Let's pray, then we'll spend some time in a new book. We're gonna do an introduction this morning, and we haven't done one in years, so here we go. Let's go ahead and let's pray. Dear gracious Father, we thank you so very much for your word. We thank you for the truth that's found in your word. We thank you for such a wonderful little book like Philemon that helps us understand a lot of things about your character, about your ways and practical advice on living in unity, living with one another, forgiving one another, how we talk to one another, how we pray for one another. We thank you for this wonderful, wonderful little book. And we just ask, Father, that as we just think about some of the setting, and as we just introduce the book this morning, that your spirit would be working, that we as a church would learn this book, and that we would apply its principles to our lives. We just thank you and love you, in your son's name, amen. So this morning, we're gonna start the book of Philemon. This book is one of the little studied books. There's not a lot of studies on the book of Philemon. Probably some of the reason is because it's so little. You kind of forget about it, right? And it's one of those flyover books, right? Everybody wants to study Romans, John, they wanna study Hebrews, wanna get to the book of Revelation, Isaiah, those are books that lots of people do lots of study on, and there's good reason. And someday, Lord willing, we ourselves will study the book of Romans together. But I, just have a special place in my heart for this little book that kinda is forgotten. And I thought, let's spend a little bit of time in one of these forgotten books. This book is a fascinating study on the issues of grace, the issues of reconciliation, the issues of God's sovereignty, the issues of forgiveness, of unity inside of a church, how we advise people when there's awkward situations. At the center of this book is a really strange relationship. That's probably the nice way of saying what's going on in this book, as we'll come to find out. And just imagine yourself and how many times you have had a relationship with someone, whether it was an employee, an employer, whether it was a family member, a person in a church who has done something that is really hard to forgive, really hard to look over. And this book is one of those books that will help us think about that. So as we dig deeper, I hope that this will just be much more than just a introduction to setting, date, author, some of those important things that we need to know to help us interpret the book. But I hope that really my goal is after we kind of do this, that you'll go home each day and read the book of Philemon several times because it's really short. You can read it in like 30 seconds. And so my goal is that this next week you spend a lot of time meditating on this book and thinking about this book so that as we go through it together and kind of pick it apart, you'll be pretty familiar with the people and some of the circumstances that are going on. So this morning we're just going to kind of go into who wrote the book, where was it written from, when was it written, what were some of the circumstances behind the book, We're going to kind of talk about why Paul wrote the book. We're going to talk about what this book teaches us, some of the practical applications, and then an outline of the book. So let's start. Who wrote the book? Well, there's several places it tells us the author. Go with me to Philemon chapter 1, verse 1. By the way, there is no other chapter, so we're just going to say verses from here on out, right? Philemon 1, notice what is said here in Philemon 1. Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus. Okay, that tells us a little bit about the circumstances that Paul finds himself, but it also tells us the author. Then notice down in verse 9. Notice what he says, he says, yet for love's sake, I prefer to appeal to you, I, Paul, an old man, and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus. So one, we learn something else about Paul, he's an old guy. No, he's much older in the faith, but once again, he includes the idea of his imprisonment. And then notice in verse 19, I, Paul, write this with my own hand. are, yeah, so here we get this idea that this is a unique thing. This is a personal letter, very personal, right? There doesn't seem to be a secretary, as is some of the other epistles, right? The technical term for that is an immanuensis, just in case you're ever wanting to impress people at a dinner party, and you go, I know what immanuensis means, and they'll go, wow, you're really smart. And Emanuensis is basically somebody that dictates a letter. This seems to be from Paul's own hand. So this is a very special, personal letter. All the other ones, there was like a secretary that was writing. So where's Paul? Where's Philemon, right? Because Philemon, he's the main subject of the book. Well, Paul is imprisoned. We're going to spend more time kind of filling out the character of Paul in the next week, but just remember this. So Paul is, you know, he's on the road to Damascus. He gets saved, he spends a couple years learning from Jesus directly. He starts, he then goes to Antioch, spends some time there as pastor. He then feels the call to go out and share the gospel throughout the world. And so Paul becomes one of the major missionary forces. And remember, he goes on several missionary journeys. his last what we call missionary journeys, right? Remember, he comes back to Jerusalem, and remember what happens. He is imprisoned by the Jews, and then is later then sent up to northern Israel, where he then appeals to Caesar. In Acts chapter 28, it really outlines that journey that Paul goes through and how he ends up in Rome. So Paul is in Rome and he's imprisoned, and it's during this time that he writes several letters, and this is one of those books. This is written around AD circa 60-61. Paul doesn't date it for us, but that's around the time. By the way, we're gonna see evidence in this book that Paul really believes that he's going to be released. We know from history and from some of the other books, he is released for a short time. We don't know exactly where he goes, but then he's then arrested again, he's then put in prison, and then he's ultimately martyred for Christ, for the name of Christ. So this is during Paul's first imprisonment. By the way, this is also the companion letter to the book of Colossians. That's some of the reason why I wanted to do this book, because Greg is going through Colossians. And so in that study of Colossians, you're going to find a lot of themes that are mentioned in Philemon that echo the same sentiments in Colossians. And this morning, we were looking at some of these things, right? Put on love, forgiving one another, bearing with one another as Christ has forgiven you. This book is then the practical application of that verse. Okay? So to whom is this epistle written? And this is where things get a little dicey, friends. So notice in verse one, it says, Paul, a prisoner for Christ, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved fellow worker. So we know Philemon is one. And then it says to Apphia, our sister, and Arpippus, that's wrong, Arpippus, our fellow soldier. So notice here that there are two other people mentioned, right? We're just going to say Mr. A, because I'm going to butcher that name all day. And we're going to say Mrs. A, because I'm going to butcher that name all day too. Appiah and Archippus. These two The question is, how are they attached to Philemon? And then notice there's this other thing, so when it says archippus, it says our fellow soldier and the church in your house, the question is whose house? Whose house is this? Based off of some of these things, based off the fact that they're all kind of listed together, there's that thing at the end when it says in your house, the context of the letter, this is a very personal thing, but yet you're including these two other people, right? It generally is believed that they are somehow a family unit. Now whether this is brother, sister, brother, or this is Philemon, wife, son, We can't be sure, but it seems to me that this is a family unit. So this is addressed to a family unit, primarily Philemon. By the way, just as a side note here, it's really interesting that he says to the church in your house, This has led some to believe, and myself included, that there are several little churches in the city of Colossae, and this is one of them. So this once again shows the importance of a local fellowship, right? And how even within a city, there can be several believers and several things going on, and several little fellowships. Now some have used this, the church in your house, to be part of a movement called the house church movement, and some people have asked me what I think of that. I think a church is a church, and a church is very clearly outlined in 1 Timothy. It has leadership, right, it has elders, it has the ability to give out the message. elements for communion, it's able to exercise church discipline. It's far greater than a Bible study. Don't think that a Bible study all of a sudden is a church. It's not a church. It's a group of believers who are included in a church, but a local church has to have that structure in order for it to be a church. I don't care where, if it has the right structure, where they meet. They can meet in a church, they can meet in a tent, they can meet in a barn for all I care. It doesn't matter, that's a church. Okay? So here, this is a church. This isn't a Bible study. This isn't just a group of people wanting to gripe about all the things that they hate about all the other local churches. This is a legitimate church. Okay? This is a legitimate church with elders, a legitimate church with teachers, legitimate church that's able to exercise church discipline, that's able to do the elements, baptize, do all those things. Legitimate thing. This also tells us that Philemon is probably loaded, right? Guy's got a big enough house that people can come and meet together. And as we're gonna find out who Onesimus is, we're gonna find out this guy's got slaves as well. He's pretty wealthy. This is a pretty wealthy guy. So, here we have these three people. I believe that Philemon is the head of the household. That's why he's addressed Archippus. This guy's very interesting. He's also mentioned in the book of Colossians, by the way. Notice in Colossians chapter four, what Paul says about him. Colossians chapter four, notice in verse 17. And it says, and say to Archippus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. There's a lot of discussion on who what ministry he's talking about, it's likely that Archippus has become the pastor. He's kind of the pastor of this small church. Some have even suggested that this is Epaphras' church, and so as Epaphras went to Paul in Rome, as Tychicus and Onesimus come back, and they deliver this letter, that Archippus is left in charge, and he's kind of the pastor and spiritual leader. Maybe, maybe that's the case. He's definitely seen as a fellow soldier, and that term is used for those who are in the ministry. Paul refuses, or uses that phrase quite often to refer to special people in the ministry. So, sorry, we already got the where and when, right, sorry. To whom was this written? We just got that. So now, here we go. The circumstances that gave rise to this epistle. Now this is very interesting. So remember, Paul's in Rome. Back in Colossae, maybe. We don't know exactly where. Philemon has this slave. The slave's name is Onesimus. Onesimus runs away. It is likely that he also stole from Philemon. Paul talks about all that is owed to you, I will pay back. So it's likely that Onesimus stole and he runs away. And where does he go? He goes to Rome. This was a common thing. A lot of slaves had run away during this time. It's a pretty common thing. And where do you go? You go to the big city. Why do you go to the big city? Because you can blend in. Nobody's really looking for you, nobody really knows you, and there's a lot of people. We don't know the circumstances, but somehow he encounters Paul in Rome, and notice what Paul's account of Onesimus is. Notice in verse 10 here, here's kind of the key verse, he says, I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. So the idea here is, when he says father, it doesn't mean now Paul's legally Onesimus' dad, like he adopted him. What this means is, is this means that Paul led him to the Lord. So whatever happened, whatever circumstance happened, the Lord led Onesimus to Paul, and Paul led him to the Lord. And it's kind of interesting, Onesimus' name kind of means the useful one, and then notice kind of the wordplay in verse 11. Formally he was, formerly he was useless to you, so the useful one is now useless, he was useless, but now he indeed is useful to you and to me, right? So he's living up to his name, he's now useful, why? Because now he's a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. So this letter is Paul sending back Onesimus, because Onesimus is technically still a slave. And Paul is following the Roman law of sending back a slave. But he's going back with Tychicus. So Tychicus, remember, he was with Paul when Paul was in prison. And Tychicus was acting as mailman. And there were several different letters that Paul wrote. And Tychicus and Onesimus, they go back and they deliver these letters. And no doubt, this was a great benefit to Onesimus, who was a runaway slave. There were people at this time who made a living catching runaway slaves. And they were often very brutal. So having another guy with him would have offered protection, but they go back to the Church of Colossae. So the question is then, so why did Paul write this book? It's simple. Paul wrote this letter to appeal to Philemon to accept and forgive Onesimus as a runaway slave, as a brother in Christ. That's what he's doing. He's writing to vouch for Onesimus, right? And there's an appeal that you accept this one and you forgive this one. And you no longer view him as a slave, you now view him as a brother. So the question then is, what does this book teach us? And we're gonna spend a little bit of time here on some of this, some of the lessons that I think we're gonna learn from this book and some of the practical applications. So the first thing of what Philemon teaches us is this, is this interesting balance between leadership in the church and personal relationships. Here you're dealing with one church leader, the Apostle Paul. You're dealing with Philemon, who's clearly a fellow worker, archivist, who is clearly a church leader, and you're dealing with somebody that they have a personal relationship with, Onesimus, right? And so he's somehow in the middle. And so this is a wonderful balance of that. And you see Paul, as he talks to Philemon, and there's one thing that always sticks out to me in this book that has been very challenging to me as a leader. Notice verse eight. So here Paul says, accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake, I prefer to appeal to you. So think of this, the Apostle Paul, he's an apostle. He could just say, do, do this now, obey me. He's well within his rights. And in this situation, he could have just written, accept back Onesimus, don't worry about it. As the apostle, I say this. But notice how Paul deals with this. He doesn't deal with it like a master, right? Do as I say. What is he doing? He's an example. I could, but I'm appealing to you as a brother, right? I'm coming to you as a brother. I want you to want to do this. I want you to want to live for the Lord. And so I'm not coming to you overbearing. I'm coming to encourage you, to appeal to you. Oh man, there's been several times where people have come to me and this is the tone that they have taken. I'm appealing to you as a brother. I'm appealing to you as a sister, as a friend. Man, this is much easier to receive something that's about ready to be said when it's come from, I'm doing this because I love you. I'm doing this because I care about you and I care about your walk and I also care about this other brother, okay? It's kind of interesting. There's another thing that's really important in this book that we're going to see. It's going to be this concept of love and forgiveness. Think about this. You have a guy who likely stole and run away, right? That's a serious thing. That's a really serious thing. He then comes to know the Lord and now he's coming back. How should a believer respond in that situation? Like Christ, like Christ. And what's Christ-like attitude? Forgiveness, right? I'm gonna go to the book of Colossians here quickly. Go with me to Colossians chapter three. Colossians chapter three, and just notice the admonition he gives to the church, the churches, to the believers in Colossae. No doubt Paul's thinking of the situation. He's thinking of Onesimus is coming back to Philemon. So here's the theology, right? So let's just start in verse 12 of Colossians three. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. By the way, notice the uniqueness of the believer The believer is chosen, is called, he's set apart, and he's loved by Christ. And so then the ask is to put on, and this morning we talked about this putting on. It is a command, but these are the attitudes that we're supposed to have. But we must remember that the only way we can obey is if we're yielding to the power of the Spirit, and we know what the Scriptures say. So we're to put on, right? So as much as it depends on us, these are the types of things that we're supposed to develop. And notice, This is the unique nature of us as believers. We're chosen, we're called, we're specifically singled out, supposed to be separated and dedicated to God and loved by Jesus and loved by God. We're supposed to put on compassionate hearts. Kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Now all these are found in Jesus. But just think of this, compassion. What does that mean to look at somebody with compassion? The book of Philemon is a great example. How do we look on somebody with compassion? Here you have this useless slave who runs away. Now he comes back as a believer. How do I look at him? Compassionately. Heart of kindness. part of humility, of meekness. And then notice this, bearing with one another. And if anyone has a complaint against another, like, I don't know, you stole from me. Right? Onesimus stole from Philemon. So if anyone has a complaint, does Philemon have a legitimate complaint against Onesimus? Of course he does. He not only has a personal one, he has a legal one. He has a real complaint, right? This is much more than somebody brought vegetables to a cookie fellowship. That's a silly one, right? We joke about that. That's not a real complaint, right? Somebody painted one of the walls in the church a different color. That's not a real complaint, right? That's not a real complaint. That's just a weird first world problem. How dare we paint the church walls a certain color? This is legitimate, right? He ran away and he stole from me. So what's the advice? Someone has complaint forgiving each other. That's it, forgiveness. That's the solution, forgiveness. It's a legitimate complaint. And then notice this. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Think about that. How did Jesus forgive you? How did he do it? How much did he ask you to change when he forgave you? How much did he forgive you? To what extent did he forgive you? How much grace was lavished on you? That is the standard of Christian forgiveness. Now, Christian forgiveness is this idea that there's an offense and I'm no longer holding you guilty of that offense, okay? That's what that means. It doesn't mean that okay, you asked for forgiveness, that means we're going automatically back to where we were beginning. There are several situations that happen where people do stuff that breaches trust and trust has to be rebuilt. That's natural, that's natural. You can forgive and still say, we need to build back trust. Or in this case, Onesimus stole. I could imagine Philemon might not say, okay, well, now that you're a believer, let's make you church secretary right away, right? Let's let you prove your honesty, okay? Let's do that. But forgiveness is something different. Forgiveness is that idea of I'm no longer holding this guilty against you. and I'm no longer bringing it up whenever we talk. So, if you keep a record of wrongs in a fight, and you say, I've forgiven you, and then you fight with somebody, and then you bring up all those things again, guess what? You haven't really forgiven them, because you're still harboring that bitterness. You're not forgiving them like Christ forgave you. I remember one time I got an email from a lady. She said, I really want to talk to you about my husband, And I really want you to go talk to him, which is always a bad sign whenever a couple comes and only one person of a couple comes up and is like, I need you to go talk to the other guy. And so I said, well, okay, well, you know, I really want to meet with you together. She said, no, no, no, no. I'm just going to let you know how bad he is and then you can deal with him. And she sent me an email of his day. and it was categorized by the hour, by the minute in alphabetical order. It was a 40 page document. And I'm just thinking, lady, you're nuts. This is crazy. That's not forgiveness. And at the end she goes, I just want to repair this relationship. Well then stop alphabetizing his sins. That's not Christian forgiveness. And then notice this, then notice this. This goes with forgiveness, by the way. And above all these things, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Imagine that. Imagine how difficult that would be for Philemon and Onesimus to be in the room for that first conversation, you ran away, you stole from me, and to say, I forgive you, and let's work on being unified together in Christ. That's some tough stuff. This isn't easy, right? This is difficult. This is heart-wrenching stuff. But this is what we're called to as Christians. And this is what Philemon helps us wrestle with. There's another thing about Philemon that I think we'll learn and what Philemon teaches us is this. It teaches us that true change starts from the inside and works its way out. We're gonna look at this several times. There's several things culturally that the book of Philemon is used for. But really, what we see the Apostle Paul doing here is he's saying, look, here's this guy who's been changed from the inside. And that's far more important, brothers and sisters, real change on the inside rather than just conformity on the outside. Think about how Paul appeals to Philemon. I could tell you, I could command you, and you could do exactly what I want you to say. You could do that, but I don't want that. I want your heart to be in it. I want the change to be from the inside. Man, what an incredible message. Another thing that's really, really important as well that we're gonna learn is the importance of church unity. Notice that multiple people inside of the family are invoked, and notice that even Paul is writing to the local church. The local church is supposed to be privy of this situation, of how wonderful it is that Onesimus is now a believer. Why is that important? Well, let's be honest, if Onesimus stole from Philemon, Is it likely that he stole from other people? If he was useless before, is it likely that the church would have seen that being in the house of Philemon? Of course, they would have known Onesimus, right? He's not some weird guy that they don't know. He would have been around, right? He would have been there. Another thing that's really important here when we talk about unity is this. Go with me to verse 16 of Philemon, verse 16. So here Paul is talking about how God's sovereignty, that this was all part of God's sovereign plan that Onesimus would run away and meet Paul and come to know the Lord and now he's being sent back. And so as Onesimus comes back, He's encouraging Philemon to view Onesimus this way. Notice in verse 15 it says, no longer, view him no longer as a bondservant, but more than a bondservant as a brother. Think of that, think of that. No longer view him this way, but now view him as a brother. That's unity in the church, right? No longer viewing them as some other moniker, now we're family. We're family, right? And then Paul even goes even further, notice this, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord? So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. Think of that, think of the humility, and think about the unity that that would cause. Here's this runaway slave, and Paul's saying, when he comes back, receive him as you would me. How would they receive Paul? With great joy, with great excitement. Here's the apostle Paul, he's coming to church, he's gonna stay at my house. How exciting would that be? Think about whenever we have a guest, we get excited, we start cleaning, we start doing stuff, oh yeah, no, this gotta be done, this gotta be right, this gotta be right, because it's exciting. That's how Onesimus is supposed to be received back as a brother. No longer as your property, but now as your equal in the Lord. That's significant, friends. That is absolutely 100% significant. Now think about that in our own setting. How many things you think would be changed even in our own setting if we just viewed each other as brothers and sisters? We're brothers and sisters. I love you because you're my brother in the Lord. I love you because you're my sister in the Lord. I wanna treat you like a brother and sister. Think about how many problems would immediately evaporate, right? So what are some of the practical takeaways? Those are some of the big ideas that will be taught. Here's a couple practicals. Forgive me if I get a little soapboxy here. We'll talk about these. I'm gonna try to just go through them quickly and we'll discuss them, but first, The first practical thing that really will be glaring will be this, the need for love. The absolute need for love. Not being cordial, though it's good that we're cordial with each other, but the need for true, biblical, Christ-like love. That's a big thing. Philemon's going to need it. Onesimus is going to need it. The church is going to need it. They're going to need love. There needs to be this Christ-like love. So we're going to be talking about a lot of love. And even in this book, Paul offers a really good example of what this love looks like. Not to preach the book, but just there's going to be a couple things that we're going to see the Apostle Paul do. One, Paul's going to start off the letter with a prayer. And he's gonna talk about Philemon and how he's just so very thankful for Philemon. Even though Philemon's in this situation, I'm thankful for you, I'm thankful for your ministry. I've been praying for you. And then in the book, he's gonna seek what's best. He's gonna seek what's best for Philemon, he's gonna seek what's best for Onesimus. Not himself. Paul has a dog in this fight. But he doesn't care what's best for him, what's best for Philemon and what's best for Onesimus. And he's walking this line. There's another thing. Paul is candid in this book. He is honest. He's very honest about his feelings for Onesimus. Love includes honesty, doesn't it? It's one of the basis of our relationship with each other. Then think of this, Paul is even willing to bear the burdens. Greg and I were talking about this yesterday, but Paul makes this comment that whatever he owes you, I will pay it. Think about this, here's a guy in prison saying, yeah, I'll pay his debts. Imagine what you would do if the Apostle Paul says, yeah, I'll pay you somebody else's debts. I think most of us would go, Paul, no, don't do that. It's fine, Paul, don't do that. But just think of the Apostle Paul putting himself out there. on behalf of Onesimus. He is so convinced of Onesimus' character that he says, I will bear his burdens. I will take on his burdens as my own. That is incredible. That's incredible. There's another thing that's really important, and this is part of love. I think this is where we all struggle the most. Go with me to verse 21. That's what Paul says to Philemon. He says, confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. What is he doing? He's expecting that Philemon will listen. He's expecting that Philemon will do what's right. That's love. That's what love does. Love hopes the best. Love bears. Love expects the best, it gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, right? This is Christ-like love. I think another thing that we're gonna talk about quite a bit throughout this book is the example of gospel living. This is one of the great examples of what does it look like to live out the gospel with inside of a church. because it deals with Christ-like forgiveness. It deals with redemption and reconciliation. It deals with unity, right? This is that great example of this is what it looks like to be a believer when relationships get messy and awkward and hard. This is what it looks like. This is what it looks like to live out the gospel. On a side note, I also think that this will be a really good book for us to learn how to give godly advice. I think Paul does a really good job of giving personal advice. There's one other thing that we're gonna talk about. It's kind of some of the reason why I think the book is kind of important for us to talk about right now. You gotta understand there's a complex legacy of this book Philemon. This book is complex. This is one of those books that has been used to support a lot of sin. It has been used to support a lot of sin. People weren't reading it right and they used it either to justify themselves in kidnapping and buying other human beings and using it to demonstrate that some people are not real people. Now, when you look at this book, you go, well, that ain't possible. How can you get that out of this book? I know. They probably cut out the parts that they didn't like. Or they only read one verse. So just realize this. The complex nature of this book is that it's been misquoted. This is the fault of lots of people who have lots of Bible verses and say things that are not in the proper context of the book. They only focused on the fact that Paul sent back the slave. They only focused on the part that Paul appealed to him and that Philemon should take him back as a slave. They skipped that other part. There's another modern contention of the book that questions the veracity and inspiration of the New Testament. There are many that you will hear on Facebook, even right now, that will say, because Philemon does not stop and abolish slavery, therefore, the Bible must be wrong because we know the greatest evil in this world is that there is slavery. Now, friends, you and I, we all admit together with a giant amen, Exploiting people, kidnapping people, using them as tools, manipulating them is wrong. It is sinful. There is no question. But like I said a couple weeks ago, let us be careful not to condemn what God doesn't condemn. And let's be careful to not elevate things that God doesn't condemn. When God in the scriptures talks about slavery, he doesn't necessarily condemn it, nor does he promote it. He deals with it as a reality of the sinful heart. So therefore, we shouldn't be quick to condemn these things. Although I think that there's enough in the New Testament, there's enough in the Old Testament that would say it's really hard for those who love the Lord Jesus Christ to own another person. That's really hard. That conclusion would be really hard to reach. But the other cannot be true as well. So we're gonna deal with slavery. we're going to deal with what the Bible says about slavery. It's going to be some kind of uncomfortable, right? Because it's dealing with the sinfulness and messiness of man. And we see how God redeems people even in the midst of the worst conditions that we can imagine. We're gonna talk a lot about the Roman view of slavery. By the way, the Roman view of slavery, they had some interesting views. Some of them were consistent with what the Americans believed in the early part of our country. There were some things that were different. We're gonna look at the idea that as believers, One of the reasons that we should not be really pro-slavery is we gotta remember that we were all slaves to sin. And what did God do? He saved us and delivered us from that. And on that basis alone, that at one time, we too were slaves. We know what that means to be a slave. And it's the worst kind of slavery. It's the absolute worst kind. It's a slavery that you wanted to be a part of that you didn't know you were a slave. God saved us from that. And here we have a beautiful example of God saving a slave. We're gonna emphasize human dignity, view people as brothers, not as flesh tools. We're gonna emphasize the idea of Inner transformation is better than outward change. We're not concerned with societal change. I'm not, you shouldn't. You know what we're concerned about as believers? Inward transformation because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm concerned about each of you and you walking with the Lord. And when I meet somebody on the street that doesn't know the Lord, you know what my concern is? That the fact that they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Will that bring about change in society? I don't know. My goal is to share the gospel with people and the inward transformation of people as God does that with people. Will that change society? Maybe, maybe not. I'm gonna leave that to God. My job is to be faithful and to focus on inward transformation of the gospel. There's gonna be another really interesting thing that we're gonna look at. At the end of the book, there's gonna be this insinuation that Philemon lets Onesimus go to serve the Lord. You release him from his slavery to go serve the Lord. Now, take this for what it's worth. I think it's interesting. According to church history, Philemon did let Onesimus go. And according to church history, guess where Onesimus went? He went to go be a pastor in Ephesus. according to church history. Maybe that's true, maybe that's not, I don't know. But if it is true, wow, wow, what a powerful message of God's changing grace. So as we look and as we kind of conclude our time together, let's kind of look at the outline of the book. I break this up into three parts. The first seven verses deal with Paul's thankfulness for Philemon and his family's love and faith. Then in verses eight through 20 is Paul's request to Philemon concerning Onesimus. And then the last remaining verses in 21 through 25 is Paul's confidence of Philemon's obedience. And so as we conclude this introduction, my advice is that you go home and you read this book. You meditate on this book. Now just read it. Meditate on it. And meditating is not emptying your mind of all thoughts, sitting in a dark room, saying hum. That is not meditation. Christian meditation is filling our minds with scriptural thoughts and ideas. And looking at this book and reading this book and and looking at the context of the book and considering what I said today and looking at some of these things and kind of going, why does Paul say this word here? Why does he say this? What are some of the lessons I can learn from this? Put some of the passages to memory or at least always have it on your mind and think through the book. That's my hope. My hope is that as you read through this book and as we study this book, we will know what does it mean to love one another as Christ has loved us, and we will know what unity looks like, we will know what gospel living looks like, and my hope is, because I know we all have one, we have a couple of those awkward relationships, those, those ones where there were things that were not done right, and there's a little bit of a thing between us, we all got those. Now maybe you are the Onesimus in this situation, or maybe you're the Philemon in this situation. I want you to look at this book and think about that situation that you're going through, and what are the principles that God gives in his book that will help us work through those really, really awkward, difficult relationships in a way that Christ would, in a way that a believer who's yielding to the power of the Holy Spirit would. So, next week we'll dive in, verse one, how long it'll take us, at least four years. No, next week we'll start in verse one. Let's go ahead and let's close in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so very much for your son. We thank you so very much for this book. We thank you for some of the lessons that you teach in this book and some of the things that we're gonna learn. We just ask, Father, that as we study this book, you will teach us what does it look like to forgive. You will teach us what does it look like to have unity, to love one another. Help us all because we have those relationships that are weird, that are awkward, They're awkward because of sin. They're awkward because of our bad behaviors, our bad reactions. They're awkward because we don't know how to deal with them. And so Father, we pray that the book of Philemon would help us, would help us mend those relationships and mend those relationships in a way that brings you honor and glory. We thank you and love you in your son's name, amen.