Apologies and the Gospel

Good morning, Good News Church. That was very sneaky.

All right, so today we are going to finish up our three-week series that we

started a couple of weeks ago. So we've been in this, this is the final week of Reconciled.

So here we are at part three.

If you haven't been here, I will try my best to sort of review a little bit,

but because we're kind of landing the plane today, what we're going to say today

is really affected by what we've said these last two weeks. So let me review

a little bit, just in case you weren't here or you were here and you don't remember.

Back during week one of this series, we said that there are three main characters,

to the book of Philemon. By the way, that's the book of the Bible this series

has been on, the book of Philemon.

So the author of the book of Philemon is Paul, okay? So he wrote it,

and he wrote it to Philemon. Philemon is the recipient of the book,

and that's why it's named that. It's named after the guy that received it.

So Paul wrote it to Philemon about a guy named Onesimus, okay?

So Paul's the author, Philemon is the recipient, Onesimus is the subject of the letter.

Onesimus is a, probably a runaway slave. He was separated from Philemon at some

point. It looks like Philemon was his master and he was the slave.

And then he runs away or gets away somehow.

And he is separate from him and he runs into Paul somehow across his paths with

Paul. He begins this like sort of mentor relationship with Paul,

like Paul, his father and him, his son. And, and Paul looks like he leads Onesimus

to the Lord. Like Onesimus becomes a Christian because of his relationship with Paul.

And then at some point we find out just by the way the letter is written,

and it looks like Onesimus has done something wrong to Philemon in the past.

And it sure looks like Paul is saying, Onesimus, you need to go back and apologize

for what you've done. Like now that you're a Christian, you should go back and ask for forgiveness.

And then he writes this letter that we know of as Philemon and it's a letter

that is a plea for Philemon to forgive Onesimus for what he's done.

And that was, that's kind of the backstory to this book. And that's what we

learned two weeks ago in our first sermon in this series.

Then last week, we said that there's more to this than just a story,

that there are principles within this letter of the Bible.

It's a book of the, we say, we call all of the pieces of the Bible books,

but really it's just, it's one page. It's a letter.

This book of the Bible, there are principles within it on the topic of granting forgiveness.

And there are principles within it on the topic of seeking forgiveness,

right? There's stuff in here that based on what he said, we can learn about

how to forgive people, and we can also learn about how to apologize to people

from the way this letter is written.

So last week, we said we'd cover the forgiveness portion, and then this week,

we'd cover the apologizing portion. So last week, when we talked about forgiveness,

we said three things about it.

Hopefully, you remember this. We said, forgiveness is what is right. Do you remember that?

Like, from this letter, we can say forgiveness is what is right.

It is the right thing to do.

Forgiveness usually involves taking someone back into your life,

restoring the relationship.

And forgiveness involves canceling their debt.

And then this week we said we would get into how to apologize or how to seek forgiveness.

It would be worth it, I think, if this is your first time here or your first

time in several weeks and you didn't hear part one or part two,

I think it would be worth going back and listening to part one and part two

because most everything I'm

going to say today sort of builds on what we've said the last two weeks.

Having said that, I am going to try to preach this in a way that if this is

your first time here, it should mostly make sense to you.

So, here's our topic this morning. How do you apologize? How is it that we are

to seek forgiveness from someone?

Figuring out the answer to that is going to be a little bit more difficult than our task last week.

Because last week, what we did is we looked at this letter and we tried to figure

out, well, how do you forgive?

And that's a little bit easier to figure out because the letter was written,

to get some guy to forgive, right?

But today we're talking about how to apologize and the letter wasn't written

to Onesimus, right? This letter was written to the forgiver.

It was not written to the apologizer.

So it's gonna be a little bit more difficult to figure out, well,

what is it that you're supposed to do when you apologize? Because the purpose

of the letter wasn't to convince someone to apologize.

The conversations that Paul and Onesimus had about apologizing,

like the conversations that Paul and Onesimus must have had about the topic

of seeking forgiveness,

well, those conversations happened offline, right? They happened outside of the Bible.

Like they must have happened like verbal, in person. Like they talked to each

other about whatever it was. Like, hey, when you go back, this is what I think

you ought to say. This is what Christians do. Here's how we should apologize.

Whatever those conversations were, we don't have them.

We just have the letter that Onesimus took with him to the guy who's supposed to forgive him.

Nonetheless, I think even from this one, just from the letter that's written

to the forgiver, I think there are a couple of principles in the book of Philemon

that imply what an apologizer is supposed to do, even though it wasn't written to the apologizer.

I think the way that Paul talks about forgiveness and reconciliation in this

letter, there are at least two principles that we can figure out for those who

are seeking forgiveness found in this book. And here they are. Do you want them?

All right. These are the first two. These are the two points of the sermon.

Okay. Point number one is go back and talk to the person.

And number two is, if possible, make it right.

If you are going to seek forgiveness, number one, go back and talk to the person.

And number two, if possible, make it right, okay?

Where do you get that from? Get it from Philemon, let me show it to you and

we'll take it one at a time. Let's start with the first category,

which is go back and talk to them.

I get that from Philemon chapter one. I say chapter one, there's just one chapter.

It's literally just one page.

Starting in verse 12, I'm gonna read to you. I read the whole letter the first

week. We read most of the letter last week. Now I'm going to read just the middle of it this week.

Philemon verse 12 says this, I am sending him back to you. So the I,

Paul, am sending him, Onesimus, back to you, Philemon.

I'm sending him back as a part of myself. Like it's like ripping out my heart, sending him to you.

I'm so happy that he's here with me. I didn't even want him to go,

but I knew it was the right thing to do.

So I knew that if he's going to reconcile with you, he's got to go back.

So I'm sending him back to you as a part of myself.

I wanted to keep him with me so that in my imprisonment for the gospel,

he might serve me in your place.

But I didn't want to do anything without your consent so that your good deed

might not be out of obligation, but out of your own free will.

For perhaps this is why he was separated from you for a brief time so that you

might get him back permanently. Again, you can see he's saying,

I'm sending him back to you.

Look what he says. No longer as a slave, but more than a slave,

as a dearly loved brother.

He is especially so to me and even more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

So I think it's really obvious by the way that the letter was written to Philemon

that Paul, whatever he said to Onesimus, you can tell Paul sent Onesimus back

to the person he had wronged and said, you got to go back to him and talk to him.

Paul sent Onesimus back to reconcile.

So the principle for us is if we have wronged someone, if we have offended someone,

if by our sin we have hurt someone, what should we do?

Don't wait. Initiate. Initiate the conversation for reconciliation.

Don't just sit right around and go, well, if they're mad at me,

they can come talk to me about it.

Okay. If it's that big of a deal, he can come tell me it bothered him.

No, like if you know you've done the wrong thing, don't wait.

Initiate the conversation for reconciliation. Go and apologize.

Now you might say, okay, Mario, so you're saying the Bible teaches that if you're

the one who's done something wrong, it's your responsibility to initiate the conversation.

And I am saying, well, yes, the Bible does teach that. In fact,

to be precise, I am saying, I think the book of Philemon implies it,

but Jesus Christ flat out said it, okay?

So we don't even have to wonder like, oh, is this what we need to do?

Because it seems like that's what's happening in Philemon.

No, Jesus flat out said that that's what you are to do. So I'm going to show

you that now, just to be real clear. This is Matthew chapter 5, verses 23 through 24.

Matthew 5:23–24

So on one occasion, Jesus is teaching a group of people, and this is what He

says, these are the words of Jesus. He said, so if you are offering your gift

on the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, right?

Notice this is the person, this isn't the person who's offended.

This is the person who offended someone, right? This is not the person going,

I'm so mad. This is, you remember there's somebody out there that's mad at you, right?

If you're offering your gift to the altar and there you remember your brother

has something against you.

Leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled with

your brother and then come offer your gift.

Isn't that interesting? Jesus says, if you're the one that's done something

wrong, you go find them and you go apologize.

You go reconcile. As soon as you remember it, you gotta do that.

And when he says, as soon as you remember it, it's interesting because he makes

up this situation. It's a theoretical situation and it's really extreme, isn't it?

He says, if you remember it when you're offering your gift on the altar,

what is the picture he's painting? here. Remember that Jesus is Jewish.

He's in the Roman empire during, you know, like in the first century and he's

talking to Hebrew people. He's talking to Jewish people.

And so when he says you're giving your gift at the altar, they know what this

means, right? This is someone who is making an offering at the temple.

Like I have sinned and so I'm going to the Lord and I'm giving the offering,

the gift that I owe to the Lord.

I'm putting it there. I'm giving it at the altar there at the temple.

This is part of the temple sacrifice system. This is part of how they would

worship and how they would serve and how they would seek forgiveness.

This is someone who is offering a gift at the altar. In other words,

this is someone who, it's a Jewish person in the first century who is like,

they're right in the middle of worshiping God.

And in the middle of the worship service, in the middle of them worshiping God, they remember.

I wronged that guy and he's mad at me and I haven't done anything about it.

And you would think, I would think, Jesus would have said, finish up what you're

in the middle of because that's really important and then go reconcile.

And he doesn't. He says, no, no, pause.

Just leave your gift right there at the altar and go immediately and be reconciled to your brother.

And then come offer your gift. You're right in the middle of worshiping the

Lord. And he's like, pause that, right?

Not because you're supposed to stop worshiping the Lord. It's just you're going

to be worshiping him in a different way.

You're gonna worship him by obeying what he says in the way that you handle

your brother and then come back and finish up what you were in the middle of.

And it just, the way he phrases it, you can tell how important he thought reconciliation

was, how important he thought it was that when somebody has wronged someone,

they go and seek forgiveness, how urgent it was. Just go do it right away.

So you may go, okay, so the Bible teaches if you're the one who's wronged and

you owe someone to apologize, you got to go and initiate the conversation.

Okay. So, but if you're the person who was wronged, okay, you're the person,

that is the victim, right? They hurt your feelings. They stole your stuff. They, whatever.

So you don't have to initiate anything, right? Because it's the person who's

done the wrong thing. They are supposed to go and seek you out.

So you just, you can just sit around and wait for them to come to you,

right? Is that what the Bible teaches?

Well, no, not exactly. So in this particular case, yes, the person who's supposed

to initiate is the person who's done the wrong thing.

But there were other times where Jesus said the person who was wronged,

the person who was offended, they're actually supposed to initiate the reconciliation.

They're supposed to initiate the conversation. Did you know that?

Matthew 18, 15, I think is the most well-known that I'm aware of.

There's a different time where Jesus was teaching and he said,

he says, if your brother has sinned against you, will you put it up?

Yeah, if your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you.

You go, well, that's interesting. So in Matthew, he said, if you are the one

that has, you know, there's somebody out there that's offended at you, go talk to him.

But in this case, he says, no, if you're the one that's offended,

if there's somebody out there that's wronged you, you go talk to him.

So I guess the question is, well, whose job is it? Like on one occasion,

Jesus said, the person who's done the wrong thing needs to go and start the

conversation. And the Another one says, no, the person who was wronged is the

one that's supposed to start the conversation.

So which one is it? The Bible says both. What do you think the answer is? Yeah, it's both.

It's like whoever thinks of it first.

Jesus tells both sides of a conflict to seek reconciliation.

So it seems to me whoever realizes it is the person who needs to go first and get this going. Okay.

So today we're going to focus on not this part of it, that go and show someone their fault.

We're going to focus more on the Matthew 5 one, that what happens if you realize

someone has something against you?

Today we're going to focus on the Philemon one, like Onesimus' role.

How do you apologize if you're the one who's wrong?

How do you go and initiate that conversation? How do you seek forgiveness?

And so I want to give you three tips on how to apologize.

These three tips, I'm going to give them to you very quickly.

I'm not going to take a long time. I just want to give them to you.

The three tips I'm going to give you are not from the book of Philemon.

Okay? I've already said, I do

not know what Paul said to Onesimus verbally before he sent him back home.

I don't know how he said, here's how you apologize. This is what you need to

say. We don't have that conversation.

What I do know is these three tips I'm going to give you, they have been helpful

in my life when it comes to apologizing.

And I think for the most part, these three tips are reflective of biblical principles.

It'll be up to you to judge that. Okay. But I think that it's not,

these are not just random tips I'm giving you. I think this reflects what the

Bible would say we should do as we seek forgiveness.

So here they are. They are, take responsibility, be specific about your sin,

and ask for forgiveness.

Okay? The three tips are, take responsibility, be specific about your sin,

and ask for forgiveness. And I'll just explain them real quick.

Take responsibility. What I mean by this is, when you are seeking forgiveness,

when you are trying to reconcile, and you're the apologizer,

you need to take responsibility for the thing that you have done wrong.

Okay, that's why you're there. You're there to have a conversation about what

you've done wrong. You have to take responsibility for your own actions.

Sometimes people will apologize like this. They will go, hey,

I'm really sorry that you got so mad at me last week.

Have you heard this before? Yeah, I'm so sorry that you got so upset at me last

week. And it's like, wait a minute, that is not taking responsibility, okay?

Actually, you are saying you're sorry for their reaction to what you did,

and what you did has not even been mentioned, right?

The only thing that's been mentioned is their reaction to what you did.

That is absolutely not taking responsibility for it.

Okay, be specific about your sin. What I mean is sometimes we apologize this

way. We go, hey, bro, sorry about last week.

You ever had that? I'm sorry about last week. I mean, I did it earlier this

week. I said to my wife, I'm sorry about yesterday. And then I was like,

stupid, stupid. You're about to preach a sermon about how this is stupid.

But sometimes we'll do this. We'll say, I'm sorry for, and then we will not

name what we did. We will name a period of time. Okay. I'm sorry for last week.

Well, last week, how can you apologize for a period of time?

Like that's just seven days.

Another seven days is going to come after that. You don't have to apologize

for that. That's just how time works, okay?

No, you can't apologize for a period of time, but you can apologize for a particular

action that you did, right?

So, and one of the reasons why, if you say to someone, hey, I'm sorry about

last week. Let's just even imagine the guy goes, that's fine,

bro. It's fine. Forget about it.

You might go, well, I think that worked. Preacher doesn't know what he's talking

about. I think that worked just fine.

But here's the thing, in some of those situations, when you go,

I'm sorry about last week, and they go, it's fine, bro.

You don't even know. They might, in their mind, be thinking that they are forgiving

you for something that they didn't like you did on Thursday,

and you might have been apologizing for something you think you did wrong on

Tuesday, and you guys aren't even talking about the same thing.

Okay, then lastly, ask for forgiveness. Ask for forgiveness.

I think there is a world of difference between the words, I'm sorry, and will you forgive me?

You see the difference? I'm sorry, that's one thing. Will you forgive me?

That's a whole nother thing. They're very different.

I'm sorry is a declarative statement where you are asserting how you feel, okay?

Will you forgive me is a question that requires a yes or no answer.

I'm sorry doesn't really create a dialogue because it's just,

you're just saying, this is how I feel about this.

Will you forgive me requires a dialogue because now the other person needs to

say something back, right?

I'm sorry is, basically what that means is you're saying, I regret the thing that I did, okay?

Which is good. If you've done something wrong, it is good to regret it,

okay? That's fantastic. Nothing wrong with saying I'm sorry.

But you should then follow it up with, will you forgive me?

Because will you forgive me is what brings the conversation to a resolution.

Like it's saying, I actually need something from you. I'm not just confessing

my feelings to you. I'm asking you for a pardon for what I've done.

I would like for us to be reconciled. And so you ask the person,

will you forgive me? And then they're going to say yes or no.

And then you will know where you stand, right?

I mean, if you ask them that question, they have to answer yes or no.

I mean, I guess they could just not answer, but if they don't, that's a no. Okay.

But if you ask them and they say yes or whether they say no,

you realize, you will immediately know whether reconciliation happened because

you did more than just monologue about your feelings.

You asked them for a pardon and they had to answer.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is apologize the way you would want to be apologized to.

In fact, there is a Bible verse for that.

Jesus said the golden rule. It's very, very famous. One of the most famous things he said, right?

He said, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You aware of that?

Okay, so implied in do unto others as you would have them do unto you,

of course, is apologize unto others as you would have them apologize unto you.

So I'm just going to give you two sample apologies right now,

and I just want you to evaluate them. I want you to imagine,

if they were told to you, which one of these two apologies you would prefer.

Okay? Here's apology number one.

Sorry about last week, bro. We cool now? Okay? Now here's apology number two.

I'm sorry that I took your car without asking and then returned it with no gas in the tank.

I won't do that anymore. I realize it was wrong. Will you forgive me?

And can I buy you a tank of gas to make up for it?

Which one of those two apologies would you rather receive? Well,

then apologize unto others as you would have them apologize unto you.

All right, so that's point number one. Go back and talk to them.

You can tell that Paul assumed that that was Onesimus' job, to go back and talk

to them. Now, second thing, if possible, make it right.

Where do you get the idea that if possible, make it right, Mario?

Verses 17 and 18 of Philemon.

Paul says, So if you consider me a partner, accept him as you would me.

So remember, this is if you, Philemon, consider me, Paul, a partner,

then accept Onesimus the way that you would me.

And if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account. Amen.

Paul offers restitution here, right?

Why does he do that? I think the reason he does it is because he realizes that's

the right thing to do. That's the just thing to do in this scenario.

I think the reason Paul does it is because Paul's living in the first century

and he's a Jewish man and he's a teacher of the law. He's very familiar with the Old Testament.

He's familiar with like the Old Testament restitution laws.

And so he realizes this is what ought to be done.

Like he's familiar with Exodus chapter 22. Maybe you've never read it before,

Exodus 22 · chapter mention

but for homework, if you want to, you can look this up.

Exodus chapter 22 is one of the places in the Old Testament where the restitution

Exodus 22 · chapter mention

laws are written out so that it says things like, if you steal a sheep from

someone, this is how many sheep you owe back.

This is if you kill someone's cow, this is how many cows you gotta give them

back. Like those laws are written in Exodus chapter 22. And I think Jewish people

Exodus 22 · chapter mention

in the first century were very familiar with these laws.

And so when things happen between each other, like they knew what to do.

Like they realize like, if I'm sorry, then this is the thing that we do to make it right.

You see this in Luke chapter, I think it's 19. In Luke 19, Jesus has a conversation

with a guy named Zacchaeus. It's a pretty well-known story. Okay,

have you heard the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus?

In the Jesus and Zacchaeus story, there's a point where Zacchaeus is sort of

trying to show Jesus that he is repentant.

Like he feels bad about what he has done. And there's a point where he says,

if I have extorted anything from anyone, I will pay it back.

Do you remember that part of the story? In fact, he says, I will pay it back

times four, right? I will pay them back four times the amount,

which makes me think he was familiar with Exodus and he was taking a principle

about sheep in Exodus and applying it to money.

And he said, I think that's the amount I'm supposed to restore back.

If I extort them out of money, that's what I'm gonna pay back.

Why did Zacchaeus say that at that time? I think it's because he's a Jewish

guy who was familiar with Exodus and he thought, well, I am sorry.

And so of course I'm gonna do

what I ought to do. I'm gonna make restitution. I'm gonna make it right.

If I can, that's what we do.

So I think Paul realizes that, and that's what they're doing.

Now, in this particular case, in the case of the letter of Philemon,

it is Paul who is offering the restitution and not Onesimus.

That's weird, right? Like it seems to me that if there's like you mess with

your neighbor's sheep, there's how many sheep you owe them.

It seems like what that would mean is Onesimus should be the one who's making

restitution. If he's the one that's done something wrong, he should be offering

restitution to Philemon. And yet in this letter, it's Paul who is. Why?

I mean, I guess we don't know for sure, but my assumption is that Paul is offering

it because Onesimus can't.

I think probably what's going on here is Onesimus is a runaway slave and he's

out of cash and he doesn't have any way to make it right.

And so Paul is sitting there going, but that's the right thing to do.

You can't do it, but I could.

And so Paul offers it on Onesimus' behalf. That's the only thing that makes sense to me.

If Onesimus was sitting there with like a treasure chest, okay,

that he was petting, as Paul was talking to him and he's sitting there going

like, Paul, what do you think I ought to do?

My relationship with Philemon is messed up. He thinks I owe him. What should I do?

It seems to me Paul would have said, take some stuff out of your treasure chest

and go give it to him like pay him back, fix it or whatever the situation was

if you stole that treasure chest from him go give it back to him,

like whatever you have go ahead and do it my guess is he was unable to do it

and Paul said it needs to be done you can't do it I'll offer it on your behalf,

and so I think the principle here is when you apologize if you can it is good

to offer restitution offer restitution if possible.

If you can make it right, make it right. Why?

Well, first of all, it's the just thing to do. If you've hurt them,

if you broke their thing, if you stole their thing, whatever it is,

like the right thing to do is to make them whole again. The right thing to do

is to do what is just and pay them back.

But it also shows your sincerity.

Like it shows the sincerity of the apology. If you have the ability to make

restitution and you don't, it's very likely that's gonna communicate to the

person that you're not actually sorry.

Have you seen this happen before? Here, I'll just give an example from my own life.

Back before I was married, I lived in a house with this other guy,

my roommate, and me and this guy both went to the same college.

And one particular morning, he got up, he was already out of the house,

and then I woke up and I had a science class I needed to go to.

So I go to my closet to get ready, put on my shirt, put on my pants,

and I can't find my belt that morning.

I'm like, where is my belt? I looked at the spot where I keep my belt, it's not there.

I think, I'm assuming I walk around my room looking for all the spots where

the belt would be, it's not anywhere. And it's like, where is my belt?

And so I'm like looking around the house, kind of frantic. I've got really,

I mean, I got this belt because I mean, I wanted these shoes,

this pants, this shirt. I thought it was gonna look good. Like there might be

a girl in the science class that I need to like be looking good for.

I need this belt and I bought it for this purpose. I can't find it.

I'm looking all around. And at some point, enough time has gone by that's like,

I'm gonna be late for class if I don't find it. I guess I'm just gonna go beltless

and never get married and whatever. And so, but I'm like, I'm gonna be late for class if I don't go.

And so I go to class and I get to the science class and my roommate is in the

same science class with me.

And when I show up, I see that he's there and he's wearing my belt.

And so I look at him and he did not ask. He just, I guess while I was sleeping,

went into my closet and took it.

So I look over and I recognize it. I'm like, hey, that's my belt.

I was looking for that all morning long and you just took it without asking.

And he apologized. And if I remember correctly, his apology went something like this.

Sorry, dude.

And that did not make me feel better about the situation.

And you want to know why? I think the reason it didn't make me feel better is

because he made no attempt at restitution.

You might go, well, what could he have done for restitution?

Give me my belt back, dude. Right?

Of course he could have done that. Now, I realize someone's here,

no, he couldn't have done that. I mean, his pants would have fallen to the floor

and that would have been indecent exposure.

No, that's not true. This was the 90s. They made pants then just like they make them now.

If the zipper's up and the button's buttoned, they stay on, okay?

They don't just fall to the ground like a cartoon.

He could have taken that belt off and handed it to me right there,

and he didn't. Why? I think because he wasn't actually sorry.

Okay, if possible, make it right.

Now, sometimes you can't, and that's why I've said the words if possible so

many times because I'm aware sometimes you can't. We talked about this last week, right?

You hurt someone's feelings. You cannot buy them new feelings.

Not every sin can there be restitution for. I can't all get fixed financially, that's for sure.

But I will say this, if you can make it right, make it right.

If you can make it right financially, because it's that kind of a thing where

you stole something from them or you whatever.

But also when it's, when I say make it right, I think sometimes it's helpful

to be creative and think, how would you want some, if the roles were reversed,

what would you want them to do for you?

So let me give an example of what I think is something that's kind of like restitution

or making it right, but it doesn't involve any financial anything.

Imagine that I, there's this guy in my life and I'm real mad at him.

And so I decide I'm going to ruin his reputation.

So I go find five of his friends that are also five of my friends,

five mutual friends. And I just trash him behind his back.

I go say all these things behind his back. I tell lies about him.

I tell secrets he told me that would be embarrassing.

I tell like a bunch of half truths, like lots of gossip where I tell stories

that are like true, but like I just tell the part that makes him look bad and

I don't tell the part that would make him look reasonable and I leave out the

part that makes me look bad.

I'm the hero of the story and he's awful and I just tell those parts of the

story. So have you ever seen this happen before?

So imagine I do that and I turn all five people against him.

Now, none of them want to be his friend anymore.

And then at some point I realize, oh, that was a sin. That was wrong.

And so I go to him and I apologize and I take responsibility for what I've done

and I specify the sin that I committed and I ask him for forgiveness.

Now what kind of restitution can I make?

Yeah, like I'm not gonna hand him a hundred bucks. I need to go back to the

five people and make it right. I need to go back and tell them like,

yeah, I was just really mad and I was trying to ruin his reputation.

I told you those stories. And honestly, I told you stuff that made him look bad.

I left out all the parts that made anything he said make sense.

You try to make it, you go back and tell the truth. You go back and try to make

it right. I think it's worth being creative when you think about restitution.

Apologize the way you would wanna be apologized to.

So that is our lesson from philemon on seeking forgiveness from this letter

we can see he told onesimus to go back and have some sort of interaction with

philemon and he clearly he thought if we can make this right we need to make this right,

and so the way this translates to you i'm saying our lessons from philemon are,

if you have wronged someone go back and talk to the person and if possible make it right all.

Right there's our lesson so as we close out this series I would like to just

tell you two more things and then we'll be done with Philemon for a while.

We're kind of like, we're landing the plane today. And so this is my last chance

to say these last two things.

So there's two questions I wanna ask and answer. The first question is this, did it work?

Like Mari, you told us this whole story about Onesimus' ascent,

Philemon's supposed to forgive and even the whole Colossian church was involved

because they read the letter out loud in front of all the other people in the church.

So did it work? Did Onesimus ask for forgiveness? Did Philemon forgive him?

Did they all live happily ever after? Like you've told us this story,

but you haven't given us the ending. Like how does the story end?

And so I'm going to give you two answers to that.

The first answer is, I guess, the official answer. Okay, did the letter work?

This is, here's the official answer. We don't know.

There is no more, there's no follow-up letter to Philemon. There's nothing more

that like, this is where the story ends as far as ancient history goes and the

manuscripts we have. We do not, we officially don't know the answer.

However, I think it did end well. I think the letter did work.

I think that it did end up where everybody lived happily ever after.

And I want to tell you the reasons why, even though I can't be 100% sure.

The reasons why, and I don't think this is I'm the only one that would say this.

The reason why I think that this letter worked is because we can tell,

even though we don't know what happened, we know that after this letter was

written, the letter got delivered and the letter got preserved.

And those two things I think tell you a lot, okay? First of all,

we can tell the letter got delivered.

If Onesimus was like, yeah, yeah, I'll apologize, Paul. And then as he's traveling

back, home, if he just was like, you know, throws in a little trash can,

runs off into the woods and never made it there, we wouldn't have the letter of Philemon today.

It seems to me that the fact that we have it means it made it to the recipient.

Onesimus, very, very likely Onesimus showed up and apologized.

But not only was the letter delivered, it got preserved. Like people took this

letter and said, we got to keep this.

People copied out copies of the letter so multiple people would have it.

And it seems to me that wouldn't have happened if the letter hadn't worked.

Like if the letter had shown up and Philemon said, I don't care what Paul has to say.

I'm going to do whatever I want. Okay. I do not forgive you.

Okay. Get out of here or off with his head or whatever it is that he would have said.

Okay. But if he was like, I do not forgive.

I don't know that the letter would have been kept. In fact, if he had said that,

the Colossian church would have rose up and said to him, whoa, you can't do that.

Like this whole, this letter was written, is to be read out loud in front of all of us.

And we're all here supposed to tell you to say, no, no, you gotta do this.

In fact, the companion letter that came with it, we talked about this last week.

The companion letter says, accepting one another and forgiving one another.

If anyone has a complaint against another, just as the Lord forgave you,

so you must also forgive.

He said that to us, Philemon.

And so that if Philemon said to them, you know what? I know and I don't care, okay?

I'll forgive whoever I want. I'll hold a grudge on whoever I want.

If y'all don't like it, you're all going to be judging me like that.

Get out of my house, right? Y'all can go find some other house to have your

church meetings in. If that's what had happened, he threw the letter to the

side and kicked them all out of his house.

I don't think it would have got preserved in the way that we got it.

Whatever happened, once this letter was delivered, people said,

we got to hang on to this thing.

In fact, people said, we got to handwrite because they didn't have printers.

We got to handwrite this letter and get copies and copies and copies of this

letter and then pass it around to other Christians at other churches who don't

even know Philemon Onesimus so that they can read it.

It seems to me you'd only do that if the letter had been a success.

And so I think it's very likely that Onesimus apologized. I think it's It's

very likely that Philemon forgave him.

And then an interesting historical fact. This is not from the Bible.

This is just from a manuscript that we found that's historical.

Right around the year 107, 107 AD, there's a bishop, an overseer,

a pastor of the church in Ephesus.

And you wanna know what his name is? Onesimus.

There's an Onesimus that was, so this would be several decades after the events,

of Philemon, but during these people's lifetime, at least it could have been,

depending on how long they lived.

There's a guy who's the pastor of the church in Ephesus and his name is Onesimus.

And the way that we know this is not from the Bible, there's a guy named Ignatius

who at the beginning of the second century wrote a letter to the church at Ephesus

and he mentions that the guy, the overseer that's there, his name is Onesimus.

Now, I don't know if it's the same Onesimus for sure or not.

Okay, I only know of one Onesimus in the Bible.

I'm guessing it's him. I also know this, the name Onesimus, it's the Greek word

for useful. That's what the word Onesimus means, useful.

I think it's a name that would be given to slaves. Useful, go get this for me. Useful, go do this.

I think it's very possible that whoever was at the turn of that century,

whoever was the overseer, the bishop at Ephesus, I think it's very possible he was a former slave.

I think it's very possible he was this former slave.

And so I don't know for sure how it ended, but I think it's very possible that

Onesimus apologized to Philemon.

Philemon forgave him and freed him.

And he went and became the pastor of the church in Ephesus.

Isn't that an incredible thought? All right, final question. We'll end on this.

What does this story have to do with Jesus and the gospel?

I mean, Mario, you tell us this story. It's been three weeks now that we've

been learning about these three guys, Paul, Onesimus, and Philemon.

And as best as I can tell, I mean, it's a cool story, but it's a story about

these two guys that got into a tiff and they probably reconciled.

What's the connection between that and the main message of the Bible?

I think there is a huge connection between this story and the main connection

the main message of the Bible,

I think the reason that everything that went down at the time this letter was

being written I think the reason

it went down the way it did is because Jesus Christ died on the cross.

I think if Jesus had not died on the cross this this letter would not have been

written this way I think that the apostle Paul was aware Jesus Christ died on

the cross as a way to make a payment for the sins of the world.

He died on the cross to pay a debt that we could not pay on our behalf to take

care of the problem of sin, to fix the estranged relationship that we sinners

have with God because we've sinned against him. I think Paul was very aware of that.

He rose again from the grave, and if we believe in him, he offers us this reconciled

relationship with God the Father based on the payment that Jesus made.

And I think Paul was so affected by that message. First of all,

it changed his whole life.

But I think that it motivated Paul, and I think that it shaped his response

to this particular situation when it came up.

And so there is a section of Philemon that is my favorite part of the book.

And it's my favorite part because it is a picture of the gospel.

We've looked at it, I think, each week of this series. I'm going to look at

it one last time. It's verses 17 and 18.

Paul says, so if you consider me a partner, accept him as you would me.

I wanna take my reputation, my righteousness and give it to him.

And you treat him like I deserve. And then he says, and if he has wronged you

in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account.

What we have in the book of Philemon is a story of an offended master,

a sinful servant, a broken relationship, an unpaid debt, and a mediator who

stepped in between in order to make the payment to bring the two parties back together.

Does that sound familiar to anybody who's been coming to church here a while?

That's the greatest story ever told. That's the gospel. That's what Christ has

done for us. I believe that when Jesus Christ was dying on the cross,

Like that action, what he was doing and what he was communicating was this.

If they, the sinners, have wronged you, Father, in any way or owe you anything,

charge that to my account.

And he died on the cross, the wages of our sin.

And so we cannot look at the story and go, well, this doesn't have anything

to do with me. This is about some guy a long time ago named Onesimus.

You are Onesimus.

This story reflects the gospel. And I think Paul did exactly what he did here

because he thought to himself, I know what I need to do here.

It's obvious what I need to do. This is what Jesus did for me.

Let's pray.

God, thank you so much for this story and all of the people that you've sent ahead of us.

I pray for us as a church. I pray that you would be our teacher today and you

would be like our applier that like as we think like, well, so now what do I do with this truth?

I pray that you would be the one that shows us the way.

2000 years ago, Colossians had to figure out how do we do this?

How do we accept and forgive one another? What do we do next? How do I say it?

Should I charge them? Should I not?

And I pray for that same wisdom and discernment and truth and bravery and desire

to do the right thing, I pray that that would be among us.

Like I know in a room this size, there are like fractured relationships.

There's like reconciliation that needs to happen.

And I just pray you'd help us to know what to do. Like the people that are in

this room that need to go apologize, I pray that you'd help them to apologize.

And I pray that you would be with them and bless them, that they would take

responsibility, they would be specific about their sin, that they would ask

for forgiveness, that they try to make it right.

I'm sure there are people in this room that need to forgive someone.

I pray that you would equip them with everything they need in order to forgive. Amen.

I thank you for setting the example for us. I thank you for paving the way for

us. I thank you for making it possible, Jesus, by dying on the cross for our sins.

I pray if there's anybody here who does not know you, I pray that today would

be the day they come to know you. The day they'd be like, oh,

I'm like Onesimus. Like, goodness, if there's a relationship between me and

God, it certainly would be something like slave master. Like,

of course I would owe him everything he created me.

And of course I've sinned against him in a way that I could never pay back. So now what?

And if he or she today realizes that you, Jesus, died on the cross for their

sins and their place, I pray that they would react to that, that they would

go, I want Jesus' death on the cross to be in my place, on my behalf.

I wanna follow him for the rest of my life, and I pray that would happen today.

We love you, Jesus.

Amen. Let me end with these good words from Colossians.

Therefore, God's chosen ones, holy and loved, put on heartfelt compassion,

kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

You're gonna need it for what's next. Accepting one another and forgiving one

another if anyone has a complaint against another.

Just as the Lord has forgiven you. That is good news.