Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] You're listening to a live recording from Westside church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:07] We're gonna be in Philemon today, part two of Philemon as we walk through this very short letter. And I'm gonna do something that I don't know that we've ever done before. I'm gonna read from this stage the entire book of Philemon. An entire book of the Bible read aloud. Yeah, you guys sound excited. Okay, it's only 25 verses, so here we go. Philemon, starting in verse one. This letter is from Paul, a prisoner for preaching the good news about Christ Jesus. And from our brother Timothy. I'm writing to Philemon, our beloved co worker, and to our sister Apphia, and to our fellow soldier archipelagos, and to the church that meets in your house. May God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. I always thank my God when I pray for you, Philemon, because I keep hearing about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all of God's people. And I'm praying that you will put into action the generosity that comes from your faith as you understand and experience all the good things we have in Christ. Your love has given me much joy and comfort, my brother, for your kindness has often refreshed the hearts of God's people.
[00:01:13] That is why I am boldly asking a favor of you. I could demand it in the name of Christ, because it's the right thing for you to do, but because of our love, I prefer simply to ask you. Consider this as a request from me. Paul, an old man and now a prisoner. For the sake of Christ Jesus, I appeal to you to show kindness to my child Onesimus. I became his father in the faith while here in prison. Onesimus hasn't been much use to you in the past, but now he is very useful to both of us. I am sending him back to you, and with him comes my own heart. I wanted to keep him here with me while I'm in these chains for preaching the good news. And he would have helped me on your behalf. But I didn't want to do anything without your consent. I wanted you to help because you were willing, not because you were forced. So if you're new to this letter you missed last week, Paul the apostle, who has written and started these churches and has written these letters that fill most of our New Testament. He is in prison in Rome, and the church he started in the town of Colossae is now meeting in the house of this wealthy landowner named Philemon. And Philemon is a slaveholder, and one of his slaves evidently named Onesimus, which means useful, has escaped or has run away and has found Paul in Rome. And they've bonded and formed this relationship of father and son, of mentor and mentee. And now Paul has sent Ansimus back with this letter to Philemon, with this appeal to the love that Paul and Philemon have shared.
[00:02:52] I didn't want to do anything with your consent. Verse 14. I wanted you to help because you were willing, not because you were forced. It seems you lost Ansimus for a little while so you could have him back forever. He is no longer a slave to you. He is more than a slave, for he is a beloved brother, especially to me. Now he will mean much more to you, both as a man and as a brother in the Lord. So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. And if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge it to me. Now. Here's verse 19. In your bibles. It might be all in caps. It says this verse 19. I, Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it. And I won't mention that you owe me your very soul.
[00:03:36] This is about as snarky as Paul gets in the New Testament. You know why he does this? You know why he writes with his own handwriting? Because who's delivering the letter? It's onesimus. And whose handwriting is the rest of the letter in onesimuses? A little suspicious, don't you think? When the slave comes back, he's like, here's a letter. I promise you, it's from Paul. And he's saying to let me go.
[00:03:58] And so Paul writes, he's like, dude, this is me. Check it out. I'm serious.
[00:04:04] And by the way, you owe me your very soul. Yes, my brother. Please do this favor for me. For the Lord's sake. Give me this encouragement in Christ. I am confident as I write this letter that you will do what I ask. And even more, make note of that what I ask and even more. One more thing. Please prepare a guest room for me, for I'm hoping that God will answer your prayers and let me return to you soon. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings. So do mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my coworkers. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Come on. We did it. We read the entire book of Philemon aloud.
[00:04:47] Let's pray this morning. Lord, we thank you for this picture of what may seem obvious to us today. But all those decades, millennia ago, was such a challenge to the norms of that society and culture. And we pray that in the same way you would challenge our norms, that you would challenge what is the status quo in our hearts and our lives, that we would go beyond the minimum into what you are calling us to. In the name and the love of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen.
[00:05:19] Paul is, with his feisty letter, if I can say it that way, challenging Philemon to do more than he is currently doing now. Philemon is probably thinking, Paul, if anyone should get some credit for investing a lot in what God is doing through his church, it should be me. I'm opening my house. And this is not once a week, Sunday kind of meetings. In the earliest days of the church, churches would meet every single day, and they would share meals every single day. So Philemon has turned over his property for this church to essentially live with him every single day. He is providing not only space, but likely food and the ingredients for these meals that would be served every single day. If anyone is doing the hard work for the sake of the gospel, it's Philemon.
[00:06:15] And so when Philemon receives this letter from Paul, Paul is starting out by saying, I'm so grateful for your generosity. I'm so grateful for the way that you've responded to what God is doing in your city in Colossae.
[00:06:30] But I'm going to ask you for one more thing, and I wonder oftentimes I think we have this question, is what I am doing in my faith? Is it enough?
[00:06:42] Am I okay with God? Am I doing the right things for God to be pleased and happy with me?
[00:06:52] There was a teacher of the law that came to Jesus in Matthew, chapter 22.
[00:06:57] And he came to Jesus to ask essentially that same question.
[00:07:02] Is it enough to follow the commandments? And what is the greatest commandment? That if we miss this, we've missed everything. And Jesus responded to him in Matthew 22, and he says, the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And then the second greatest is just like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:07:21] Well, he shares this, and then a few weeks go by, Jesus is sitting at the last supper with his disciples around the table. And in John, let's see, John, chapter 13, he says, I'm gonna give you a new commandment, disciples.
[00:07:39] This new commandment I give to you, that you would love one another just as I have loved you. That's the way you're gonna love each other now.
[00:07:47] So he ups the ante on the way that we express love, the greatest commandment is to love God with everything we got and to love each other the same way we love ourselves. But then he ups it and he says, don't just love people the way that you love yourself. Love people the way that I have loved you, with a kind of love that is nothing short of supernatural, something that will take a pure gift of grace from the presence of God. Love this way.
[00:08:20] Esau Macaulay, who has taught and written extensively on the book of Philemon, he said that when Paul writes to Philemon, he is calling Philemon not to think of the christian minimum, but the christian maximum.
[00:08:35] How oftentimes do we look for what is the bare minimum of what I have to do to be okay?
[00:08:42] Paul would say, you've done so much, and I so appreciate your love and heart and generosity towards what God is doing. And now I'm gonna ask something bold. I want you to go beyond what is legally required into the territory of what love requires.
[00:08:58] What love requires.
[00:09:01] Ben shared this last week that we really wish in this letter, Paul would speak up for abolition of slavery. We wish that he would speak loudly and clearly to the institution of slavery, which was, of course, present in that day, in the first century, and would stay present through many cultures, and indeed is present today around the world. We wish that Paul would speak up and say, this has to end.
[00:09:29] And yet, what Paul does, even though he doesn't speak up for abolition in his letters, what he is doing in this moment, in the earliest form of the early church, he is speaking that there will be a different way of how we engage with one another inside the church. And I will tell you this, that if we want to enact change in the greater society around us, if we want to see walls come down and reconciliation happen and restoration of relationships, if we want to see those walls come down out there, we have to understand that first God is gonna bring those walls down in here, okay?
[00:10:06] So we can't yell at the culture around us unless at first we look and say, Holy Spirit, we are humble enough to invite your work to break down walls and barriers to the gospel that are happening within our community and our families and our relationships. Come on, now.
[00:10:24] And so Paul is doing this. He is doing what to us is a no brainer. Like, yeah, of course, release this slave. But in their day and in their culture, this was absolutely cutting against the order of things. And this is what the gospel that Jesus announced will do. It will cut against the regular order of things.
[00:10:44] And even in our time, in our day, the things that we just take for granted as the way things are, the gospel comes to level the playing field and take those at the top and bring them down and raise up the lowly until we realize, like he said in Colossians, Colossians, chapter three. Paul would write to the same church and he would say, in this new life, it doesn't matter if you are jew or gentile, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave or free. Christ is all that matters.
[00:11:15] In the first century, Paul is declaring this radical idea that now the slaves are equal to the masters, now the women are equal to the men. Now the widows and orphans are equal to those who have the most successful, affluent families. Come on, everybody is equal because christ now is all that matters.
[00:11:37] And I want to, with all apologies to whoever in your life, told you that, you know, if you were nice to your brother growing up, that you get a bigger mansion in heaven. That's really bad theology. Right?
[00:11:52] You'll get another jewel in your crown. Well, thanks, grandma, but that's not good bible. All right.
[00:11:59] Is my grandma here today?
[00:12:01] Is she? Where are you, grandma? I want to say hello. This is Mary Jo, ear worker. This is my grandma, and she's in the building today.
[00:12:12] I think it's been a while since I've given you a shout out. I was thinking about you today because I remember as a little kid going with you, and you were helping put on the good news club, and I think it was at Bear Creek elementary when I visited with you. And we sat in, it was like an old airstream trailer, some kind of trailer outside of Bear Creek elementary. And you would welcome little kids in after school to learn about Jesus and sing Jesus loves me. And what a beautiful picture of loving Jesus and letting that just extend out in sacrificial ways. I love you, grandma, and I'm so glad you're here. Yeah.
[00:12:50] And I would not recommend taking your airstream outside of elementary schools, except for grandma. Okay? She's the only one that should do that.
[00:13:02] Paul is calling Philemon. And through this letter, all of us, to not look for what is the minimum that my faith requires, but to say what is the maximum that I can give, what is the maximum I can extend in forgiveness and love and compassion and mercy.
[00:13:22] There was a interior design trend, I guess you would call it, a few years back, that was very popular. And my wife and I leaned into this minimalism. Have you seen this, like this scandinavian style minimalism? Where you have very few things out, right? So your counters are clear, and there's very few knick knacks, and it's very sleek and streamlined. And so we spent several years really trying to figure out what is the bare minimum we need to keep this kind of aesthetic going. And so we took a lot of things to goodwill. And then one day, I don't know when it happened, but one day, Alyssa comes through the door with a bag from target, and in that bag are knickknacks and candles and little things. And I thought, what are we doing? She said, well, minimalism's out. Maximalism is it?
[00:14:15] And so onto the shelves, and we got candles for days, and then wallpaper went, what's going on? Well, we switched from minimalism to maximalism.
[00:14:24] And I want to make a case, not for a design aesthetic today, but I want to make a case that we need both minimalism and maximalism in our faith, that we need to minimalize those things that are so easy to create clutter in our lives, like unforgiveness and resentment, things that come in to threaten our ability to exist in relationship with one another. And by the way, relationship is tough. No one said it isn't.
[00:14:51] We need to minimize those things that hold onto us and keep us in their clutches. And we need to maximalize and become maximalists in the ways that we love and extend mercy to one another and to the world around us.
[00:15:05] In fact, I saw just this month, I'm not making this app on TikTok. There's this trend called fridge scaping.
[00:15:12] It's exactly what it sounds like. People are decorating the insides of their fridges. People. We're talking framed portraits, fresh cut floral arrangements. Not like they're going to come out and be on the table. No, they're going to live their entire lives inside that fridge.
[00:15:29] This is absurd. The world has lost its mind. How do people have this kind of time? How. How do people have this room in their fridge? I have so many questions.
[00:15:43] We need to start thinking, not what is the minimum that the law requires, but what is the maximum that love is asking of me.
[00:15:52] This is the way that Jesus lived. This is the way that Jesus modeled what he came to do.
[00:15:59] In fact, he would stand in a synagogue early on in his ministry, and he quote from the prophet Isaiah about himself. He would say, the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.
[00:16:20] You want to know who God has sent his son to reach and to save and to reconcile to the poor. It's the brokenhearted, it's the captives, and it's the prisoners.
[00:16:31] And many times we like to make that all metaphorical. But to be honest, Jesus was speaking on behalf of those who were actually physically in those scenarios. Those who were in prison, those who were captive and enslaved, those who had broken hearts and had lost hope, those who were poor. Jesus came to reach them.
[00:16:54] And so here we are, you know, thousands of years later, and Jesus message and his heart for us would cut through centuries of time and say to us today, I still care about the least of these in your world.
[00:17:10] I still care about the poor and the broken heart of those without hope, and I'm sending you to love.
[00:17:20] It's very interesting the way that Jesus flips everything on its head and takes what is a cultural norm, and he turns it upside down.
[00:17:28] Oftentimes, what we find in unhealthy, whether it's organizations or governments or relationships, whether those are dictators or cult leaders, even bad bosses, corrupt religious leaders, they all do the same thing, which is they find people who have very little and very little rights. And they say, now, whatever rights you have left, I want you to give those to me to increase my power.
[00:17:52] When Jesus comes and begins to preach about the coming of the kingdom of heaven, what he actually does is he goes to powerful people and he says, here's what love is gonna require of you. It's gonna require that you give up your rights not to somebody more powerful than you, but to give up your rights for the sake of the least of these.
[00:18:10] And this is always the gospel's request, is that those of us with power lay it down for the sake of love.
[00:18:18] We see this in Philippians, chapter two, where Paul writes so memorably about the nature of what Jesus came to do. And he said, listen, Jesus, who was in very nature goddess, he decided that that wasn't something to hold on to. And he made himself nothing.
[00:18:36] He took on the nature of a servant, and he gave everything.
[00:18:41] Everything.
[00:18:44] And this is the kind of posture that Christ invites us into, even as Paul invited Philemon into, is to not do what he had the legal right to do, but instead do what love was requiring.
[00:19:00] What would our church look like if all of us, even half of us, motivated by the extravagant love that we've been given, gave by that same measure?
[00:19:13] I want you to just literally, like, think about it for a second.
[00:19:18] What thing are you holding on to in your life or your relationships that you have every right to hold on to?
[00:19:25] That love would come today and say, I'm not asking for what is legally your right. I'm asking for what love requires, because you've received a love that is deep and wide and extravagant and without measure.
[00:19:42] God's love will always push us to action on behalf of those who we have a right to feel better than above and in control of. And yet we are asked by the gospel and by the love that we've received to live a different way. Oftentimes we've said that love without action is dead.
[00:20:05] It echoes the book of James where James says, faith without action is dead. We believe the same thing about love. Love without action is dead.
[00:20:13] A theoretical or intellectual love doesn't do much until we act it out. But I would say this today as well. Action without love is pretty worthless, too.
[00:20:24] Paul would talk about this in his famous passage on love. He said, listen, I can do all the things. I can have all the skills. I can accomplish all the stuff, but if I don't have love, I'm nothing.
[00:20:36] And so the call for us as a community of faith, who we profess that we follow in the way of Jesus, is to put into action this kind of love. And this is something that we can't just, you know, send you home with a checklist. I wish it was that easy. I wish I was so persuasive today that this would motivate you to only act in love and to call people in your life whom you're estranged from and to release people from debts that they owe you. I wish I was so persuasive that these words would do that for you. I don't know that they will.
[00:21:12] So instead, what I'm asking for is that the Holy Spirit would come, that you'd experience something so rich of God's presence and his love that it would stir something in our hearts to live this out.
[00:21:23] We only love because we've been loved. I love this old quote by Antoine Dusan, exupery. Apologies to the French for that pronunciation.
[00:21:35] He wrote, if you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
[00:21:48] So no checklist today, but an appeal that you would experience something of God's love. And from that place, even as Pastor Josh was talking about with the high schoolers today, from that place of experiencing the overwhelming love of God, that we would live a different way, not asking what laws we must follow to accomplish the minimum that our faith requires, but to ask, what does love require?
[00:22:21] 70 years ago to the day, we were in this town, our church, not we, of course, I wasn't there, but planning for the launch of what would become this church 70 years ago in 1954. And I know this, that the small group of people that gathered around the family that came up from California as church planners to plant this church would certainly have been praying for those that would come and to hear about the love of God for them. And I don't know if they envisioned this kind of church. I don't know if they walked through the doors today or were wheeled in. They'd be very, very old.
[00:23:06] I don't know if they would have said, yeah, that's what we were praying for. They might be like, whoa, this is much crazier than we ever thought.
[00:23:15] I don't know that they were praying for a big building and lights and all this stuff. I don't think they were praying for that. But I know this. They would have been praying that many, many, many might come to know Jesus because of the way that this community would love people.
[00:23:30] And so what am I proud of as a leader in this church? After 70 years in this community, am I proud of the big events we've done? Sure, those are great. Am I proud of the kind of church that we. That we've become in the city and are known for our generosity? Of course, that. But I am so, so proud to be in a church that has loved well for 70 years and a church that has welcomed tens of thousands of people through its doors to hear that they are loved unconditionally by God.
[00:23:59] And so what do I want for the next 70 years of this church? Man, I hope.
[00:24:03] I hope above all else that we would be known by the way that we love, because Jesus said, that's the way they're gonna know you're my disciples.
[00:24:13] That's the only way, is because you are loving like I have loved.
[00:24:21] So this takes courage.
[00:24:24] I think oftentimes we love with a lot of caution, and I want to challenge us as we close in just a few moments here. I want to challenge us that we need to begin to love without caution.
[00:24:41] We live very insulated lives historically. I mean, throughout world history, we've never had more things that keep us safe and far from harm. Right.
[00:24:53] The thing is, when it comes to the way that. That we follow after Jesus, what it requires is risk.
[00:25:00] And if you're like me and you kind of are a little bit risk adverse, and you want to make sure all your. All your eventualities and possibilities are covered and that there's a good chance of success in everything you do, and nothing's too dangerous.
[00:25:12] You're going to struggle with Jesus because he's like, let's just go. You know, like caution to the wind. We're going to love people like there's no tomorrow. And so I want to ask you this.
[00:25:23] Ask the question today. What does love require of us? If the answer that you hear back is something that doesn't require any courage, if it's. If it's an answer that doesn't require any discomfort, if it's an answer that keeps you safely in the space where you've always been, I want you to ask the question again.
[00:25:42] Because for Philemon and for Evan and for you, what love requires is that we step out of our comfort zone for the sake of those that Jesus loves a great deal more. Failure is a result of an excess of caution and a bold experimentation with new ideas. The frontiers of the kingdom of God were never advanced by men and women of caution.
[00:26:08] And so that's my challenge today for us church. Come on, let's love. Without all of these safeguards and pieces of pieces of caution that keep up the barriers between people and the love of God expressed through us, that this would be the story of our church in the decades and years ahead. Would you pray with me? Lord Jesus, we thank you.
[00:26:35] That when we were far away from you, Paul would say, when we were still sinners, that you came to for us, you died for us, so that we might know the great love of God for each of us in this place. I pray that we would love well, that we would love to the maximum, that we would set aside caution for the sake of the least of these, and that today we would start by experiencing for ourselves how deeply and unconditionally we are loved by you with your eyes closed. Still, I just want to ask for anyone here in this room, you have not known the love of God for you. You have been skeptical that God could love you, maybe.
[00:27:29] But today you want to step in and receive and experience this unconditional love of God for you. If you want that for maybe the first time, would you raise your hand right now? Just look up at me real quickly. You can put it back down.
[00:27:44] Just saying, I want to know the love of God for me.
[00:27:51] Just give a moment. Raise your hand.
[00:27:54] Yeah.
[00:27:56] Lord, for those needing to experience your love today, we just pray like a warm coat on a cold day. They would know that they are received and accepted and loved by you, Jesus.
