The Book of Philemon: Part 1

When I was young and growing up in church, we

had a thing called Children's Church.

But at children's church we had.

A thing called the goodie box, And didn't of you

all grew up a goodie box in your church. Basically,

a goodie box was if you memorized a passage of scripture.

Back then, it was in King James.

So it doesn't help me today because I don't speak

that language.

But if you memorize the.

Verse, then you got a toy from the goodie box.

So guess what I did every single Sunday morning of

my life.

I memorized a verse.

And then as we got a little bit older, some

of our classrooms had Bible trivia, something we would do

every maybe six weeks.

I love Bible trivia.

It was a great way to be familiar with all

the stories of the Bible and also some of those

even lesser known things. And you know, I'm very, very

thankful for the foundation of biblical knowledge that the children

ministry at the church I went to gave me. Now,

as you know a lot of you if you've been

here for a while, you know I walked away from

Christ for a while. But when I came back to Christ,

guess what was there, that biblical foundation, that that knowledge

of our word. And so I was able to immediately,

almost almost like a springboard, as I start actually not

just knowing the Word, but start following the word.

But as I started to tell my friends.

At school that I came to Christ, I got immediate pushback.

And most of the pushback was one of two things.

One was, you're really going to give your whole life

to like ministry, because you know, that's kind of weird.

And the Bible that's just an.

Old book, not a not a true book, an old book, okay.

And then a lot of my friends would say, man,

that's that's kind of you know, excluding a lot of

people if you're saying Jesus is the only way.

And so I listened to those things for my friends,

and I thought to myself, you know what, I'm going

to know.

The Bible so well. I'm going to know the Bible

so well that when I talked to somebody, I'll be

able to convince them that the Word of.

God is true.

And I will also be able to.

Convince them that Jesus is the only way to God.

Now here's the thing. If I prove to people that

Jesus is the only way. And I prove Jesus. Guess what,

In my mind.

My immature mind back then, I thought, well, they would

have no other choice but to come to Christ. So

I set out to prove Jesus was real. And I

wanted to win people to Christ. In other words, because

when you're talking with somebody and you're trying to prove

that Jesus is the only way, what you're trying to do,

you're trying to win the argument. And if you win

the argument, well you win them the Christ. And that's

how I thought would work in my head. And so

I studied and studied, and actually I have whole commentary

sets what a nerd at eighteen years old that I

read all the way through, like the whole sets, and

I was going to know the word more than anybody else.

And so I remember Ember, one of my first encounters

were it just wasn't working.

The guy didn't care.

And I shared this with many of you before, but

I just, you know, grabbed a hold of a lighter

and let his hand on fire, and I'm like, now,

imagine hell for all of eternity, and that's what hell

feels like. And he's like Okay, I'll come to Christ.

And so, you know, no one wants to burn forever.

And but that was not a very good way to

win someone to Christ because I would eventually end up

in prison. And so, but I really struggled with this

because I wanted to prove Jesus. So I remember one

day there was a guy that I really liked that

I waited on at the restaurant that I was working at.

He was a Muslim, and I really liked this guy,

and I decided to sit down one day and I'm

going to convince him that Jesus is the only way.

So I sat down and I said, hey, can I

share some things with you? And I shared all my

thoughts about how Jesus is the only way to God.

And then he was like, do you mind if I respond?

And then he responded and he knew his stuff way

better than I knew my stuff. And by the time

I walked away from that conversation, I'm like, man, is

Jesus the only way?

I mean, he destroyed me.

I was like, oh man, oh man, I need to

become better apologetics defending the faith. And so I went

off the Bible College. Now throughout my freshman year of

Bible College. Every spare moment I had I was in

the library studying. I had to work through a lot

of my own doubts. But also I wanted to be

a great apologist because I had this thing in my

mind that I'm going to prove Jesus is the only

way and that's how people are going to come to Christ.

So I get into my first ministry that summer. I'm

an intern started a small group of junior high and

senior high kids at a church, around about forty people.

And so things are going well there and we have

our very first event. It was an overnighter, which, by

the way, overnighters are from Satan, and I believe that

he am into those. And so I'm at my first overnighter.

Youth ministry is going well, and then some of the

adults to it. The adults got into it. Then I

decided to play referee, which I don't know if you

ever noticed this, but playing referee is like the dumbest

thing you can do, because they always turn on you, you know.

And so I go to clean up the spilled milk,

but then everybody turned on me, and then they said

some things that were very discouraging to me, and for

the first time I had a pastor hurt where I

was insulted.

I was hurt, and.

I just wasn't ready for that. I was pretty crushed

in that moment, and I remember still to this day.

I walked outside because I'm like, I need to gather

myself right now. I'm pretty hurt. I'm feeling pretty crushed,

and I can still remember. I laid my Bible on

the hood of my car and then under the street

lights it was dark, and I read this passage here,

and I knew that this was a passage you go

to whenever you feel like you've been attacked. And I

went to Psalm twenty seven, and this is a phenomenal,

phenomenal passage. So I'm twenty seven, says this. Here hear

my voice when I call Lord, be merciful to me

and answer me. My heart says to you, seek his face.

And here's what I'm doing right now. Lord, I'm seeking

your face. God, right now. I need you not to

hide your face from me. Don't turn me away in anger.

You've been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me. God,

my Savior. And then there's a switch and teach me

your away. Lord, lead me in a straight path because

of my oppressors. Okay, don't turn me over to the

desire of my foes for false witnesses. I felt like

there were some false accusations there rise up against me,

spouting malicious accusations. So I read through it. I pray

through it. And then all of a sudden, as I'm

praying through it and I'm reading through it.

Something changed.

And it's been the same since.

The Word of God shifted from being a weapon that

I would use to win or prove Jesus. So that

was the moment that the word of God became alive

to me, because all of a sudden, I repented for

my pride. I said, you know what, I'm not going

to go back there and attack those people. And I said, God,

what do you want me to do? How do you

want me to grow? And God spoke to me through

his passage. He grew me through this passage, and then

he comforted me through this passage, and all of a sudden,

for the first time in my life, I understood that

the Word of God was living, It was breathing, and

it was not to beat people up with, but it

was something for me to become like Jesus, to grow

closer to God, and it was a.

Life changing moment.

Now are there times that we need to defend our faith. Absolutely,

But here's what I'm talking about today.

Today.

I'm talking about how so many times when we go

on social media, we see people using the Bible as

a weapon instead of teaching people or showing people Jesus.

And if we're worrying with people, we're not gonna help

them come to Jesus.

Matter of fact, if you look at the Bible, the Bible.

Says it's by the way, when you look at all

this stuff going on where people are like ah, jabbing

each other with scriptures, did you know that the Bible

says this, that it is the kindness of God that

leads to repentance. It is by people experiencing grace, love,

and mercy, not combination.

Jesus said, I didn't come here to condemn. I came

here to.

Say And so that changes how you look at things.

And so all of a sudden, the Bible became this living,

breathing book for me to learn who Jesus is and

also to become like Jesus. And then in my ministry.

I'm not gonna get up here and try to beat

you over the head with the Bible every week. I'm

not gonna try to shove the Bible. In other words,

I'm gonna use the Bible to show you how to

become more like Jesus.

And so today we're gonna talk about that.

We're gonna talk about how do we respond to the

Bible day in and day out. And here's why. Look

at this quote here. I believe this whole heartily. That

is no greater way to get to know God, his character,

his nature, his goodness, and the life that He has

for you.

Then reading His living word.

Now, so there's no greater way to get to know God, or.

Become like God, or become like Jesus, and also to

walk in the plans that God has for you then

through reading the Bible and studying the Bible.

So I think we would all agree with that.

Okay, as a principle, if you want to know who

Jesus is.

You read the Bible. If you want to become like Jesus,

you study the Bible.

But here's the issue. Most Christians don't study the Bible.

So here's the problem we have the best way to

know God and become like Jesus is through studying the Bible.

But most Christians don't study the Bible. And so here

today we're.

Going to learn how to study the Bible as a

whole congregation. Why because our goal is to be a

better church, not a bigger church. And so what we're

gonna do today, we're gonna get everybody in a church

on the same page. I'm gonna show you how to

study the Bible. Over the next two weeks, I'm gonna

walk you through a Bible study. We're gonna study the

Book of Fine Lehmen the next two weeks.

It's a great book. Okay.

Now, so we're gonna study this together.

And here's the thing.

A lot of people have what I would call Bible guilt.

Does anybody have Bible guilt? Where like I haven't been

starting on the Bible. You know, here's the thing. Forget

about your past. Today is not about shame anybody. Today

is a new day, a new beginning, and today as

a church, let's move forward and growing and knowing Jesus

and becoming like Jesus through the study of God's work. Now,

when it comes to Bible, study. I find it people

tend to do two things. Okay, when they go to

study the Bible. The first thing they go to do

is a lot of people will start at the beginning

of the Bible and say I'm gonna read all the

way through.

So you get into Genesis, and Genesis is pretty crazy.

I mean, it's like a graphic novel. So I don't

know anybody who's ever had a hard time.

Getting through Genesis really the Bible. That's a very great Bible.

Yeah, And then they get to Exodus, and then Exodus.

Has some really inspiring stories.

Good.

Then they get to Leviticus and they're like, man, that's weird.

That's weirder.

Oh, that's even weirder than this stuff.

I'm weird it out.

Then they turn the page like oh lord, that's that's insane,

you know. And so you're reading through Leviticus, you're like

whoa wha. And by the way, I love Leviticus, and

but you're like, well, this is some weird stuff. And

then then if you make it through that, you get

to numbers and you're like, this is so boring. I

quit the Bible. People do that, and so they get discouraged.

And he stop studying the Bible. I would not.

Encourage that approach.

Okay.

The second thing that people do is they what I

would call the flip and point method. The flipping point

method is where you know, they flip through the Bible

and they point to a passage of scripture because they

just they want to hear from God. They want to

hear from God. They want to know something from God.

So they flip through the Bible, they stick their finger

on They're like, God, whatever this.

Says, I'm gonna do it. They flipping point.

Well that that can work out good unless you land

on a scripture like Ezekiel four to twelve that says

eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread,

bake it in the side of people using human excrement

for fuel. Okay, all right, lord, I'm gonna obey you today.

You know, and have you ever been over somebody's house

and you're like, is that not med?

Is that cinnamon? What is that?

That's good old biblical cooking.

That's what that is. That's what I'm tasting right now.

No, I mean and point method, it's really not that effective.

So here's what we're gonna do.

I wanna in a very practical way help you study

the Bible. So I'm gonna actually be here the next

two weeks. Those of you who are on line today

and no lobby will be online today, please be sure

to be here next week because you want to hear

both of these messages in conjunction with each other. So

we're gonna study the Book of Fi Liman today. Now,

why do we study the Bible again? Because the Bible

is the living word of God. What does Hebrews say

says for the Word of God is alive, It's active,

It's sharper than any double edged sword. It penetrates even

to dividing the soul and the spirit, joints and marrow.

It judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart.

In other words, the word of God will lead you,

it will guide you, will protect you. We'll keep you

from sin. It it will help you overcome temptations. It'll

help you become like Jesus.

So here's what we're gonna do.

I'm gonna sit down, because that's what I do when

I sell you the Bible. Okay, So I'm gonna sit down.

You're sitting down, I'm sitting down. We're all sitting down,

All right, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna walk

you through how to practically study the Bible.

Okay, So here we go.

First of all, let me give you five thoughts on

how to study the Bible.

Okay.

Number One, you need to choose a translation that you understand.

You need to be able to read it. I grew

up of King James. Anybody else here grew up King James.

Great probably the most beautiful, most beautiful literature ever. And

if you grew up on it, you probably understand it.

If you're new and you don't understand old English.

Probably not good.

You're gonna choose a time, a place, and a plan

to study the Bible. Three, you're gonna seek to understand context.

Context is so important. I'm gonna teach you how to

figure out context. And then you as you're studying, you

get towards the end, you read slowly, and you ask

questions of the text and of God. And then finally,

before you close out your Bible study, you pray for

God to speak to you and then figure out how

to apply that message.

So here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna start with the book of filemen, and we're

gonna jump into verse seven and eight. Here we go,

all right, starting verse seven and eight, which says, for

we have great joy and consolation in thy love because

of the bowels of the saints are refreshed by the brother.

Wherefore thou I might be much bold in Christ to

enjoy the that which is convenient. You might understand what

on earth he's talking about here, all right, brings us

to our first point.

Choose a translation that works for you.

And so here's you might be asking why is there

so many translations? Well, first of all, because the Bible

was written in three original languages Hebrew, Arameric, and Greek. Okay,

And there's so many Bible translations because over time the

Bible translators would look at these original words and then

they would try to give them the most accurate translation

for that time. But time moves on. That's why we

have different translations. So think about the King James tran.

Does anybody know what year King James was written or released?

Anyone? Sixteen eleven, sixteen eleven?

And so do you think that the English language has

changed since sixteen eleven? Of course he has. Let me

show you some examples here, let's look at King James

sixteen eleven.

The Lord, I'm so beautiful.

Listen to this.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He

maketh me lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me

beside the still waters. Now you and I would read

it more like today. The Lord is my shepherd. I

lack nothing. He lets me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me to still waters. But if you look

at well, what did it say? You know, before they

translate into King James, Our Lord gathers me and nahing

shall defallen to me in the stead of pasture. He

set me there. He nourished me upon water of something.

Now go a little bit before that, dragen me not

me me see, I mean the language changes, and because

the language changes, we need to use a translation that

is most accurate to our modern day language.

So I went back to that scripture and it talks

about the bowels.

Okay, Now here's the thing.

Back in the day when they were writing to King

James version version, they believed that our emotions came from

our bowels.

Today, where would we say our emotions come from our heart?

And so it would be translated today. You know, we're

encouraged in our heart. Okay, and so you see this

how how things change. So let me give you some advice.

I'm gonna just give you four translations that I trust.

By the way, use with translations best for you. It's

not something we argue about around here, but I would

encourage you to read the n IV. The NKJV, which

is New King James Version or the English Standard Version

are the New American Standard version out the NIV that

is the most modern.

It's not the most accurate.

Okay.

The other three that I listed, they're much more accurate,

but the language is not as modern.

Okay.

Now I typically go in between NIV and ESV.

Okay.

So anyway, so make sure you have a translation that

you could read and understand. The next thing is you

got to find a place and a time that you

can study your Bible and a plan.

And here's a thing.

If you don't have a consistent time and place to

study your Bible, you're not going to do it.

Everybody hear that. Here's the thing. If we walk out

of here today and you have not committed to.

A consistent time, a place, and a plan, you're just

not going to do it. Okay, for me, what I

do is I use my desk in the morning before work,

and I typically before I go into work, this way,

I do my prayer time Bible study. I usually go

in between three things, either reading my Bible, are devotional

or a p and from you Version. Everybody should have

you Version downloaded. You Version is the best app available.

It has tons of Bible plans. Now, okay, so you

gotta find your time place. The third thing we're gonna

do is we're gonna understand context. Okay, Now, let me

show you why context is so important. Matter of fact,

it's more important than I can describe to you. Now

let me illustrate it this way. What would you think

if I told you that someone took a photo of

me with another woman who is not my wife, out

of town alone at a restaurant. Well, that would probably

raise some concern, maybe some conspiracy theories. But context matters,

especially if that woman was my own daughter.

See that changes.

Context matters more than you can imagine.

So, first of all, let's talk about the broad picture

of the Bible, the broad context of the Bible.

First of all, the Bible is not a book, It's

a library.

Okay.

It has sixty six different books in it. It was

written in three languages, three continents, over a fifteen hundred

year period, by forty different authors who are someone were shepherds, farmers,

tent makers, doctors, fishermen, priests, philosophers, kings, and so on.

And it's a collection of many different genres.

We got poems, prophecies, letters, laws, histories, biographies.

So what is the Bible? All right, let's look at this.

The Bible was inspired by God, written by people.

Tell a one unified story.

Here's what it does.

It shows us our need for Jesus and teaches us

how to become like him. Okay, so we understand the context. Okay, Now,

when we were trying to understand the context, you gotta

ask three questions. Number one, who wrote it? Number two

to whom wasn't written? So who was the original audience?

And number three, what's the purpose.

So here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna start and.

Fi lemen, and we're gonna try to get the context

as we're reading through fi Lemen. We're gonna start in

verse one and two. Here we go, Paul a prisoner. Okay,

Now it's very important to notice that he's a prisoner

of Christ Jesus and Timothy, who's with him our brother

to phi Lemen.

All right, so who's writing? Is Paul?

Very clear here and who is so we understand the

context who is writing?

Uh?

And then we go on to read verse two. Let's

look at this all right. It says it says two

phi Lemen, our dear friend and fellow worker. Also to Afia,

our sister, and our Kippis, our fellow soldier, and to

the church that meets in your home. All right, So

we know that Paul's writing. But who is Paul writing too? Well,

he's writing to phi Lehman. Now why don't we say

phi Lehman, Afia and e Kippus.

Well, very simple.

We believe that the other two is one is his

wife and one is his son. Now you're saying, well, James,

how did you find that out just for reading that? Well,

here's a thing you want to understand context. So there's

a couple of things you can do. I do this

all the time. One, you can read it in a commentary,

the introduction and a summary in context. Two you could

download the U version Bible app and just look up

the Book of fi lemen, and they'll they'll let you

know the context. Are I like sometimes just going on Wikipedia.

It's a great summary there. Okay, So what you do

is you just you read through it. You find out,

all right, what is the context? That way, as you

dive in, you have some understanding. And if you're studying

the context, you would know that there's three hundred and

thirty five Greek words, that this is.

The shortest letter that Paul ever wrote.

And what's interesting is that he says, Paul a prisoner

of Christ Jesus.

Here's what you'll learn the Book of Fi Lehmen.

It's the only book that Paul calls himself a prisoner,

not an apostle. All right, so you're trying to understand context.

That should make you ask a question, huh. So if

this is the only book that he calls himself a prisoner,

not an apostle, why would he do that? Well, then

you understand as you read through it that he wasn't

trying to pull rank.

Actually he considered find lemen his dear friend.

And we're gonna find out as you continue to look

at stuff and read stuff on context, you're gonna find

out that he's in a Roman prison, and he's writing

to this man who is very wealthy fi Lemen, who

led a church in his own And we're gonna discover

as you read through this that the book uh circles

around this guy named Onesimus. He's a runaway slave. So

Paul is righting as to who Fileman, and it's about

this dude, Onesimus, who's a runaway slave.

Evidently, before he ran away, Onessemus stole from Philemen.

And we're gonna discover that Onesimus, this runaway slave, he

stole something. So he runs away to Rome. Well, guess

who he meets in Rome, Paul. Then Paul converts him

to Christ and then Neesmus. Life has been changed, and

all of a sudden, Onesmus and Paul have this great relationship.

And now Paul doesn't see him as a slave. He

sees him as a son, okay, and.

So he is.

So here's a crazy purpose of the book of Phi Lehman.

Okay.

It was Paul writing to fight Lehman, this small group leader,

church pastor wealthy man. And here's the whole purpose. Fight Lemen.

I want you to forgive Onesimus. Now you might say,

all right, what's the big deal forgive Onessimus. Again, context matters.

So remember Onesmus.

Was a slave.

So you might want to look up Roman slavery during

that time, and here's what you would find. There was

sixty million slaves during that time.

And by the way, if a slaver ran away and

the slave.

Owner did not punish them, it would usually cause a

revolt among the other slaves in the area. So here's

what they would do. When they would catch slave. They

would bring them back home and then they would tattoo

an F.

On their brow.

And that stood for fugitivists. That's where we get the

word fugitive today. Now, most of the time they didn't

just get the f. Most of the time they were

beaten in front of all the other slaves, and usually

they were beaten unto death, especially if you stole from

your owner. And so Paul's gonna say, listen, I know

he stole from you, he escaped, he put you at risk,

he embarrassed you in front of your community. Here's what

I'm asking to do. Receive him back. But here's a catch.

I don't want him to be your slave. I want

you to receive him back as your equal. I want

you to treat him as a brother in Christ. Okay,

So now that you understand, the context will shape everything

you read through this, and then all of a sudden

we start to dig more into the scripture. So let's

continue through Filemen, and here's what we're gonna find out.

That Paul and Philemen were very very close friends. Let's

look at this. It says, Fight Lemen, I always thank

God as I remember you in my prayers. He says,

I always thanks God. In other words, Paul is saying,

you know what, I pray for you every day. Have

any of you has someone pray for you every day

of your life?

Have you prayed for anyone every day of their life?

My Manma used to remind me all the time.

She says, James, I want you to know I pray

for you every single day.

Of your life since you've been born.

And you know what, You don't pray for someone every

single day unless you're committed to them.

You love them, you want.

The hand of God upon their life, you want good

for them. That is a deep love, that is a

deep commitment. And that's how Paul feels about Fight Leman.

He loves Fight Lemen. Let's move on and here's the

other thing that Paul has respect for him.

Let's look at this.

He says, because I hear.

About your love for all His Holy people, and I

hear about your faith and the Lord Jesus Christ. So

he has respect for Philemon because he hears about his ministry.

Philemen is probably the pastor of this.

Church, and maybe he's witnessed some things that Philema has done. Well.

I loved on the poor people, loved on the sick people.

Maybe he seed him feed people, or just counsel church members.

So he has a lot of respect for Philemen. And

then he goes on to say this. He says, your love,

by the way, Philemen, has given me great joy, and

I'm encouraged by you. Why because you have refreshed the

hearts of the Lord's people. Now here's the thing Paul

is looking and he's thinking about Philemen. He said, you

know what, Philemon, you encourage me. Why do you encourage

me because you do a phenomenal job loving on your people.

So here's what Paul's doing. Paul's given us a little

insight to a pastor's heart.

He's encouraged because the people are encouraged.

And see any of you.

Who led a small group or you've been over a group,

you understand us and gets you insight into a pastor's heart.

See when you struggle, I struggle.

When I hear about you losing a job, my heart's

broken for your family as well. When I hear about

somebody being sick of your family, we pray. We're very concerned.

We don't want you to pass away, or we want

you to get better, and so we become very concerned

our heart and in a lot of ways, when you're

doing good, we're doing good.

When you're not.

Doing well, we're not doing well. And that's the heart

of a pastor. On the flip side, we also get

to celebrate stuff when your child gets an awesome job,

or they get a promotion, or do they get a scholarship.

Were excited too. And I remember being a youth pastor.

Anytime one of my kids became valedictorian or got into

an Ivy League school or won a state championship.

You know what I would say.

I never said one of the kids of my youth group.

Always said one of my kids, because their mine. You know,

I'm like one.

Of my kids is Valedictorians.

See, so we're seeing some insight into the pastoral heart

here of Paul.

And so we got some context so far.

So now that we've got context of what's going on,

here's what we wanna do. We wanna go to the

fourth thing today because we're gonna finish it up next week.

But for the fourth thing we're gonna do is we're

gonna read slowly and we're gonna ask questions. Now, what

questions are we gonna ask? There's two essential questions to

ask when you're studying a Bible. Number one, what does

this say about God?

Number Two?

What is God saying to me in his Bible study?

In other words, what was it saying about God? His character,

his nature, the goodness?

Okay?

So what is this scripture tell me about who God is?

Now?

Also, what is that scripture telling me to do?

Now?

A lot of people use the spec method, okay, and

a spec method.

I'm gonna throw this up on the screen. This might

help you out a lot.

I'd take a picture of it once I get this

all filled out. But is there a sin to avoid?

Is there a promise to be claimed? Is there an

example in this text for me to follow. Is there

a command to follow? Or is there just something in

this text I need to know about God? So if

I was you, I to take a picture of this

because this is a great way to walk through your Bible.

Text asking these questions.

All right, So again we're setting things up for next

week because next week, when we understand the rest of

the context and the rest of the passage, you're gonna

understand that by that, when we are empowered by God,

the Holy Spirit will speak to us.

If we're gonna become more like Christ.

He's gonna direct our steps, renew our minds, change our heart.

We're become more like Jesus. But you need to come

back next week to get there. Okay, So we've talked

about the first four things, and now we're gonna look

as we close up today at number five.

Here's what we're gonna do.

We got a few more verses and we're gonna ask

God to speak.

To us about this verse and apply this verse to

our life.

All right, So let's pray.

I want you to pray and ask God to speak

to you about this scripture. Now, let's pray, all right.

God speak to us through this.

All right, Let's go here all right, As we continue

through FILEM, and we see he says he gets into

the business of it. He says, therefore, although in Christ,

here's what I could be doing, philem, and I could

be bold, I could order.

You to do what you ought to do.

Yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis

of love. Our friendship it is has none other than Paul,

an old man. And now again he calls himself a

prisoner of Christ Jesus, that I appeal to you for

my who my son Onesimus, who became my son while

I was in chains.

Now, now this is massive.

Remember Onesseemus stole from fi Lehman, embarrassed him, he ran the.

Room, meets Paul, comes to Christ.

He's transformed, and now Paul sees him as a son.

Now, if you will google, I love.

The google names, google names, and google places, because sometimes

you find little treasures here. If you google the name Onesimus,

here's what you'll find. Onesemus means Onesmus means useful. Onesmus

means useful. So then this really comes into play with

the next verse. Let's look at the next verse. So

here's what Paul says. Formerly he was useless to you,

but now he has become useful both to you and me.

And so he's making a play on his name. He's saying, Onesimus.

Used to be useless, but now he has grown into

the purpose of his name. He's grown into the plan

of God for his life. He is now fulfilling his name.

Okay. And he said he used to be useless, but

now in Christ he is useful.

And he's basically saying, you know what, before he came

to Christ, he was a slave, and he was useless

to the purposes of moving.

The Kingdom of God forward. Now that he is in Christ, he's.

Become useful for the purposes of the Kingdom of God.

And so he's looking at if I leave, and it says, fine, leam,

and I just think about this for a moment, Okay,

which do you think is better for him to go

back become a slave where.

He will remain and he would be useless for the

Kingdom of God, or would you like to see him

become useful for the Kingdom of God. And Paul is

doing some amazing work here playing on these words. And

of course obviously he's saying a fight, limen, let him

fulfill his calling.

Let him live up to his name. Now, as we.

Close this section out today, we've learned some of the contexts.

But now you have to ask what I like to say? So,

what so?

What? All? Right? What did I learn about God here?

I think it's pretty clear to all of us that God.

Changes lives when we encounter God. God can change.

God took a life of someone who was a slave

with no hope and now has made him a free

man and forever his life is going to be changed.

So God changes lives.

Okay, So that's something we learn about God, the power

to change life.

But what about how.

Do we bring it home to us? Well?

When I think about this passage, I think about how

Oesmus's life. It was a story, but then he met

Jesus and all of a sudden, it's like there's like

these lines here, like a scribble, and then there's a

rewriting of his story. And I think that's the the

thing we get from this passage today is that God

is rewriting our stories. Or maybe if you've been following

Christ for a while, he's continued to write a new.

Story in your life, you know.

And I was studying this passage this week and I

was thinking about like how God changes lives that have

no hope and then he transformed lives, or how God

rewrites stories. I had this thought, and I remembered growing up,

and there was three of us who went to the

same school. We were in the same elementary school, same

junior high, same high school.

Let me tell you something.

It was Wes, a guy named Billy, and myself from

the same neighborhood.

And I went to youth group.

Because my mom and dad made me. Wes went to

youth group because I was there, and then Billy came

once we started playing basketball after youth each week.

Okay, but let me tell you something about us. The

three of us.

We were evil, very sinful young men. We had our addictions,

we were violent, very poor, came from a rough neighborhood,

and most people would have saul us as you said,

So let me show you something. Okay, So this is

my neighborhood right here. And Billie's house was right here.

Wes's house is right here.

It's no longer there.

It's been condemned. My house is right here. And here's

a junk yard. Here's a coal plant. There's another coal

plant down right here. There's two junk yards.

Right here. As you get right past that.

Street, this is our elementary school that got condemned and

tore down. And if you were to go south of

this picture, you would get into the school district that

we went to.

And let me tell you something.

Just a few years after I graduated, because we were

like the poor kids who went to the rich school.

A few years after I graduated.

They wanted to build a whole new, amazing, state of

the art school. Number one condition was they needed to ex.

Out our neighborhood.

They wouldn't build a school system unless they kicked our

neighborhood out because they did not want our kids going

with their kids anymore. And so you grow up in

this and you do feel useless, you do feel like lost.

Unimportant, on the margins, whatever. But look at this. You

can walk to each of our houses.

Maybe five minutes this way, maybe eight minutes this way,

three or four minutes this way.

This a little try and go right here. All three

of us grew up same grade.

Now I want you to go twenty five years later.

Billy is a church plant pastor of a church plant

that is just taken off and doing amazing things in Monroe, Ohio.

Wes is living up in the north woods of Wisconsin,

leading a very large church, and tons of lives are

being changed. Me you got stuck with me, Okay, But

here's the point. God rewrites our stories. And maybe you

came here today in your marriage, it's a really lousy

story right now. God wants to rewrite that story. Maybe

your career is just not the story you would write.

God is still writing that story. Maybe an illness you have,

God is still writing your story. Maybe there's an addiction

and God wants to rewrite that story in your life.

God rewrites our stories. So here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna pray right now. And what we're gonna do

is I want you to just stop for the first minute.

It's gonna be like a two minute prayer. The first

minute of prayer is gonna be simply this.

I want you to go.

Back to who you were before Jesus changed your life,

and I want you to think about how Jesus changed

your life. All right, we'll start there. Let's spend a

minute getting that context all right, now, the second moment

thinking about how God has changed your life. Now, I

want you to ask him to continue to write your story,

the story of you becoming more like Christ and fulfilling

the plan that Christ has for your life.

But that involves a commitment to getting.

To know Him more through his word. So I want

you to right now, and maybe you write it on

your phone or whatever, but I want you to go

ahead and make a commitment to a time and a

place that four to five days a week.

You're gonna get into the word.

Okay.

I want you to think about a time and a

place and I want you to go ahead and lift

that commitment up to the Lord.

God.

You are rewriting our stories. And we give you praise,

and we thank you for how amazing you are. You're

such a good God to us. We love you today

in Jesus name. Amen, you know, at this time, let

us all stand up, and here's what we want to

do in We want to love on you today.

We want to encourage you today.

And and uh, you know, just thank you for getting

out in that horrible weather this morning and sludging through

the snow and meet here. Shows Uh, you're either either

you're insane or very faithful.

I don't know. I thought about that myself on the

way over today.

But what we want to do is we just want

to love on you through prayer today. So we're gonna

have some prayer partners up here to annoint. Now, if

you want to pray privately and and you just need

some things you need to work out with God or

talk to God about, just.

Come to the altar. We've got two of them. We

won't bother you if you come to the.

Altar, but would love for you to come out from

the sides. Come down the middle aisle. Jenny will point

you to the person. But if you have any need today,

we would love to pray for you. So let's continue

to worship and continue to seek the Lord