This transcript was generated automatically and may contain minor errors.

When I was 14, I was at my friend's house, and we went somewhere. He was old enough to drive. I don't even remember where we went now. We went to do something, and he had a friend that we met that we weren't supposed to be meeting. We got back to his house, and his mother began questioning him.

He was actually quite troubled as a kid looking back. There was quite a few problems. But we were friends, and I spent time with him. And the discussion went back and forth and back and forth, and he promised his mom he had not met this kid. And then she looked at me and said, you're the preacher's son.

You'll tell the truth. Well, I didn't. I knew I was gonna get caught. But when you're 14, sometimes your limbic system isn't working quite well, and you make decisions that are not very rational. And I wanted to not sell out my friend in the moment standing there in some ways.

My friend and his mother both put me in a fairly unfair position, again, looking back at the scenario. But for the next few days, I was just waiting the call for her to tell my mom that I had lied to her. That was an awkward few days. It's awkward knowing you're going to have a confrontation. You know the conversation's coming.

Maybe you upset somebody or you said something that it didn't come out the way you meant to, and you know you need to go apologize. And so you ask to meet for coffee or to get lunch or whatever the scenario is, and you dread the next twenty four to forty eight hours wondering how that conversation's gonna go. Now imagine Onesimus traveling likely from Rome probably took him a month or more bearing this letter the entire time, knowing he's headed back to have this meeting likely with a person he never wanted to see again and probably thought he wouldn't see again. It's possible that he ran to Paul. There is a part of Roman law, amicus domini, where you could go to the master's friend.

Maybe there was some kind of problem or difficulty, and you go to the master's friend to seek help. There's evidence of this happening in antiquity. And so it's possible that Onesimus is doing that. We aren't really sure how he encounters Paul. That's another discussion.

I don't think Onesimus, most likely a runaway slave, was just hitting up prison to prison while he's in Rome. He probably would like to stay as far away from authorities as possible knowing the difficulties that come with being caught. And yet he finds his way into the presence of Paul. And through his interactions with Paul, he learns the gospel. His life is changed forever.

He's transformed from a person who had been useless to now someone who Paul says is useful not only to Philemon, but for Paul's purposes of the gospel. And Paul didn't just let anybody travel with him. He was particular. In fact, you may remember, he gets in an argument with Barnabas about traveling companions. He didn't want just anyone on these trips with him because the work was arduous.

And there was a lot asked from the people who but he says that Onesimus is someone that could work with him. That's the kind of person that Onesimus has become in his time with Paul. At some point along the way, Paul likely discussing with Onesimus. And Paul, we're gonna see as we talk about him tomorrow night, he deals very gently, I think, with both Philemon and Onesimus in this entire scenario. He doesn't give us the rundown of all the details.

He doesn't tell us everything that's happened between them. Maybe that's a lesson in and of itself that he didn't need to do that. He was able to deal with the issue without telling everybody everything that's going on. But what we do know is at some point, decision is made, I think, by both of them that Onesimus needs to go back. He needs to go back to Colossae.

I am certain that's not something he was eager to do or excited about. This is a scenario like I presented to you a minute ago where you know this is gonna be difficult. You're hoping it's gonna go well, but you have no guarantee going to go well. And in fact, under Roman law, this could go horribly bad for Onesimus. Philemon was within his rights to execute a slave that had dereliction of duty, had not been doing what he was supposed to do.

Probably not was gonna be the case, but it was within the realm of possibility that Onesimus has to consider that his master could be harsh with him because he had done something costly to him. He had damaged him or hurt him in some way, and now he was going back into his presence. Paul says, I'm sending him back to you. Whatever the situation is, it was decided that now Onesimus needs to go back. He needs to confront Philemon.

And because now they're brothers in Christ, their fellowship mattered so much that this problem needed to be ironed out and taken care of. Philemon teaches us the importance of mercy and forgiveness. Right? At the instruction of Paul and the gentle guiding, this is what he's encouraging, that you receive Onesimus just as you would receive me. But what we see in Onesimus is the importance of extreme humility.

Going to great lengths, going to measures that are uncomfortable, that we don't want to take, that are the exact opposite emotionally of what we would like to be doing because we know it's the right thing to do. And most of all, what we're gonna see and what we understand in all of this is that preserving fellowship, particularly when there is conflict or confrontation that's a part of this, or I have wronged somebody because that's this is what we're seeing from the perspective of Onesimus is that despite all the circumstances and there might be a variety of them that's part of this scenario, it's usually not super simple. Onesimus has wronged Philemon in some way, and so we're learning from this perspective, what do I do when I've wronged somebody? What do I do when I'm in the wrong? And the very simple answer, what we're gonna see tonight is what is expected and what we need to do is we need to own our failures.

And I want us to understand this phrase, this concept, Christians fix their problems. God's people, followers of Jesus, they don't just leave things hanging. They don't just not address issues and not go take care of the problem and exist for months or years with essentially a cold war where we sit on different sides of the auditorium and we never talk and we're just okay with that being the scenario. That's not how God's people should act. And we looked some of that this morning and talk talking about reflecting the heart of God and being like him.

But the basic concept here, when we're talking about either the side of forgiveness with Philemon or the side of Onesimus as we're doing tonight with humility and owning our failures, the reality is we should be the kind of people who fix the conflicts and the problems in our life. Humility, first of all, involves being willing to take the first step. Now every conflict is different. This is one where you can Philemon, in this scenario, can't really take the first step. There's a lot of situations and conflicts where we both know there's a conflict.

We both know we're at odds, and we're sort of just waiting each other out. And I just bring this up because this is one where that's not really the case. Onesimus is somewhere else. What is Philemon to do? I mean, I guess he could send out a search party and go try to find Onesimus and try to force all of this to happen, and maybe he did try to find him.

Apparently, he didn't, and he didn't know where he was. In this scenario, the onus was on Onesimus actually to take the first step. But I want us to see in scripture that scripture's always pointing us toward the reality that we should be moving toward reconciliation. It's not okay again just to sit off onto the sides and be happy with conflict. That is not the solution, and that does not produce peace.

It is not resolution. That is being satisfied with dysfunction. And as we talked about this morning, we're a family, and we should not be satisfied as being a dysfunctional family. Christians fix their problem even when it's difficult, even when it's uncomfortable. And so before Philemon can actually receive Onesimus, we looked at that picture this morning.

Onesimus shows up on a Sunday morning. Philemon probably had no idea he was coming. I mean, he's coming from somewhere else in the world. He travels a lengthy time, and then he's there. And that's difficult.

Philemon, in that moment, now has to figure out what he's gonna do. Onesimus is almost the exact opposite scenario. He is on this journey for days and days and days, probably sweating what this is gonna be like. And so just picture what it's like being in Onesimus' sandals as he's making his way into Colossae, getting closer and closer to the house, and he's dreading more and more what this interaction is gonna be like. It's not easy.

That's my point. And I don't think Paul said, you know, Onesimus, this is gonna be really fun and easy for you to do this. I'm excited for you. This would be a great trip. No.

Sometimes we do what we do despite the reality that it's not comfortable. We have to decide that we're going to take the first step. Whoever decides that does so because they have decided that relationships matter, and they matter enough to take action even when it's not comfortable. Jesus and his teaching actually deals with both sides of this. I referenced earlier that it doesn't really matter if you're the one who's wronged or you're the one who's in the wrong.

We can go to different parts of Jesus' teaching. We already looked at Matthew 18 this morning, and there, you see somebody else that's in the wrong and you go to him. Right? You notice something's not right. They've sinned or they've sinned against you.

And so you're aware of this, and you say, we need to take care of this. But, you know, there's the other side of that as well in Matthew five. When he's talking about going to the altar, making your offering, and there, you remember that someone has something against you. And I thought many times I've preached on this passage or I've brought this up and my point, which I think is still a valid point, was always, know, relationships and fellowship is so important that it's more important even than worship in this moment. So he's supposed to leave this offering, and he's supposed to go take care of this.

And all of that is true, but it never hit me until I was working through this that this is actually the other side of the scenario. And what he's saying is you realize that someone has something against you. It's the other side of this. Go. It doesn't matter which scenario you're in.

Who's supposed to go first? Yes. Whoever realizes it. Whoever has finally come to their senses and recognize that fellowship is more important than whatever this squabble is that we have or whatever offense, and we need to take care of it now. And this is not the only scenario even that Paul deals with.

You remember the letter to Philippi. This congregation that has helped him in so many ways, and he gets to chapter four and he tells this true companion, and we don't know who this is. He says, hey. You need to help these two women get back together, and there's nothing there that's about doctrinal issues or anything like that. So likely, it's just some kind of personal issue that hasn't been resolved.

And he says, hey, go in there and help them get this worked out so they can work together again for the purposes of the kingdom. This is not just some isolated problem in Colossae. It's not just a problem that's in Colossae and Philippi. Most of us have probably seen problems like this at some point between two people, interpersonal issues, problems within a congregation, or people have disagreements or differences of opinion, and great problems come about often because things are not handled the way we've been talking about. There's a lot of pride.

There's a lot of stubbornness, unwillingness to listen, and the problem becomes magnified more and more. We'll come back to that Wednesday night. But what I want us to see here is that scripture's pointing us towards the importance of reconciliation. Rather, we are whether we are wronged by someone or whether we are in the wrong ourselves. Go.

Try to take care of this problem. It is that important. And so in doing this, Jesus really eliminates what is one of our favorite kinds of excuses. You know, if they really wanted to fix this, they would come talk to me. But, of course, they could say the exact same thing.

Right? And so it's this standoff that exists. This cold war where everyone sits on their side and no one ever moves, take the first step. If we really care about unity and fellowship the way Jesus wants us to, if we care about it the way Paul wants us to as he's writing here, we realize if we see something that off, amiss, humility means we will be willing to take that step even if we're not sure how it's gonna go, even if it's uncomfortable for us. Do we see this in Onesimus?

I mean, he left what probably was a decent situation now in Rome. He's with the apostle Paul. He's helping him. Paul has converted in there. He learned the gospel there.

He probably has relationships there now. And Paul says, you gotta go back. There's probably quite a few of you here this evening. Maybe you grew up here or maybe you moved here and you learned the gospel. Or maybe you knew the truth, but you committed yourself in a way that is substantial.

And maybe it was because of the efforts of someone here. Maybe brother Harold talked to you and helps you or Reagan or one of the other elders or there's a deacon or one of the ladies here who who's out working and trying to help you. Maybe one of them contacted you and taught you the gospel. They helped you turn your life around in a substantial way by the power of Jesus Christ, and things are good. But what if brother Harold came to you and said, you know, I know your life from the past.

And I know you wronged somebody and you owe them a lot, and the right thing to do is to sell your house and to go back to this other place you came from, some other state, some other place because you need you need to go take care of this issue. Would that be comfortable? Do you see that's what Onesimus is doing? I mean, that is a substantial step that he takes. I wish I could have heard those conversations between Paul and Onesimus.

But what I know is that Paul is is pushing him to do the right thing. No matter how difficult or uncomfortable the whole scenario was, he's saying, you know, Onesimus, you need to go back. Take the first step. And in this case, it was gonna have to be him who went first. And if you're in a scenario where there's difficulty maybe in your blood family or in your spiritual family, it may be on you.

It's the one who recognizes there's some issue to decide you're gonna take the step that's gonna at least try to help this problem. You may be rejected. They may not be interested, but none of that changes the reality that it's the right thing to do. And Onesimus has no guarantee that when he shows up in Colossae on that Sunday and he hands Philemon the letter that it's all gonna go well. He has no idea.

And yet he still makes this journey back. Because Christians fix their problem. And now Onesimus is a follower of Jesus Christ. So I want us to understand that part of what we have to do here and major part of what we have to do in terms of fixing problems and conflict is having the willingness to take the first step. But secondly, we have to be willing to own our failures.

That sounds super simple. A lot of what we're gonna talk about over these few days sounds really easy, but it is so much more difficult in reality. Sometimes we're willing to take the first step, but what do we wanna do when we get there? Fight. Oh, maybe we did something wrong.

You know, we're not gonna deny that we made a mistake or there was some kind of error or we could have done it better, but we sure are gonna load the bullets in our gun. And if we're gonna take some hits, they're gonna take some hits too. We're gonna point out the things that they did. And if I'm gonna look bad and people are gonna say things about me, I'm gonna make sure that they get some things said about them too. And so just like we talked about character proceeding procedure this morning, it's similar in this.

Taking the first step is great as long as we actually go with the right intention. As long as our goal is to then go and repair the relationship and to admit our part and not just to make sure that everyone knows we clear the air and make sure everybody knows what really happened. Isn't that the temptation? Defend ourselves. Make sure everybody's aware of just exactly what happened to me and why I did this.

And so the goal then isn't really to admit what I've done. It is to justify it. And so owning my part means saying I was wrong, not I was wrong, but I mentioned this morning that a lot of this actually connects to marriage advice, and I will stand by that. So much of this, what we're talking about in Philemon and what I'm gonna talk about, you could apply directly to marriage. Is isn't this the temptation in marriage when we're having a discussion and we kinda we'll give way a little bit.

Yeah. I did that. But if you've been married long enough, you've learned to stop that because it doesn't go so well for either one of you. Right? It never actually gets to resolution.

Right? Everybody just still leaves angry and upset and frustrated. And doesn't it go so much better when we learn to just say, I was wrong? And when we do that, we're not saying they weren't wrong about anything, but what we're doing is we're owning our mistakes. We're taking ownership of our wrongdoings.

One of the things I'm actually I'm going to a marriage retreat when I get home. This I'm getting home late Wednesday night, and then Thursday, I'm going straight to a marriage retreat. We've gone every year forever, and it's been great. In fact, going through things with Xander, it was a lifesaver that we had spent time talking about things like this. Right?

Taking ownership of our our mistakes, realizing the importance of that, and not trying to blame others in the process. And what I what I want us to see here, this point here in the bottom, this is a marriage point. I cannot fix my spouse. I can't do it. You can't fix your spouse.

I can only fix myself, and you can only fix yourself. And as long as we're trying to fix our spouse, it's all going to go horribly wrong. That's I was wrong, but over and over and over again. That's rather than taking ownership of my part, I'm always trying to fix the other person. Right?

And so that's true in marriage, but it's also true in life. It's true in what we're dealing with here in a scenario like this. We if Onesimus comes back and he's like, you know, I did do some wrong things wrong, but Philemon, you were cruel and harsh, and you shouldn't have treated me like that. No. He just shows up.

Paul says, if he's done wrong, put it on my account. The two of you need to work this out and get back together. When we do that, when we use I was wrong, but you, there's different things that are happening here. We're justifying ourselves. We're saying, yeah.

I did wrong, but here's why I did it. Don't you understand? Doesn't it make sense? Or we're trying to sanitize it, trying to make it a little bit cleaner. Yeah.

But you are just way overreacting. This is not that big of a deal. You're really upset about this, and this really wasn't all that bad. That's just how you are. You know, you overreact to things.

Don't try this. It goes really poorly. Or we're trying to rationalize why we did what we did. You know, I was wrong, but you would have done that too if I did that to you. And you see how this works and why it all kind of becomes horribly wrong as we go through this?

It sounds kinda like we're trying to take ownership, but, actually, we're not. We're trying to shift the blame on somebody else. We're trying to justify or sanitize or rationalize why it is we made this decision, why it is we hurt them or we damage something or cause some kind of problem. I was wrong, but there's all these extenuating circumstances that really help you understand why I did this wrong thing, and so maybe we should just move past it and not think about it so much. Don't dismiss the wrongs that you've done.

That's what we learned from the story of Onesimus. I'm sure he was tempted. You know, Paul, why don't we just send a letter? We'll let somebody else bring it. I can apologize to Philemon.

I'll stay here and help you. It'll be great. And we can all move on and be happy in life. Isn't that the temptation? But the problem is that doesn't really actually confront the issue.

It tries to sidestep it. It tries to dismiss it like it wasn't really that bad, and we don't really have to fix it. Let's just move on. And what happens in these scenarios is we end up debating who is more wrong. You know, maybe I was wrong, but the things you did were worse than mine.

And who does this help? Christians fix their problems, they take ownership of the failures, of the sins, of the mistakes in their life. And let's not imagine that everything was Onesimus' fault. That is just rarely the case. We don't know all the details, how everything happened, and there's probably some clarity here that certainly Onesimus hurt Philemon.

But if he was consider this. If he was running to Paul, why? Why would he run to Paul to try to get some help in this scenario if everything was just his fault? Now maybe it was. Maybe he was just an unruly bond servant, didn't wanna do his job.

Those scenarios happen. But often, there's other sides of this where we clearly know because of the words of Paul that Philemon considered him useless. Why is that? Is that accurate, or is this Philemon's attitude about Onesimus? Paul doesn't say he was useless, but you considered him useless.

You thought he was useless, and he's doing a little play on words here. Actually, there's potentially multiple play on words going on here. The word that's used here is achrestos, which is a synonym of Onesimus' name. Onesimus' name means useful. And so Paul is using a synonym in Greek to say he was useless, achrestos, and then now he's useful, euchrestos.

And maybe you can hear as I'm saying this that it actually sounds a lot like the word christos. So, potentially, he's saying he was without Christ. He was achrestos, and now he is well in Christos. He's a good servant. Right?

Who knows? That's a kind of an iffy thing, but it is interesting that the word sounds like the word Christ when it's said out loud. And it does fit the scenario that that he was the one who was outside of Christ, and now he has been transformed. Now he's in Christ. He's made this change, and that changes the whole scenario.

And it probably changes dynamically the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus in a very big way. Was Philemon frustrated with Onesimus because of the way he acted? And did he lash out? And you think, well, he wouldn't do that. I mean, he's a Christian.

Is that a year experience in life? That Christians always act the right way and always do the right things and always treat people right. Just think about it. We don't know. But I'm just saying from a human standpoint, from the human condition and the way we act, even as God's people, whether this is the scenario or not with Philemon or Onesimus, we can consider this ourselves.

Maybe we are on the side that has been hurt, that has been offended, but what part did we potentially play in that? That's what I'm asking. Can I, in humility, ask, did I participate in this in some way? And you know what's interesting about this? And maybe you've experienced this.

If you're old enough, you probably have. If we go into this and we say, I was wrong, and we don't say, I was wrong, but we just say, I was wrong, and we admit our sins, or we admit our failures, or we admit our lack of perspective. What comes from that often? The other person says, you know, maybe I didn't handle this that well either. And so instead of bucking up in pride, you know, yeah, but you did this and then or no.

No. But you did that, and now we have this competition where everybody's shooting their bullets at each other. Instead, in humility, I say, I'm sorry. I did the wrong thing. No excuses.

You know, that opens the door then not only for them to forgive you, but to say, you know, I appreciate your humility and your heart and, you know, I probably didn't do the right thing too. Do we see how that scenario plays out so much better? When we mimic the heart of god and we have mercy and grace and we are willing to forgive, but also we are people of integrity and honesty and rather than trying to defend our sins and buck up against the accusations of others, we just admit when we've done wrong. And we say, you're right. I didn't do the right thing, and I'm sorry.

That then opens the door for really good things to happen. I do wanna make an important clarification here, and I do think this is extremely important. What I am not advocating and what I don't mean by this point of taking responsibility for your mistake and for your sins is that you actually accept blame for things you did not do. Let me clarify that a little bit more. That does not mean that we roll over and we appease bullies.

People who accuse us of things that aren't true and are saying things about us that aren't true, and we just say, you know, you're right. That that is that's false humility. For one thing, it's not true. And so what I'm not saying is we allow bullies to bully us into saying I was wrong when we didn't do the thing they're saying we did. So that's an important clarification here.

And the message is not to confess sins or wrongs that are not real, just to keep the peace. And let me say very pointedly, leaders do not let people do this. It will undermine their respect for you. If you say, you know, just go apologize. Just go say you're sorry even though you didn't even do this.

We just they get a little worked up. You know, let's just try to make them happy, and we'll we'll get through this fake peace is what that is. That is not real resolution. What that person really needs leaders is to be rebuked for their behavior. And what they desperately need is someone to stand up to them and say, stop being a bully and own your mistakes.

And so while I am very much advocating the importance of humility and admitting our wrongs, At the same time, that does not mean we just say we're sorry about things we didn't do so that we can just move on as if nothing happened. When really, the bully or the person that's wrong is trying to push this and shift the blame onto other people. That is not what Jesus is teaching. It's not what Paul is teaching, and it's not what I'm pulling out of this passage. So I think it's important to clarify that as we're working through what's going on here.

But what this does mean is that we're refusing to use someone else's wrong as an excuse to justify our own. So what this does mean is I can't say, well, yeah, I did wrong, but you did more wrong and so it's okay. No. Christians fix their problems. And if I did something wrong, if I'm in error on something, I need to correct that no matter how anybody else acted in the scenario.

And I think we see Onesimus taking that step. He's willing to go to Philemon to make this right without having a clue how this is all going to work out. I feel like from what we see in the text and what we know about Paul, there's probably plenty of discussions that took place with Onesimus. He taught him the gospel. And so planning for this is a big event.

He's gonna travel back to Philemon and have this encounter. Hey. Just admit the things you've done wrong. That's what you can do. Don't try to make it about him.

We're gonna allow him to try to do the right thing. That's what Paul's doing in the letter. And Paul does make an appeal for Onesimus. But your job, and we'll have some more to say about this on Tuesday, is, well, your job is just to do the right thing and have the right attitude and admit the things that you've done wrong. And in the end, humility means we're willing to sacrifice to make it right.

That's sort of embedded in everything we've been looking at. You know, he's gotta leave his comfortable situation. This place where now he's with Paul and other Christians, and things are relatively good there. And he's gonna make this sacrifice to go back into a scenario that is uncomfortable and awkward. Paul tells us in Romans 14 and verse 19, let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

This is the effort here. Rather than leaving things at odds, he is making a big sacrifice because preserving the fellowship of God's people was more important than whatever comfort, whatever ease he is experiencing wherever he is with Paul. And it could be all sorts of things that it costs us when we do the right thing. It might cost us friendship. You know, because we own up to something we've done, there may be people who don't wanna be around us anymore.

That's the price we pay sometimes for being honest, for owning up to our sins. It's still the right thing to do. We have to admit we're wrong. That's a hard thing to do, isn't it? There may be financial costs that come along with restoring the damage that was done.

There's all kinds of scenarios. My family has experienced this a few different ways. My sons, both in their own ways, have done damage in our neighborhood that we had to pay for. That's just the way it goes. I won't elaborate too much to embarrass them, but it involved golf carts and fixing cars.

So, you know, that gets expensive. And you can try to run off and try to avoid that, but there's some lessons that had be to be learned in that scenario, which they didn't do that. But sometimes doing the right thing and being willing to sacrifice to make things right is costly even financially. Onesimus has to travel across the world. How did he do that?

There's some kind of expense involved in this. It would've been way easier to send a letter. You know? But it was the right thing to do. And Onesimus returns at great risk.

I referenced earlier the fact that going back in this scenario, he's subject to various punishments that could have been brought on him for his behavior, whatever it was costing his master, doing damage to his masters, not just his property, but to his honor. This is a big part of their culture as well. It came at a heavy price often for slaves. Paul sends this letter, I think, in good faith. I think he feels very good about what Philemon is going to do.

At least that's indicated from the letter, we'll look at that tomorrow night. But, man, that's still hard if you're Onesimus. I don't care how good of a person someone else says this guy is, but you're going back and you cost him something and you were his servant and you ran off. Yeah. It'd be a little bit like you have a job and you do something at that job that costs millions of dollars to your company and you take off and you go somewhere else.

And for whatever reason, you know, you realize you're wrong or you lose that job and now you've gotta go back to that old boss and say, hey. I really need that job back. How easy is that gonna be? That's kinda where Onesimus is. Maybe he has debts that aren't paid off yet.

He hasn't worked. That's typically how this works. You know, he's a bond servant. He probably has some kind of debt. He's gotta work this off.

He's cutting out early on this instead of paying off his debt. And he left Philemon high and dry if that's the scenario. Now he's gotta go back and face this, and there's all kinds of risks associated reconcile with me, but I can do what is the right thing in the moment. That's the concept we have to get from what Onesimus is doing. Whatever Philemon does, however the response comes down on him, he needed to do what's right.

And without knowing all the scenario, it's hard to know, but it seems to me that whatever's going on here with Onesimus is probably far greater than anything I've ever experienced and probably for many of you as well. It's pretty extreme, and yet he's willing to pay the price to go back and make it right. But here's what I want us to see. Do not be content with rifts and conflicts among your people. Don't be okay with cold wars where people sit on different sides of the building and pretend everything's okay when it's not.

I mean, Onesimus is going across the world. Sometimes we have trouble making a phone call or walking from one area to the next. Don't be like that. It's too important. The unity of God's people and the way we treat each other matters too much to be content with that kind of behavior.

And the more I look into this and I read about it, I'm just impressed with the simple fact that Onesimus goes back to Philemon. He gives up a lot to do that. What is it that I'm willing to give up to ensure there's unity among God's people? What is it that I have to sacrifice? Is it my pride?

Is it time? Is it my strong opinions about things that everybody has to cater to or else I'm upset? What is it? Don't be content with that scenario. When Philemon is just when fellowship is strained, am I waiting for somebody else to fix it?

Why? Christians fix their problem. If I'm a follower of Christ, I need to take the step. I need to humble myself, own up to my mistakes, be willing to make the sacrifices to make things work so that as God's people, we can remain in harmony. We can maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace and have the oneness that god not only wants but his son prayed for.

Could be tonight that you want to be one with god and you look at your life, you've evaluated, you humbly realize you're living a life of error. The good news is there's an answer for that. Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He is the rest. And then maybe you've looked for rest all sorts of places and the ideas of the world and the concepts of men and just one after another, you've been disappointed.

Jesus Christ will not disappoint you. He will give you rest. He says, I will give rest to your souls. In Greek, that is the word psyche. I will give rest to your psyche.

To all the things you're worrying about and all the issues you have in life, if you put your faith in Jesus Christ and you put first his kingdom, all of these other things will be added to you. Don't be anxious for tomorrow. This is what he tells them. It'll take care of itself. Give your life to him.

Admit, take ownership of the wrongs, and submit to baptism by the will of God and let the blood of Jesus wash your sins away and you can be at rest. Can we help you do that tonight? Won't you come now as we stand and we sing?