As we come back today, we're back in Philemon, and what a blessing it is to gather on the Lord's Day to worship together and to read great texts of Scripture like this one. What a blessing that is. And to see this letter that is unique. It's a letter that's a personal letter preserved by God, inspired by the Holy Spirit for an important purpose. And as we mentioned, only one of two truly personal letters in the canon of Scripture, the New Testament canon for sure. And as we covered it last week, we saw that Paul is writing to a dear friend, a brother in the faith, Philemon, over a situation that developed while Paul was imprisoned in Rome. We mentioned that this would be like house arrest. When he says imprisoned, he means literally he can't leave. When he says in chains, that's what he means. He wasn't always in chains under house arrest. But he meant he didn't have freedom. He couldn't go where he wanted. He couldn't do what he wanted. He had to stay in the home while he awaited trial in Rome. And so Paul is writing to this man, Philemon, a brother in the faith, a good friend, concerning this situation that's developed with another one of Paul's brothers. In fact, Paul will call him a son in the faith, saying that I was the means by which God led him in the gospel into the kingdom. And so he says this important person here, I want to deal with an issue going on. Well, what is that issue? It's a complicated one in that day. in a world in which slavery was very normalized. I mean, we know, unfortunately, we hear that there's much slavery in the world today, but it certainly isn't normalized in our own country, or shouldn't certainly be. And so we see here a different environment, a different situation, but one in which an owner of a slave had great legal rights to his slave. It was a member of his household in one sense. We tried to talk about that a little bit last week. He had legal claims. the slave had responsibilities, if you will, in that culture and in that system. And Paul writes to Philemon to say, this slave, who technically, according to Roman law, belongs to you, has left you, and has made his way to Rome, either by, in the construction I gave you last week, he was sent there. But whatever the case, some people think he ran away, whatever the case is, he's made his way to me, and I'm sending him back to you. Now Paul legally has no choice to do this. I mean I guess he does, he could violate the law, but there's a purpose we want to talk about here today on why he chooses to work in the way that he does. But Paul says, I'm sending him back, but I'm asking something of you Philemon. I'm asking you to receive him back not as a slave, but as a brother. To receive Him as you would receive me. We'll go over this all today as we look at this text. But to receive Him back in a special way. Now just to make it clear, I know there may be people here today who weren't here last week. The kind of framing I'm going with here is because it is such a long and arduous journey to get from the Lycos River Valley to Rome that likely Onesimus was sent by Philemon to deliver goods or packages or letters from the congregation at Colossae and from Philemon and his family to Paul and while in the big city saw his opportunity to not go back. Used the funds that would have been for getting back to live for a while and runs out of finances. Somewhere in there, I think from the reading here it could be when he first visits Paul to deliver the things, or it might be when he comes back. We'll talk about this in two weeks. I'm going to ask you to hold off on this until then because, and as I mentioned in two weeks we're going to look at providence in this letter. And as we see that, I think there's something important that Paul says here, a nuance in his text that might lead us to believe that Philemon comes back to him at that point, and that's when he's able to witness to him and Philemon is convicted and accepts the gospel and becomes a Christian. But either way that happens, however it happens, the basic facts are still the same. He's there with Paul in Rome, and there's a question of what to do here. Under Roman law, Paul is supposed to return him or turn him over to the authorities. If Paul doesn't do that, then Paul has great punitive things that could happen to him under Roman law for harboring a fugitive or for helping a fugitive. This could get very serious very quick, especially when Paul's on trial hoping to get a hearing. Now, I don't believe any part of this is Paul trying to preserve himself, but I'm just saying there are serious consequences if Paul is involved in this. I don't think that's Paul's concern. You read this, Paul wants to fix the situation between Onesimus and Philemon. And I think as you read this, you'll see how he wants to do it. So as we begin this text today, I want us to just remember what we read last week, what we looked at last week. There's a reason we did that sermon first, A, the first seven verses come first, but also it's important to set the stage that Paul has a confidence that he can expect that this will happen. Why? Because Philemon has always been a man of grace. Philemon has always been a charitable and gracious man to the church at Colossae and to the members of that church ever since he became a Christian. And so Paul says, based on this history of your grace and your love and your care, I'm going to trust that I can send this dear brother back to you and you'll treat him right. So I want to read this text again and then we'll launch into it. So Paul writes, Therefore, though I might have been very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake I rather appeal to you, being such a one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ, I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me. I am sending him back. You therefore receive him that is my own heart, whom I wish to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not come by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary. For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me. But if he has wronged you or owes anything, put that on my account, I, Paul, am writing with my own hand, I will repay, not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides. Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. Amen. As we look at this text today, I want us to look at three points. First of all, a loving plea. Second of all, a gospel transformation. And lastly, a gracious offer. So we want to begin with this idea of a loving plea, which is essentially what this letter is broadly, but particularly the first part of the text for today, we see it's a loving plea, and you can see right in verse 8 that it says that. He says, though he could be bold, and we want to look at that in just a moment, yet for love's sake I would rather appeal, ask, request, make my plea before you Philemon, that you would do this. Now, we see there he begins with therefore, and in the Greek we often say every seminary professor, Bible college professor says, whenever you see therefore, go look what's before it and see what it's there for, right? And so we recognize that what he's saying now is built upon what he's already said that we looked at last week. Philemon, you are one who is gracious, who has experienced the grace of God, who has been a source of grace to the people of God, and now I'm asking you to do it again. It's a big ask. There's no way Paul can compel him to by law. But Paul says, wait a minute. I could, if I desired to, to be bold. What does he say? Command you. Now this is a very high view of apostolic authority, isn't it? Paul says, though Rome gives me no right as a Roman citizen to compel you to do anything, And though I have no social status that puts me above you in any way, shape, or form. In fact, in the Roman world, Philemon was probably well above Paul as a wealthy man and an owner of, it would seem, a number of slaves. And yet Paul says, I do have an authority in the Lord. I could be bold in that authority that the Lord has given to me as an apostle and I could command you to do this. And even then, look at the interesting wording that Paul uses. command you to do what? That which is fitting. That which is appropriate. So there's even a second level barb thrown in there. First of all, you ought to, Philemon, do what's right anyway. What I'm asking of you is nothing more than what is fitting to do, what is right to do before God. You should do it. But even then, let me go another step and say, I have the right and authority in the gospel and in the church of Jesus Christ to command you to do it. Now, this is interesting. It is accurate, right? In the church, an apostle had that level of authority. But notice, Paul doesn't want to exercise it in that way. He says, for the sake of love, I'd rather ask. Now, my friends, there's a principle there for us. Many of us have different levels of authority in different spheres. As parents, we have a certain level of authority over our kids. As grandparents, over our grandkids. At work, you might be someone higher up on the chain, and so you have a level of authority over others. In churches, deacons, elders, various people have different roles of authority, teachers, et cetera. And we say, how should we wield that authority? And I think Paul presents something here for us to think about. We ought to hope we don't have to wield it. We ought to hope that people just do what's fitting. People do what's right. We shouldn't enjoy exercising authority where it isn't necessary. In fact, authority is necessary to get people to do what's right. Why do we have laws? Well, they should be for people doing what's right and fitting in our society. Why do we say you shouldn't kill somebody? Because murder isn't fitting, right? That's not a fitting thing to do. And likewise, we can think of many places where we might have to use our authority with our children to discipline them, to get them to do what is right. But isn't it better when they just do what is right? When because they've been taught in the past or because they show in their heart a desire to do the right thing, they don't have to be compelled. They just do what's fitting. Wouldn't it be much better to be able to sit down with them and say, hey, look, I don't know that you handled this the right way. And then they go fix the situation. No threats needed to be leveled. Now, that's not to say that there aren't those times as a parent, where as a parent, you have to use authority. There's church discipline in churches for a reason, right? In churches, sometimes there has to be the compulsion of something to happen. But you don't want it to start there. You want it to start amongst people who recognize we want to do what's fitting and honorable to the Lord. If we have wronged people, if we have done something that was unfit, if I have done something unfit, it should only take, we would hope, somebody coming to me and say, Pastor Rick, you offended someone. Or you said something that you shouldn't have said. And if I recognize that I did that, I'll apologize. You won't have to force my hand. And that's the way it should be for all of us as believers. So first of all, we should recognize, first of all, this principle that we should see that discipline is part two of this. Forcing would be part two. And yet even then, Paul doesn't threaten, if you don't do what I say, then I will force you. Paul says, no brother, my prayer, my hope in the Lord is that you'll do what's right and fitting and honorable to the Lord because it's right and fitting and honorable to the Lord. Maybe you need me to point out what it is, but have confidence that you'll do it. I have confidence that you'll do it." And so we see immediately here this important principle. For the sake of love, I ask you, I appeal to you to do what's fitting. Now, that would be great. Even going beyond this, Paul will later say that I want you to do what you do not by compulsion. There is a difference, right? When, I mean, sometimes you have to make your children do something, your grandchildren do something, and you can see them shrug their shoulders and go off and do it unwillingly. They're doing it because they don't want the stick, whatever that is, right? But they'll do it. But how much better when you see your children do it because you've convinced them that it's right. It's the right thing to do. Not because of compulsion. Compulsion has its place. We see that in the world. Somebody decides, I'm going to kill whoever I want sooner or later, somebody's going to have to stop them, right? That's just the reality that we live in in the world. But again, the idea that somebody would do it voluntarily, that's what Paul's driving to. There is something better about people voluntarily, especially in the community, the people of God, doing what's right because it's right, not because they're forced to. When you have a church that is moving together and acting appropriately because they want to do things appropriately, they want to do things to honor God, that's great. That's when you can have, as Keech says, a glorious church, when you have people who want to honor God and want to do the right thing. And so, my friends, as we think through this, just see what Paul's saying. It's better that you do it at my loving request than for me to force you, even if I'm able to do it, which he argues he is. And so as we think about this, we want to move beyond that and see what he goes on to say after that. For the love's sake, I'd rather appeal to you. And then he says who he is. Who is Paul? Paul the aged one. Now this is an interesting word. The newer translations probably say apostle. Paul the apostle. The older ones say aged. And this is because both words come from the same root and it's not 100% clear in the Greek which it is that is being meant here by Paul. It could mean the ambassador. It could mean the aged. They both come from the same root word, presbudros. Now where do we know that word from? from ecclesiology, right? A presbyteros is an elder and it can literally mean an elder by position or an elder by age. And so you have to use some discerning. The problem with Paul is he has that elderly authoritative role and he's also by this point in his 60s and an older man who could call himself elderly in the ancient world. And so it isn't clear what he means here but he is saying to you, you know who I am. You know who I am. You know that I'm Paul, a man you know well, a man who has lived a life and has served the Lord through many hardships. We could turn to 2 Corinthians and see Paul's list of hardships, all the things that he's endured. But now, even after all those things, I find myself a prisoner once more. Why? For the work of the gospel. I'm in chains. I'm not free to do what I want to do. Now I believe Paul is pressing a parallel here between him and Onesimus. Onesimus, like Paul, may not literally be in chains, but he's also not free to do what he wants to do. Both men are Christians. Both men are in this moment in a situation in which they don't have freedom. And I think Paul is trying to put that point before Philemon. You're the one man that can do something about this situation. And so he says, I appeal to you. I appeal to you for him. For who? Well, look at that verse. Verse 10. For my son. Now, we often speak about brothers. We talked about this last week, that that term should mean something. We say, hey brother, or hey sister. It pictures the closeness of the church family, and that's a good thing. But here Paul says son, now he does this for a couple of reasons. First of all, to make the point that it's through, he was the means, I should say, that the Lord brought the gospel to Onesimus. And so Paul often speaks in this way, Timothy, my son in the faith, or Titus, my son in the faith. Paul often speaks this way of one who has been spiritually born through his ministry. But there's another reason. He's telling him, I love him like a son. He's dear to me. I care very much for this man. This man who was begotten by the work of the Lord while I was in chains, while I was in this imprisonment I'm currently in under house arrest. This man came to me and the Lord willed it that the gospel reach his heart, change him, and now he's been with me all this time. And he's dear to me. If we didn't realize that, we'll see later in this letter he refers to Onesimus as his own heart. We'll come back to that, but again, the language is vivid and repetitive to tell us that Paul is saying, I care about Onesimus. In a culture that would have said that the slaves and whatever caste that would have been, while certainly humans were less of importance than everybody else, Paul says, he's not less important to me. He's a brother in Jesus Christ to me and he's a son in the faith that God has granted me. And I want you to hear this. It's important that you understand this. I'm going to send him back to you. Now that's really where this letter's going, isn't it? I'm going to send him back. Now this is shocking to everyone who's ever read it. In the modern world, we tend to be shocked that he would send him back, right? We're kind of used to grand displays of, no, you can't go back. And in the early days, people read this, they said, shouldn't be shocking at all that he sends him back, right? It's shocking that Paul had him with him at any time whatsoever. And we didn't get all into that, but I think that Paul may not have fully understood at first that Anasmus was supposed to be back. Anesimus stuck around, kept maybe visiting Paul. He thought he was maybe doing some work for Philemon and then maybe Epaphras or somebody comes and says, oh no, he's way overdue, you know, way overdue. Whatever the case, Paul says, I'm going to send him back. What's amazing in the ancient world is that Paul cared so much about Anesimus. That he would refer to this lowly person by social standing as his son and brother and somebody that he loves and cares about and someone that he thinks should be treated right. That's what's shocking about this. In today's world, many people are shocked that he's sent him back, but Paul has a purpose for doing that. And I think we're gonna see in this text what it is. That there's only one way Onesimus can be free to do what Paul believes that God has called him to do. And that is, serve the Lord in the work of the gospel. And that is for Philemon to free him to that end. Now as we think about this, it's going to bring us to our second point today. And that is going to be this gospel transformation. Because when you look at this letter, you can't help but see it. I mean, we recognize, first of all, that the gospel is a transformative message. The Gospel changes those who hear it, who are moved by the Holy Spirit to recognize its glorious truth and then who are converted by the preaching of the Gospel. It's all about transformation. It transforms individuals. It transforms lives. It transforms communities. The Gospel's powerful. In fact, it takes that which is dead and gives it life. That's the glory or power of the gospel as Paul says. We say this a lot but Paul speaks about that. I don't set aside the gospel for it's the very power of God unto salvation for all who believe. Well in what way is it powerful? Because it takes those who are dead and it gives them life. Those who were formerly dry bones in a valley now are living before the Holy God because they have life given to him through this transformative message. And you see it impact communities. That's really at the heart of this letter. A letter is being written back to an individual saying, here's a member of your community. Maybe you didn't realize that he was a member of the Christian community at Colossae, but he is. He is now. And that ought to change how you deal with him. That ought to transform the way you live with him. Douglas Moo, the great New Testament scholar said that this letter really at its heart is about koinonia or fellowship, community. It's about the people of God and how they are to relate and live together in Christian community. Because the gospel doesn't leave things as they were. So we see that in this text. We see that the gospel has transformed Philemon. Where did that happen? We said last week probably when he was visiting Paul or visiting Ephesus and met Paul, heard the gospel transformed immediately by the justifying power of God and becomes a Christian. And he lives out that Christian life in the Lycaeus River Valley to the glory of God and to the evidence to all that this is a changed life. He already knows that Paul as an apostle of Christ is a Christian. I said that's where he learned about the gospel. But now he's going to hear that Onesimus, too, is a transformed man. A transformed man. He's not what he was. If we say that the power of the gospel is to give life, we see it. We're a new creature in Christ. Onesimus is a new creature in Christ. And we see this here, transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. And where do we see that? Well, look at the text. Even as you look at this, you begin to see something very important in verse 11. Well, actually, we could go before that. We could just return to the point I made a moment ago. He was formerly a slave who had no connection hardly at all to me, Paul could say, but now I call him my son in the faith. That's a transformation of relationship, isn't it? To say, once you were a stranger to me, now you're like a son to me. That's a transformation of the relationship, but it's not just there. Look at verse 11. He, meaning Onesimus, who was once unprofitable to you. Now this is really interesting because the name Onesimus means useful or profitable. Useful or profitable. He says he was once, what? Unprofitable to you. He didn't live up to his name in your estimation, Philemon. Now what does Paul know about this? I don't know. I don't know. We can just kind of read the text and try to figure it out. But it could just simply mean this. He didn't come back when he was supposed to. He's not been profitable to you. He's not been a good servant. He didn't come back. He's cost you money. You found him unprofitable. That could be what it is. Or maybe in all that's happened here, it's been revealed that there's been a lot of stress between Philemon and Onesimus. that Philemon's complained that he can't find anything that Onesimus excels at. Maybe that's what it is. He's been unprofitable for you. He's not been useful for you, Philemon. But praise God, we finally found something he's great at. And that is the ministry and the work of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now that's throughout this letter. But he says, he might have been unprofitable once to you, but I'm telling you, he's profitable to you now and to me. He's shown this profitability. He's shown this usefulness to me. And yet as you look at this, he says, I'm sending him back. As we said, even to you, I'm going to send him back. So receive him. That is my own heart. Something precious, something that's value can't be calculated. I'm sending it back to you, trusting that you will treat him right. And then I want you to hear what Paul says here, because this gets into saying that I think he would be very useful in the ministry. Paul says, whom I wished I could keep with me. This is why I think it must be that Paul has gotten to know Onesimus before he realized his situation, the fullness of his situation, because Paul was very happy to have him around for a long time. Until I think it came to Paul's attention, he's not supposed to be here. And Paul says, oh man, I've enjoyed having this brother with me. I've been refreshed by this brother. I've been helped by this brother. I've had a real brother in arms here with me right next to me while I'm imprisoned. Maybe others I see every once in a while, but Onesimus has been here nearly daily with me. He's given me great joy as I've proclaimed the gospel and explained the scriptures and taught him theology. He's been growing and growing and growing. What a blessing this has been. How glorious this has been. It's been good for me to have this. I wish he could stay. I wish he could stay here if only to minister to me. My friends, you remember, like, I don't know, four or five weeks ago we had a sermon in Acts where Paul had a night of kind of desperation, a night of discouragement, and Luke says in the book of Acts that the Lord came and stood with him. Elsewhere, Paul talks about a later trial than this, to Timothy and says, all abandoned me, none stood with me, but the Lord was with me. Very similar thing, I think. To have someone there with you matters. Now we can know the Lord doesn't abandon us, but when our brothers stand with us too, that's sweet. It's precious. It matters a lot. You know, one of the things that we've talked about for many years about moving to elders is that ability to stand shoulder to shoulder on things. It is easier. When you're the only one standing out there sometimes, it's hard. You do it because it's what you're called to do. But how much easier when you have brothers to stand shoulder to shoulder with you and bear the load. And so my friends recognize this. Paul says, I have been blessed to have this brother with me. I wished I could keep him, that he might be a minister on your behalf, Philemon. In other words, this whole time he's been ministering to me, whether you realized he was or not, God has been accounting that to your account, the credit for it. Because it's been on your behalf. You've been funding it even if you didn't realize it. But I won't keep him. Why? Because without your consent I want to do nothing. Why? I don't want to force your hand. I don't want to make you do a good work. If you're going to do a good work, I want it to be because it's good to do it. Because it honors the Lord. Because it's the right thing to do. I want you to do this because it's voluntary. What is Paul saying here? I don't think he's just talking about Onesimus going home. I think he's saying, I could have kept him here and told you the Lord has use of this man. I've drafted him, as it were, into the Lord's service. And you're just going to have to deal with that Philemon. But he says, no, that wouldn't be fitting. It wouldn't be right. It would be forcing your hand. I'm sending him back to you. I hope you'll receive him right. And then I think what Paul's saying is, I hope you'll send him back to be my helper in the work of the gospel. I'm going to ask you to hold that thought in place for two weeks from now. And we're going to come back after we close this letter to think about what church history tells us about an interesting man named Onesimus. But as we get to thinking about that or thinking about what this tells us today, he says, I hope you'll do this. And then he asked him to think about the providential terms we'll be looking at in a couple of weeks. Perhaps for this reason, he left it all. Maybe all these events were set in motion for this reason. A, that you could do what's fitting in the Lord. And second of all, that you might receive him back now. Not as a slave, but as a brother. I don't know about you, that seems like a pretty good trade, right? I don't know, you know, we have times in our church where people lose their brothers. You know, they'll tell me, oh, my brother just passed away. It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to lose people we love. We think about our brothers and our sisters, our parents, our children, the dearest people that we have to us. And Paul's saying, you're being given the opportunity by God to have lost a worker and receive back a brother. That's a good trade in any book. If you have eyes of faith and grace to see it, Philemon. And Paul says, I believe you do. But if you can see it, you've just made a great trade. Many people would gripe, oh, I've invested so much money in this person and now Paul expects me to just hand him over. Praise God that you get to hand him over. Right? For this reason. First of all, because he's become a brother. And second of all, because God has put you in a position to bless the ministry of the gospel into the world. What a blessing that is. Oftentimes we're trying to figure out what should we do. How can I make a difference? Where can I fund something? What can I get involved in to make a difference for the cause of the gospel? Here it's made plain before Philemon. God has already shown you where it is. Will you do it? Maybe some of you have had an opportunity like that where you knew God's opening a door here, He's showing me something. It's not always easy to step through those things. But if you believe it's God doing it, then we don't really have a question, do we? It ought to be. Then let's get to it. Let's get to the work of the Lord. And so, my friends, when you see this, you see what Paul is saying. You've been given this glorious opportunity to receive back a beloved brother. Not just a brother to me, but a brother to you. And not just in the Lord, even in the flesh. He can be your brother. He can be your friend. Now, I want to say this really quick because it's often said that Paul is never here explicitly saying you should free him. That's true. Paul never explicitly says that. You feel the weight of this is such as that, right, that Paul's saying let him go. Let him go to pursue the gospel, but he probably owns other slaves. Paul nowhere is saying, free all the slaves. It's not a pro-slavery message, as some people try to say. Paul's dealing in his own culture, in his own day, and trying to find ways that the gospel can shine and evidence itself in the world. But it's clear from what Paul says here, this puts a little bit of a damper on the institution of slavery, doesn't it? Are you treating people like brothers? Or like property? I like what F.F. Bruce said about this. He said, while Paul nowhere explicitly commands an end to slavery in this letter, what this letter does provide is an atmosphere in which slavery must both wilt and die. I think that's true when you think about it. You're going to have to do some circles around justifying owning people with the message of this letter. Not a slave, not property, but a brother, a son, a partner in the gospel. And so my friends, as you think about this, this is a key phrase in this entire letter. Once a slave, now a brother in Christ. What a glorious thing that is. And that brings us to our third and final point here, a gracious offer, because Paul doesn't just leave it asking everything to be on Philemon's account. It's easy to do that, isn't it? To say, hey, I'll let you pick up all the cost. You do all the difficult stuff. I'm just asking. Paul doesn't do that. Look at what Paul does. He ends with a gracious offer in verse 17. He says, if you count me as your partner in the gospel, then I'm asking you to do something that you might not want to do at first. I'm asking you to receive him as you would me. Now it doesn't take much of an imagination to think what would Philemon, this great and gracious brother who lets the church meet in his house and does all this for the entire community of Colossae, what would he do if he got word that Paul is coming to the Lycus River Valley? He would say, let's do whatever we can to get Paul to come to Colossae and visit us here. And you know what? I'll put him up in the best room I have, and I'll feed him the best food I have, and I'll open my home for the house church to meet so we can sit under his teaching. We may even throw a banquet in his honor. I want to raise funds. I'll give a large portion of it to help fund him on whatever else he has to do. We will make this the most glorious week you can imagine." I'd say that is very much what Philemon would have done if he heard Paul was coming to Colossae. And Paul says, what you would do for me Would you be willing to do it for Onesimus? I don't think he necessarily means the banquet, but at the very least, if you just strip all that down, can you welcome him? Can you treat him with love and kindness? Can you receive him back? So my friends, when you think about this for a moment, we see now where Paul's really pressing on that grace that he's seen in the life of Philemon. Will you treat him? Well, for one thing, remember this. He's already called him his son. Now, Paul didn't have a son, but if Paul had had a son and he was traveling around, you could imagine he would say, oh, Paul's son's coming to town. Let's put him up. Let's take good care of him. So again, another way of looking at that imagery to say it's fitting that you treat him right as a brother in the gospel. But there's something else at play here. He says, if he has wronged you, or owes you anything, put it on my account. Now, what does this mean? Well, whatever construction that you come up with on what's happening here in the background, you'll piece this together, right? If it's the one that I've given you, then he kept the money that he should have returned on and gotten back to work in Colossae. He kept it and lived on it. And he hasn't been there to work in Colossae. He's been a financial loss to Philemon. Some people think he left Colossae under the cover of night, had robbed Philemon to fund his journey, and that's what's being talked about. It doesn't matter. Paul is saying, it seems to me there might be a hiccup in this reconciliation, and the hiccup is you're hurt or bothered because he's taken something that belongs to you. Any one of those constructions, that's going to be the case under Roman law. And he says, if he owes you something, put it on my account. This is Paul acting very much like his master, isn't he? It's a debt I didn't incur, something I don't owe, but I'll put it on my account and bear it for others. Paul even picks up the pen, and what does he say there? He says, I'm writing this with my own hand. Paul had terrible handwriting, most people think. He says elsewhere, with what large letters I write. He'd been stoned and left for dead. People think that messed up his eyesight and he wasn't able to see, so he had to write in these huge letters. It wasn't a very attractive script. And he says, I'm writing this with my own hand. I will repay. Put it on my account. Put it on my account. Now, it's interesting, isn't it, right after that he says, that you owe me your own self too, Philemon. If we want to get into debt, so I could point out that you owe me even your own self because the Lord used me as a means of grace to bring the gospel to you. Now people think Paul's trying to bully him, you know, hit him over the head with the cudgel to say you have to do this. I don't think that's what Paul's doing here. I think Paul is reminding Philemon and us of what's at the heart of the gospel. A people who did not deserve grace have received grace. Purchased by another. A grace that we could never earn or deserve for ourselves has been purchased for us by another. Given to us by grace by another. And I think he's reminding him of that. Just as I was there when you I heard the gospel message and the Holy Spirit changed your heart and changed your life and you went from dead men's bones to life in Christ. I was there. And so if you want to talk about, I can't forgive Onesimus, he owes me something. You can never calculate what you owed God. And yet he took that upon himself and wiped it out. So my friends, as you think about this just today, I want you to recognize that what's being talked about here is what's at the heart of the gospel. Paul says, I'm sending him back. And that takes a lot of courage on an estimates part. You just have to read what could happen to you in Rome, Roman culture, if you're a runaway slave who comes home. Under the best of circumstances it would be bad. You could be killed. You could be killed. Paul says Onesimus is trusting what I say about you and trusting the letter of intercession that I'm writing to actually go home to you. And I'm trusting you Philemon that you are a man of grace and a man of love. I'm trusting that you can get past your pride, however it may be injured by the events that have happened that we're talking about here. And by the way, you can imagine this whole situation could be very embarrassing for Philemon. I'm asking you to overlook your pride. and do what's right. Receive him back as a brother. Receive him back. And remember, my friends, remember that this is all that the gospel is about, that Christ did this for us. For we're to remember that he didn't reconcile himself. didn't reconcile us to Him, I should say, when we were noble, good, earthbound creatures. He saved us when we were sinners and rebels against His glory, fighting to extinguish, if possible, His glory. Paul says it this way, for when we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in this way, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So I want to close very quickly this way this morning. The gospel speaks of transformation. I believe that's at the heart of this letter along with the idea of koinonia. And he says this all throughout the scriptures, the gospel is a transforming message. Paul says in 2 Corinthians, but we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed. into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. We're being transformed by the grace of God and being conformed to the image of our Savior, which is a glorious truth. So brothers and sisters, I think at the heart of Philemon, the reason it was kept in the canon of scripture for us to read is because it comes down to this. As you have received grace, live in giving grace to others. Or as Jonathan Edwards once wrote, grace is but glory begun and glory is but grace perfected. And all I can add to that is amen.