Gospel Repair

I'm gonna do.

Maybe a little strangely. I've invited phi Lemen to come

and tell.

Us about this letter, so I'm gonna go get him.

Yeah, my name is phi Lehman. Pastor Josh invited me

to come and tell you my story, actually not my

whole story, just about this letter. I want actually our

our time this morning to be completely controlled by the

content and intent of this letter, because this letter is

life changing. The letter is about the messy issue of

gospel repair. I gave Pastor Josh some slides. Ere we go, Yeah,

gospel repair.

You can see in verse fifteen.

And I'll say, very helpfully along the way, someone has

come along and put verse numbers in my letter so

I can point out really conveniently different places in the

letter that I'm talking about. And so that's great. So

what you would call verse fifteen is a real key here.

It says, for this is perhaps why he was parted

from you for a while, that you might have him

back forever parted and returned away back broken, mended.

This is a key verse of what is.

Going on in this letter, which is to say, where

relationships are fractured, broken, what do we have from God?

Regarding mending them where even like a broken bone, it

may be broken and then set and healed in such

a way that the bone is actually stronger than it

was before. What do we have from God when it

comes to gospel repair, of the expectations that we might have,

or the instructions that we have, the mindsets or purposes

that we should harry. That's what this letter is about.

And if you're not a Christian, maybe especially if you're

not a Christian, you should listen because you may come

to understand so much better that the Christian faith asserts

remarkable things about the power for repair.

That Christians have because of the Gospel.

So I'm gonna try to convey to you the content

and intent of this letter, and to do so, I'm

gonna go through three headings. I'm just gonna take us

through three headings this morning of the first heading being

the situations for Gospel repair, second heading being the challenges

to Gospel repair, and the third heading being the glories

of Gospel repair. So the situations, the challenges, and the glories.

And as I do that, I I think that you're

gonna understand the letter so much better if I actually

give you the context in which we received this letter.

So I'm gonna go through my first heading completely, the

situations for Gospel Repair. I'm gonna go through that heading completely,

and then at the end of that, that's when I'm

gonna read you this letter and its entirety, and then

we'll go from there. Okay, So situations, I'll read it

for us, then challenges and glories. That makes sense, okay,

So what do we have from God when it comes

to this messy work of gospel repair? Well, let me

start with what got broken? So under the situations for

Gospel repair. The situations you'll see right away as you

examine this letter, maybe you've already examined it before in

the past, that this letter is not just to me. Yes,

it's to me, he says. Paul says here Paul a

prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother to Fi Lehmann,

our beloved fellow worker, which is an honor. They consider

me a fellow worker, but not just to me. Also

addressed to my wife Afia, our sister, right, they're already

considering her like they consider her a sister in Christ.

And my son also that's you see his name there,

Archipas our fellow soul. So what we have is this

beautiful fellowship of Christ followers.

And there's a church that meets in our house.

They are also the addresses of this letter. We are

a beautiful fellowship of Christ followers. We are working together

under Christ Jesus. We're workers together. We're family together under

Christ Jesus. We're a gospel army, so to speak, under

King Jesus together. I don't know how Pastor Joshua does this.

What this is microphone. And in our community we had

a guy named Onismus. Onismus was a part of our household.

It was a part of our our community. Everybody would

have known him. The thing was Onisimus was a slave,

or at least that's what some of you have in

your translation of my letter. Some of you say in

verse sixteen, some of your your translations are gonna say slave.

Some of them are gonna say bond servant. Let me

just see how many of you your translation of my

letters says slave and verse sixteen, okay, and how many

of you says bond servant. Okay. In my culture and language,

slave is the exact word that we would have used.

That's a good translation. But in your culture and language,

maybe bond servants a better translation, because, as I understand it,

slavery in your culture is something wild like nuts. What

we had was bond servants, and there were a lot

of ways that you could become a bond servant.

For example, if say you owed a large.

Debt, like you owed a two hundred and fifty thousand

dollars debt, and there wasn't a way for you to

pay it off, but you could hire yourself out as

a bond servant and the master would pay off that

debt in advance, lay out the two fifty and then

you might be bonded to him.

For four years, say, to work, and.

The master would be obligated to house you and feed

you and clothe you and treat you properly, and you

would be obligated to work for him for the full

four years and do your best. I don't think you

guys have any kind of arrangement like that now, except

for internships. But it was I mean, it was a

pretty regular thing. It was common, and it was common

for bond servants to be a part of the household,

interacting with the guests of that house and the family

in that house. In fact, the companion letter to the

one I received is a letter called the Letter to

the Church of the Colossians. Paul actually wrote these two

letters at the same time, and so that companion letter

actually speaks a little bit to this idea of bond servants.

It says in chapter three of Colossians Say, verse twenty two,

Paul says, bond servants 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. So Onisimus was a bond servant,

totally legit arrangement. It was a part of our community.

That's what was broken. That's usually the kind of thing

that gets broken. When'd you say communities and ships. Have

you ever noticed it's where trust is extended that things

tend to get broken. Well, let me tell you about

the break Onesimus. Just he abandoned us, he ran away

on us. You can see that in verse twelve how

Paul is talking about I'm sending him back to you,

or verse fifteen, also you might have him back.

We're pretty Investedesmus in a lot.

Of different ways, and some people have wondered whether or

not he sort of stole things on his way.

Out, whether he sort of pilfered the household on.

His way out and also wronged us in that way.

And I'm not here to get into that. Just know

that he did wrong us, and he did cost us

a lot. In fact, Paul alludes to that also in

verse eighteen. If he's wronged you in any way, if

he owes you anything, Sin breaks things. You've noticed, I've

heard it many times. Sin breaks things, Sin breaks families,

Sin breaks communities, Sin breaks churches and marriages. Sometimes the

fire that sin starts can burn a whole forest down,

But sometimes even a forest that's been burned down can

regrow even healthier than it was before. Gospel repair and

the seeds of repair in our case happened like this Onisimus,

after abandoning us, betraying us, it ran off, But then

he got connected with the apostle Paul. A lot of

people have wondered, how like maybe he got arrested as

a as a runaway bond servant, thrown in jail, and

just coincidentally happened to be thrown into the same jail

as Paul. You know, Paul, He's always in jail. Or

maybe Maybemus came under the conviction of the Holy Spirit

as he's on the run, having heard the Gospel, having

seen our love, having seen the fellowship of christ followers

that we were, and somewhere along the way came under

the conviction and sought out the apostle Paul.

Whatever the case may be.

He gets connected with Paul, and he comes to faith

in Jesus.

You can see it in verses ten through thirteen.

Paul says this, I appeal to you for my child Onisimus,

whose father I became in my imprisonment. Formerly he was

useless to you, which is kind of a play on words,

because the name Onissimus means useful, right like handyman, right, useful, beneficial, effective, fruitful, And.

Paul says, formerly he was none.

Of those things, since he was gone. Now he's indeed

useful to you and to me. I'm sending him back

to you, sending my very heart. I would have been

glad to keep him in order that he might serve

me on your behalf. So Onisimus connects with Paul, comes

to faith. He's actually discipled by Paul and serves Paul

there in prison. And as I've been talking about gospel

repair for us as a community and as a as

a family, as and in a relationship. I mean, it's

worth just considering that all of that gospel repair began

with gospel repair in Onisimus, because what was fundamentally broken

in Onissimus was not that he was on the run

from the law, or that it was in an unfortunate

financial situation. What was fun eventally broken for Onisimus was

the same thing that was broken for all of us,

a broken relationship with the King of the universe. Where

we had taken in our own lives, we had taken

the crown that belongs to God and God alone, put

it on our own heads and said, I am going

to write my own story. I am going to write

my own rules. I am going to make my own meaning.

I will be king. And God, who who rightfully could

have just given us over to judgment, instead gave us

his son, who took that judgment on our behalf, and

then extended his hand of grace to us and said

you you will not receive condemnation, you will not receive judgment.

You will receive citizenship in my kingdom. You will be

my and your sins will be covered by my blood

and you can live in joyful allegiance to me. And

Onissimus did that. I'll just mention, if you're here this

morning and you're not a Christian, you can also do

that wherever you're coming from, wherever you're at, in whatever

way you're on the run. But having done that, now

Onissimus he can't pretend like things are right with us.

Paul's not going to let him pretend like things are

right with us. And so Paul writes this letter. Andy

writes the letter to the Church of the Colossians. He

writes them both, and he puts them in Animis's hands,

and he sends them. He sends him to us. He

shows up, and I get to read this letter, which

I'll read for you. Now you got to copy of

my letter. You can read along as I read aloud.

Paul a prisoner for Christ, Jesus and Timothy our brother,

to Philemon, our beloved fellow worker, and Afia our sister,

and Arkupus, our fellow soldier, and the Church in your house.

Grace to you and peace from God, our Father and

the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always when

I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of

your love and of the faith that you have towards

the Lord Jesus and for all the saints. And I

pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective

for the full knowledge of every good thing that is

in us. For the sake of Christ. For I've derived

much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because

the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. Accordingly,

though I am bold enough in Christ to command you

to do what is required, yet for love's sake, I

prefer to appeal to you, I Paul.

An old man and now a prisoner.

Also for Christ Jesus, I appeal to you for my

child Onimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. Formerly

he was useless to you, but now he is indeed

useful to you and me. I'm sending him back to you,

sending my very heart. I would have been glad to

keep him with me in order that he might serve

me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the Gospel.

But I preferred to do nothing.

Without your consent, in order that your goodness might not

be by compulsion but of your own accord. For this, perhaps,

which is why he was parted from you for a while,

that you might have him back forever, no longer as

a bond servant, but more than a bond servant, as

a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more

to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

So if you consider me your partner, receive him as

you would receive me. If he's wronged you at all,

or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I

Paul write this with my own hand. I will repay it,

to say nothing of you, owing me even your own self. Yes, brother,

I want 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 say. At the

same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I

am hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously.

Given to you.

Apaphrus, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus sends greetings to you,

as so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demus, and Luke, my fellow workers.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

This is the word of the Lord. So you can

see what was being asked of me and was being

asked of us to forgive, to show grace, to take

the pieces of something broken by sin and get into

the messy work of gospel repair. And gospel repair isn't

easy and it's not clean. You're gonna find plenty of challenges,

especially those challenges that come up from inside. And I

want to talk about those, so heading two challenges to

gospel repair. You know, when this letter came and the

call it put on me and my conscience, probably like you,

I could have been tempted to ignore the call. Pretty

common that we would ignore the call to this messy

work of gospel repair. I mean, if you've ever felt

that move in your conscience to take that step, or

you've responded to some passage of scripture to take that step,

or maybe you heard a preacher and you realized I

need to walk in obedience to the Lord in gospel repair.

I bet the next challenge that came up inside was

or maybe I'll blow it off. Of course you couldn't

do that. As you can see, this was a community letter.

It wasn't just addressed to me. It was addressed to

my wife and my son and to the whole church

that meets in our house. I couldn't pretend like I

didn't get it. And furthermore, it was a community letter

in like distribution as well, like it came from not

just Paul, but Paul and Timothy and a Paphrus, Luke

and Aristarchus and Demus Mark, the whole ministry team's in

on those. I can't ignore the call, which is kind

of a clue worth getting. The more that we walk

in camaraderie and accountability with what's actually going on in

our spiritual lives and relationships, the more we can't ignore

what God is calling us to step forward to and obey.

You know, if we keep the need for gospel repair

just between us, you know, me, myself and I were

much like much more likely to just blow it off.

But walking in camaraderie and community with us actually going

on with us spiritually, that provides some resolve and encouragement

and counsel. I couldn't ignore the call. Might have been

tempted to. There's another challenge, dwell on the break, just

dwell on what was broken. That's certainly a temptation. Whenever

we're called to gospel repair, we start thinking about, well,

how this, how did this get broken? In the first

place wasn't my fault. I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed.

I was betrayed.

My trust, my family's trust.

Mark I led our community to trust and that was

betrayed and it cost me a lot. You can see

in verses eighteen and nineteen, though, how Paul deals with that.

He says, if he.

Has wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge

that to my account. I Paul write this with my

own hand, I will repay it, to say nothing of

you owing me even your own self. So Paul, what

a Jesus duke? I mean? He acknowledges that there may

be restitution that's needed. I may be in that financial

situation where I need to recoup some of that, and

that might be the case, and Paul is willing.

To make it happen.

But what he puts up in the forefront is the

fact that whatever the cost may be to me, the

cost that was paid on my behalf by Christ Jesus

so much more so. I gotta, I gotta if I

if I'm dwelling on the break, I gotta put it

in perspective, in gospel perspective. If I'm gonna do gospel repair,

I gotta get out of gospel perspective on really who

just broke what I could be challenged to just protect

the pieces, you know what I mean, just protect the pieces, uh,

which which is to say, you know, sometimes when someone

betrays trust and and breaks relationship, all you can do

is just protect the pieces. You You can maybe forgive

that person, but you can't really properly welcome them back

into community and into relationship. There are manipulators and abusers

and wolves who might take this idea of gospel repair

and just leverage it, use it to just insert themselves

back into a community or a family, to just take

advantage again.

And sometimes it's right to just protect the pieces.

That was my situation. I mean, you can see Paul

is vouching for the realness of this man's repentance. He's

vouching for the fruitfulness of Onisimus's conversion. He says, right

there verse twelve, sending him back to you, sending my

very heart. He's been discipled by Paul, He's been serving

Paul times. God arranges things such that the person who

hurt you, the person who betrayed you, the person who

cost you so much, is clearly repentant.

And though they're not perfect.

They are very ready to walk in real relationship and righteousness.

Sometimes God arranges things so that the right move isn't

just to protect the pieces, but to actually repair the pieces.

I could have been challenged to just go through the motions.

I could have been challenged to just go through the motions,

you know what I mean to sort of like play

at reconciliation, sort of externally obey these things, but from

the heart, actually not be in it for love. Oh

you know what I'm talking about. But I can't. I

certainly can't go to my family and my church and

just say, you.

Know what Paul's making us do this.

Paul cuts the legs right out from underneath going through

the motions when he says in versus nine, for instance,

right for love's sake, I prefer to appeal to you.

He says it also.

In verse fourteen, like I prefer to do nothing without

your consent, in order that your goodness might not be

by compulsion but of your own accord. So I was

being called to really genuinely reach into my own heart

and need a whole community of people to reach into

their hearts and actually let Onissimus out of this jail.

I know you're familiar with our Lord's parable about the

unforgiving servant.

How one servant forgiven by the king of an.

Enormous sum then turned to his fellow servant who owed

him just a little I mean significant, but way less,

and demand it. The King said, that's a wicked move,

and he threw that servant who had made those demands

through him in with the tormentors. Then you go check

it out in Matthew eighteen, the point being that if

if we keep people in prison, we are the ones

that go to the torture chamber. So we're being called

actually to let him genuinely out of prison, which is

sometimes all you can do, but not just let him out,

also welcome him back into our community, into our relationships,

into our household. As the Lord didn't just forgive the

apostle Peter, but restored him after he denied him. He

restored Peter so that he became an actual humble leader

of the church. If you've ever been called to something

like gospel repair, and I suspect we all are, then

I know that so much inside you will tell you

that gospel repair just isn't a mess worth getting into

and all of these challenges will come up from inside

to ignore the call to dwell on what's broken, to

protect the pieces, and sometimes you must, but sometimes God

arranges things that the right move isn't to protect them,

it's to repair them, and not just by going through

the motions. So I hope that God uses this letter,

my letter, to defeat all of those challenges as they

come up for you, and that you see that gospel

repair is worth getting into, however messy it is.

And if he does that, if he does that.

I know that it won't be just because he defeated

those challenges. It will also be because He's used this

letter to show you the glories of gospel repair. So

I don't want to end before I talk about that.

Let's talk about the glories of gospel repair. There are

two that I want to highlight in this letter, two

of the glories of gospel repair, and one of them

is this glorious obedience. Glorious obedience. Now I'm not talking

about mirror obedience or external obedience. We talked about the

idea of going through the motions. That's not what I'm

talking about. I'm talking about a glorious obedience because forgiveness

is in fact obedience, There's no question about it.

You can see Paul might be.

Soft pedaling it a little bit here, but he's making

it quite clear in places like verse eight. Right, I'm

bold enough in Christ to command you to do what

is required, forgiveness is required, or in verse twenty one,

confident of your obedience. Forgiveness isn't It is a matter

of obedience, but it's glorious obedience. It's glorious obedience. You know,

Paul might be handling things a little delicately here in

this letter, but if you look in his companion letter

in Colossians chapter three, it hits you right between the eyes.

In chapter three he says this.

Verse thirteen, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive

each other as the Lord has forgiven you, As the

Lord has forgiven you. That's the part that just sticks.

I mean, I was embarrassed. All Anisimus did was embarrassing.

But our Lord was stripped and mocked and spit on

and made gospel repair. Oh, I was betrayed. I was betrayed,

But our Lord was betrayed by those who should have

received him as king. And not only that, he was

betrayed by me from the get go. And on the

night that the Lord Jesus was betrayed, he took bread

and said, this is my body. What happened to me

cost a lot. But our Lord he stepped down from

majesty and became a servant, became obedient even to death,

death on a cross. It cost him everything, and he

paid that cost for me, and he paid that cost

for you. And now Paul says, forgive as the Lord

has forgiven you. Our sin had broken so much, and

Christ entered that mess fully. He said that gospel repair

was a mess worth getting into, and many got into it.

And now Paul is saying, you're a Christ follower. You

have this fellowship, this beautiful fellowship of Christ followers follow

Christ in this forgiveness and grace and gospel repair. It's

a glorious obedience. It's a glorious obedience. But the second

glory that I want to show you and then we'll

be done. It's not just glorious obedience. Gospel repair is

a glorious opportunity. And here's what I mean. There's one

verse in this letter that's a super mouthful. It's so

Paul verse six, he says this, I pray that the

sharing of your faith. And when he says the sharing

of your faith, there, I know that sometimes you you

all talk about sharing your faith like it's like it's

evangelism or witnessing, like you tell people about the Gospel.

That's not the kind of thing he has in mind

here when he says the sharing of your faith, it

just means the fellowship of your faith, this faith that

you are living out in fellowship, in partnership together as

you as you exert this faith in fellowship, I pray

that it may become effective, powerful, fruitful, useful, beneficial for

the full knowledge of every good thing that is in

us for the sake of Christ, that we would have

full knowledge, it would become powerful, that we would have

a deeper understanding, a clearer picture, a bright display of

all of the grace and the mercy and the compassion

and the forgiveness and the togetherness the fellowship that we

have because of Jesus, that you would put on display

for the whole community, the whole world, maybe all of history,

what it looks like to have Jesus at work in you.

That you really would like a maybe a forest that's

been burned but regrows healthier, or like a bone that's

been broken that grows stronger, or like an apostle that's

been humbled and becomes a true leader that becomes well,

like like this kind of pottery right here where sin

has broken things into pieces in your relationships that by

the power power of Christ, you put on display the

way in which it can be put together more beautifully

than before. And I know you got situations, and I

know there will be challenges, and I pray that this

letter will defeat them. But the glories, the glories prove

that gospel repair is a mess worth getting into. And

I'm gonna ask Pastor Josh to come and pray for y'all,

and then he's going to lead you in the Lord's Supper.