison under a kind of house-arrest. Isn’t it ironic that a young man who ran away to seek his freedom attaches himself to a man who calls himself “a prisoner of Christ”; a man who lives with a kind of freedom that defies prison?
We don’t know how they met. We only know that while he is there, Paul becomes a spiritual father to the runaway slave. Onesimus accepts Jesus. Somehow, Paul discovers it’s a small world after all, because it turns out that Onesimus has run away from Paul’s friend, another son in Christ, named Philemon, in Colossae.
Now Paul has some decisions. Does he just say nothing? After all, Onesimus is pretty good help to have around. If he says something, it might get Onesimus in pretty hot water, or he may not even stay around. He may bolt, again. Then there’s the church that meets in Philemon’s house. What would they all do? Some might side with Philemon and some with the runaway slave. It has the potential to really polarize people. Whatever Paul instructs might create some kind of power play. There could be hurt feelings, legal implications, and all the muddle of a public spectacle.
Have you ever been in circumstances that just seem so complicated you’re not sure what to do? Trouble with in-laws, ex-spouses, step children, siblings? Trouble with managers, employees, co-workers? Trouble with teachers, friends, friends of friends, ex-boyfriends of friends and boyfriends of ex-friends? Or even in the church – trouble with committee members, board members, ministry team leaders, even Sunday School teachers? You don’t have to go too far in life to run into times when there are potential messes. Once the dust settles, you can often look back and learn from them what you should have done differently.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could learn a way to solve the problems before they turned ugly? Wouldn’t it be helpful to be able to defuse the situation and not have some major blow up?
That’s where this letter comes in. It’s what Paul chose to do with the potential Onesimus-mess – a way to do what’s right without stomping all over everyone’s toes. I hope you see where I’m going with this. Take your current Onesimus-sized mess, and apply the principles found in Philemon to it. That’s my goal for us this morning. How can we take a mess like Onesimus created and make it useful instead of tragic?
1. Act as a Community (vv1-2,23-24) (Care)
We live in the Joplin community. That is, we share this place with the other 46,000 or so residents. Now, everyday, this community’s population more than doubles because of people who come here to work and to shop. Some of those people don’t have the same concerns about Joplin that the rest of us have, because they’re not part of the community. When you belong to a community, that implies some qualities about you. The same things are true for the community of believers who make up the Lord’s Church. So, what does it mean to “act as a community”?
People in a Community know each other.
This was a Christian community. They may have been separated by many miles, but Paul speaks to them like people who are all under the same roof. V2 he mentions Apphia and Archippus – maybe even Philemon’s wife and son.
2 to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier and to the church that meets in your home…
And at the end of the letter, he sends along greetings from some of his companions who they will know by name:
23-24 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow workers.
This was no cold, impersonal letter. It was a member of the Christian community appealing to the hearts of other members of that community. That starts with just knowing each other.
I want to encourage you, if you don’t know people by name here at VHCC, to make that a deliberate goal over the next months. Soon, we’ll have a new pictorial directory and you’ll have a great tool for learning names. That’s the starting place for getting to know each other. Paul made that knowledge of each other a point in this letter.
People in a Community take care of each other (They care for the community)
Story - A soldier serving in Iraq got a Dear John letter from his girlfriend while he was overseas. To add insult to injury, she wrote, "Will you please return my favorite photograph of myself-- I need it for my engagement picture in the local newspaper." The poor guy was devastated, but all his fellow-soldiers came to his rescue. They went through the whole camp and collected pictures of all the guys’ girlfriends. Then, they filled up a shoe box with them and sent it to the girl along with a note from the guy saying, "Please find your picture, and return the rest,---for the life of me, I can’t remember which one you were!!"
Do you realize that when you take care of your community, you’re really taking care of the people there, and that includes you?
22 And one thing more: Prepare a guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers.
That’s what the people of the Church do when they care for each other. Why should they? Because they’re all involved in the same mission. Here at VHCC, we’ve made it a point to put that goal out in front of us constantly: to bring every person to completion in Christ. If you’re a part of the community, you’re sharing that mission.
V17 So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.
Partner? Even though he’s in prison…in Rome? Yeah! Because anyone who has made serving Jesus their first purpose in life is a partner with the rest of that community.
One of the ways to diffuse a potentially messy situation is to remind each other that we’re all members of a community. What helps you helps me, and what helps me helps you. Set your neighbor’s house on fire, and you just may get burned. Throw manure at your neighbor’s house, and the stink may drift onto you. Remembering that we’re a community will affect the way we deal with messy situations. Act as a community.
2. Overcome Evil With Good (Overcome)
What Paul was calling Philemon to do was revolutionary. Of course, all the instruction Paul gave to slaves and their owners was revolutionary. Many have wondered why Paul didn’t just tell all slave owners to stop owning slaves and put an end to it. In fact, around the time of the Civil War, both the North and the South were turning to Philemon to justify their positions. Creating an uprising wasn’t the way the Church is to deal with slavery. Instead, Paul instructed slave owners to be good slave owners – to treat their slaves with rightness and fairness, and to remember that we all serve the same Master. Slaves were instructed to be good workers – to work as though they were serving God and not men. If someone could gain his freedom, that was fine, but otherwise they weren’t to worry about it.
The Church wasn’t going to overcome slavery by arming the slaves and inciting riots. It was going to deal with that evil the Jesus way – to overcome evil with good. Even in this letter, that’s what Paul is doing – not by threat or coercion, but by appealing to his brother’s concern for what’s right and fair. Onesimus’ crime, even slavery itself, was going to be overcome by these brothers in Christ working it out – by doing good.
You and I have that same challenge in front of us on a daily basis. Paul wrote in Romans 12 that we shouldn’t try to overcome by taking vengeance. Instead, we should show the strength and integrity it takes to stand up in the face of our enemy without having to get even. God’s got your back. When someone else is talking behind it, overcome evil with good. When you’re being insulted to your face, don’t try to win with stronger insults. Overcome evil with good. When you have someone working hard to make you look bad or bring about your downfall, don’t throw out your integrity; overcome evil with good.
3. Remind Each Other of What We Have in Jesus (Remind)
v6 I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.
This letter is full of reminders of what we have in Jesus. Just read through it and look for those: Grace, peace, each other, joy, encouragement, refreshing, trust, love – the list goes on & on
Leave it to my wife. She has a habit of catching our family in times of low morale and forcing us to count some blessings. “Alright,” she’ll say, “No one eats until each one of you names 5 things you’re thankful for.” Or “5 good things that happened today.” Why does she do that? Because she knows that we sometimes need to be reminded just how good of a life we have.
If I can keep someone’s focus on what they have in Jesus, I can help them make good choices. I can help that person not give in to discouragement or loneliness. I can lift him up, keep him out of trouble. We need to remind each other of what we have in Jesus.
So, let’s try that. Turn to someone near you and tell that person one good thing you have because of Jesus in your life…
4. Go The Second Mile (Refresh)
Here’s another way to keep potential disasters from taking you over: go the 2nd mile. Jesus literally said to do this in the SOM:
Matthew 5:41
If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
We use that phrase, don’t we? “Wow, thanks for going the 2nd mile on that!” In other words, you went beyond what was expected or required.
Now, Paul didn’t owe Philemon anything. In fact, for his trouble, it could be that Philemon was actually in debt to Paul. But Paul not only didn’t ask for anything for himself personally, but even went further –
Philemon 18-19a
If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back…
What a disarming move. Philemon wouldn’t be able to say, “Yeah, but, Paul, you don’t understand! This guy took the family silver when he left. He even cleaned out the refrigerator!” Paul went out of his way, to personal expense if necessary, to make sure that this went well.
I wonder, in our homes, at our jobs, in school, in the Church, how many potentially messy situations could be completely undone just by people going the 2nd mile – going out of their way, even to personal expense, to make sure that things go well. I know, we can all come up with a “yeah, but…” – some reason we can contrive that we shouldn’t do this. Apparently, keeping peace in the church and helping a man who was trying to make his life right was worth more to Paul than the cost of whatever he might have stolen or done.
What’s it worth to you? A volunteer is needed. A leader is needed. A special gift is needed. Someone’s time is needed. What would happen if everyone went above and beyond what’s generally expected? What if everyone at VHCC went the 2nd mile?
Also, did you notice the words “refresh” and “encourage” in this letter?
v7 Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints.
v20 I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ
Vv9-10 also both contain the word “encouragement”
Whom did you encourage this past week? Whom did you refresh? Paul could look back at the way he and Philemon had done this for each other, and that’s how Paul could appeal to him to repeat it. I want a benefit from you! Refresh me! You know how!
It doesn’t happen by accident. It takes deliberate action. You may have to go a 2nd mile. Would it be worth it? I think a former runaway slave named Onesimus would say yes, it is.
5. Expect Good from Each Other (Encourage)
It wasn’t too long ago in a message that I pointed out that we shouldn’t be shocked when non-Christians act like non-Christians. We shouldn’t expect them to act like something they’re not and that they’re not claiming to be. Let me mention another part of that idea this morning: We should expect brothers and sisters in Christ to behave like brothers and sisters in Christ.
1 Corinthians 5:9-11
I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people--not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
In the Church, we should expect good from each other. Paul wasn’t being overly presumptuous when he told Philemon,
Philemon 20-21
I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ. Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask.
Was he putting him on the spot? Maybe a little. But Philemon had already put himself on that spot when he became a Christ-follower.
We shouldn’t hesitate to call each other to follow through with what we’ve chosen to be. I know, we’re still dealing with people in the Church, right? But do we believe in the power of God to transform lives or not? Do we believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to empower people to do what’s right or not? Do we believe that God’s word is truth, and that we’re supposed to encourage one another on to love and good works, or not?
Enough with the negative! Don’t tell me we shouldn’t teach against gossiping and backbiting because people are just going to do it anyway! If they do, call them on it! Don’t tell me that people from Church act just like everyone else at school. If you see that that’s true, confront them on it! Don’t tell me that there’s no sense in holding up high standards of morals among ourselves because some aren’t going to keep them. Challenge each other! Expect good from each other. If we do any less, we make our bad attitudes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’d rather expect good of each other and be disappointed once in a while than to expect the worst and never be surprised!
Yeah, I expect good things from you! Please, expect good things from me. Let’s have great expectations for the Lord’s Church.
Conclusion:
Once Paul has written this letter, we once again have to fill in the blanks as best we can. It seems that Paul gave this letter and the one we call Colossians to Onesimus and Tychicus. They headed off to Colossae, and to Philemon.
Colossians 4:9
[Tychicus] is coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here.
Reflect on that for just a moment. Onesimus, the runaway slave, guilty of a crime that could get him killed, returns to his master on his own! Later church history records someone named “Onesimus” who became a church leader in nearby Ephesus. What was a potential disaster became something useful in the Church – even useful for you and me today reading this letter.
How do things like that happen?
Just like in a household, things go best when we deliberately apply Jesus’ instruction in the way we handle things in the Church. For Onesimus, it was the outcome of a life given over to Jesus – a changed heart that produced a changed life.
For several weeks we’ve been examining the way encounters with God produced a changed heart and a changed life. It hasn’t been for entertainment purposes. The purpose has been for us to encounter God on a regular basis and see our own hearts shaped the way He wants them to be.
Today, we’re going to offer Jesus’ invitation once again – an invitation to a changed heart.
(Prayer then invitation)
