We've all been hurt.
We all carry scars.
We can all overcome these things and be healed through a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Let's build that relationship together right here.
Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
Welcome to the church.
Stop dropping everything around me.
It's okay.
I'll get that later.
We have our slides.
Thank you for everyone who's here.
Welcome and welcome to everybody who's following us online.
I'm trying to find my bookmark here.
We have this cool little thing from my Bible sticking in the spine here.
It gives you like five bookmarks.
Let me see that now because I'm grabbing the wrong one.
There we go.
There it went.
It's okay.
Well Darren's getting that going.
So we're watching this video and this guy is standing up on a cliff.
It's like, God, I can't make this.
I need help.
Right?
It comes down to a faith issue.
But more so than that, it's because he has this barrier that creates doubt.
You know, in trying to protect himself, his faith is hindered.
Right?
It's not going to go away.
So instead of doing what God tells them, God's really having to push them off the side of
that cliff.
Right?
It's going to see, hey, it's going to be okay.
Look, you've got a soft landing.
You're okay.
You've got stairs.
You're good.
You know, in life though, we put up our own barriers.
I want you to think about some of the barriers that we come across.
Some of the things from our history.
Some things that are still here.
Some things don't exist anymore.
Things like the Great Wall of China.
Right?
The Berlin Wall.
The Western Wall in Jerusalem.
Wall of Troy.
Hadrian's Wall.
US border.
Right?
We have a wall there.
You know, trying to deal with border issues.
Right?
You can hear it at home.
It doesn't matter where you live.
We all have walls.
Right?
Even if you don't have a yard, typically you have something else with some kind of a fence
or some kind of a barrier, even if it's just along a walkway.
Right?
And these are physical walls that we're talking about here.
Right?
What about the walls that aren't physical?
The barriers that we put up in our own lives.
Right?
Veterans come home.
They have a hard time talking to people about certain things.
You know, we'll open up to other veterans, but someone who hasn't been there, hasn't
done that, forget about it.
You know, same with healthcare workers and other first responders.
You know, teachers and the stuff that they have to deal with with kids.
Right?
There's certain things.
They'll talk with their coworkers, you know, and veterans try to find solutions.
But when it comes to other people, they'll shut down on a lot of that stuff too.
We all have barriers.
We all have walls in our lives.
There we go.
We're going to be looking at that today in the book of Philomond.
All right.
Barriers, obstacles, call them what you will.
They're there.
We put them up.
We create the vibes.
Some of them come down easily.
Some of them don't.
The Berlin Wall stood for 28 years before it finally came down.
And to this day, all these decades later, one of the most famous quotes that are out
there about bringing down barriers, right, is Ronald Reagan, two years before it came
down in 1987, saying, Mr. Kovachov, take down this wall.
Right?
I might be paraphrasing there, but along those lines, you know, our own biases create walls,
our upbringing, the communities that we're in.
Right?
I went to boot camp with a guy.
He came from a rural Mississippi town where if you weren't white, you best keep driving
through.
Unfortunately, places like this still exist even here in the U.S.
Places where if you don't look a certain way, you don't talk a certain way, right, you're
not of a certain ethnicity, stay out.
You know, and unfortunately, even the way we talk to people, because of frustrations
that we have going on in our own lives, right, things that we have going on internally that
we're dealing with, and we don't even necessarily realize that the way that we're talking to
people, we're creating a divide.
We're putting a barrier up between us and them.
And it happens.
Right?
We see this in friendships.
We see this at work.
We see this in relationships.
Boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives.
Right?
We don't always see eye to eye to things, but sometimes the way we react puts a wall
up, an invisible wall, but a wall nonetheless.
People in there can feel it.
The tension can be cut.
Right?
However, you know, there's still hope.
These walls can still be overcome.
These walls can be taken down.
Right?
Kind of like the Kool-Aid band.
Busting through the wall.
Remember those ads in the 80s?
You think the 90s?
Oh, yeah!
Boom!
That guy like me.
Right?
Coming right through that wall.
He'll smile out of space.
Oh, he's probably prettier.
He's got that red color.
Kind of got the blues today.
Right?
But still, you know, think of other things that are taken down.
And here's some good examples of barriers because people get so caught up into them
with their own idolatry and their own sins.
Right?
Think of casinos or old theme parks.
Right?
Like these big spectacles of them being torn down.
Even just here, I guess it's been more than a few years ago, here in Albuquerque when
Windrock was torn down.
Even in just pieces, people took notice.
It's like, whoa, what's going on?
I remember when this place was this place.
Right?
We got, what is it, Dave and Busters or whatever.
It used to be a movie theater.
Right?
I think a lot of us in this room have memories of seeing movies and stuff there.
But these walls are torn down and these are things that people get caught up in still.
You know, it's like you see the cosplayers that are out there and they make a whole life
of us and they put this wall up where they can't talk to the people or other people can't
talk to them.
Right?
They want their own little community.
You know?
But it can be done.
These barriers can be pulled down.
We can be reunited.
Our relationships can be reconciled.
Right?
That's why Jesus came.
So that we could be reconciled not only with each other but with God.
All right?
So if you haven't already, let's go ahead and let's open our Bibles, your Bible app,
whatever you're using to the book of Philomon.
All right?
If you're not sure where it's at, it's kind of towards the back.
That's right, right?
Before he does.
You know, it's biblical if he brews the coffee.
Right?
So Philomon is one of the shortest books in the Bible.
I believe it's the third shortest book in the Bible.
As a matter of fact, much like many of the others, it was actually written as a letter.
Hence, a part of why it's so short.
Right?
And the purpose of it, you know, Paul, he was writing to convince Philomon to forgive
the ones in this and not just see him as a slave but to see him as a brother in Christ.
Because his purpose had changed.
He had come to know God.
He had fellowship with Paul and had learned and had become a Christian himself.
Right?
He couldn't just be looking at him as property.
You know, after all, you think about slavery, we're all slaves to sin, right?
We all have somewhere where we fall short some sin that we have to deal with in our
lives.
We have to deal with sin until the day we're called home.
That's just part of our being human.
Right?
So in this case, I was talking about little slave, of course.
You know, and in this case, one of the things, we don't know why.
It doesn't go into the detail, but he had actually run away.
Right?
We don't know a whole lot of what was there.
But he had run away and in the course of this while he was running, he came to know Paul.
And of course, what came of that was he came to know of Jesus and what Jesus had done for him.
All right?
And back in these days, slavery, it was running rampant.
All right?
Slavery was a big thing.
Now, it wasn't slavery in the same context of the way that we think of it, where people
were just kidnapped or uprooted from their land or sold by their own people.
And yes, that kind of stuff did go on at that time.
You know, some slaves came from conquered areas after battles and wars.
Right?
And so, they were a lot of slavery, which we don't see today, you know, in the same
context, people actually volunteered and put themselves into slavery for a number of reasons.
You know, debts that they couldn't pay, you know, or maybe they didn't make a lot of money.
They were starving.
There were deaths or two.
They didn't want to starve to death.
So they sold themselves as a slave so that they could be taken care of.
They wanted to be fed, you know, and be able to make a life and pay the debts that they had.
You know, there are a number of reasons why people would do this, taking care of their
family, their friends, their loved ones, their obligations.
Right?
Sometimes it kind of feels like that when we go to work today.
Now, it doesn't.
It's like, yeah, we've got to go take care of the man.
I don't want to, but I'm going.
I've got to pay the bills.
I've got to take care of that debt.
Right?
A little bit different today than it was back then.
But, you know, that was the way of the world.
You know, poverty, starvation, those are still very, very much big things today.
Those are big issues that create a big wall and a big divide.
Even just talking about slavery still causes a big divide here, doesn't it?
It would be safe to say a canyon of sorts.
Because people get passionate.
My people, right, my ancestors, my grandpa, it's a big thing.
So going into Phil-a-Pon, or Phil-a-Mon, when you look at it, you're going to see it's only one chapter.
It was written as a letter.
So for that, you know, because of that, I'm only going to be referring to the first numbers when we're in this specific book.
You know, if we go to other places, I'll refer to the book, the chapter, everything I usually do.
But Phil-a-Mon is so short, it doesn't really warrant that.
Right?
As a matter of fact, once we're done, you know, as always, I always encourage everybody, go back and read it.
This is short enough, it won't take you very much time.
Right?
Even though we're going to go through verse by verse, it's always good to go sit down, pray, spend some time with the Lord,
and go back to the Lord to see what else speaks to you.
Because I'm only going over certain things in here.
There's actually so much more that we can pull out of this.
All right.
So, Paul, let's go ahead and just dive into it here.
Phil-a-Mon verses one through three.
So, starting in verses one through three, Paul writes,
Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus and Timothy our brother,
to Phil-a-Mon, our beloved friend and fellow laborer,
to the beloved air, Ephiah, our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house,
grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, it's a standard kind of greeting, right?
Nice way to start off a letter.
You know, most of us put like dear so-and-so or, you know, when it's a personal letter like this or, you know, hey, buddy.
Right?
That's kind of what we're seeing here.
And Paul wrote this during his first imprisonment around 60 A.D.
Okay?
We see Timothy's name listed here.
We see that in other places as well.
Second Corinthians, first and second Thessalonians, Philippians, and Colossians.
And likely in this case, with writing to Phil-a-Mon, it was so that he could see that Paul wasn't alone.
And especially with the request he's getting ready to make as we go into this and it goes into the letter.
Right?
So, it's not just coming from one person.
It's kind of backed up like a lot of things in the Bible, right?
There's always things to support.
There's always witnesses.
You know, even in Scripture, there's other Scriptures that witness, you know, what you're reading and what you're seeing.
All right.
So, that was a big part of it.
Phil-a-Mon, he was a Greek landowner in Colossus.
He had come to know of Jesus in Paul's ministry.
And with his conversion and everything, he actually opened up his house for the local church to meet him.
Very common in those days.
We still see it some of these days, people meeting their homes and other places, right?
But especially as a big landowner.
And this for a couple of reasons.
You know, first, it cost a lot of money to build something, right?
To build a building.
Not many people have those kind of funds, even then, right?
And you can own the land and not necessarily have the money to build up a building or some kind of structure.
Secondly, which is really the more important part of it, Christians at this point, we're still being persecuted.
We're persecuted widely, you know, and violently.
So, this also offered a kind of sanctuary of safety, right?
So, being able to go out and meet on this land, meeting this house.
So, they were meeting in the home.
So, you know, at this point, safe to say, Phil-a-Mon, he's a pretty generous guy, right?
But with everything that he had, opening it up to other people.
Excuse me.
Sorry, I know I'm not the only one suffering with allergies from the smoke and everything that's been in the air lately, right?
It kind of kept me up last night, too.
So, I apologize for kind of snogging here.
But yeah, no, the use of homes was very, very common.
It was very widespread at that time.
And one thing of note here as well before we move on, when we're looking at verse three, kind of toward the end, also towards the end of this, when we get to verses 22 and 25, the word you, right?
As we know it, we know it as just you.
In the Greek, though, and the Greek is what it's being written in, it's actually a plural word.
So, I guess for those of us here in the Southwest, it'd be, you know, kind of using that y'all, right?
It's a group word that pulls everybody in.
So, you know, with writing this, he knows Phil-a-Mon's not going to be the only person reading it and the only person who's going to have access to it.
So, it's saying to all of you out there, right?
So, continuing on, verses four through seven, Paul writes, I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing of your love and faith, which you have toward Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith may become effective in the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.
For we have great joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed to you, brother.
Excuse me, refreshed by you, brother.
You know, we're coming to the end of summer, we're still seeing some hot days, right?
Think about it, when you're outside, you spend a lot of time outside, especially in the heat, you know, for people, you know, go out and like to exercise out in the heat, running and jogging and that kind of stuff.
Even if you just spend a lot of time out there, you know, drivers, for example, you know, a lot of our buses with APS don't have air conditioning, so we have drivers out there spending hours on the road, you know, AC, in tin boxes, right?
The point is, you spend a lot of time out in that heat, and you're coming into a building with air conditioning, even just fans, right?
It's very refreshing.
Let me take this in, it's nice, right? You know, maybe, even if you don't get to go inside just yet, maybe somebody brings you a cold drink, right?
Even holding it, you know, most of us look against our head, maybe against our neck or under our throat, right, before we drink it, you know, and even just having something to drink, it's refreshing.
It's just instantly, it's like, ooh, yes, it feels good. I'm enjoying this, right?
Well, in this case, it's the same thing. You know, Philomons faith, opening things up, the good thing that he's doing is sharing his faith, sharing the gospel, you know, and coming back, you know, even though, you know, Paul's been gone for a while, he's still hearing of these good works.
Even for him, it's refreshing to hear, say, okay, the work is still going, it's good, it's strong. Praise Jesus, right?
So, you know, it also comes down to a matter of our attitudes.
Like I was saying earlier, you know, we only pause for a moment, we need to kind of do self-evaluation on our attitudes, right, and ask ourselves, you know, am I refreshing to others, right, or am I holding up a wall? Am I holding up a barrier that's keeping other people at bay?
You know, what's my attitude? How do I talk to people? How do I go about influencing others, you know?
Because we all have influence of some sort, you know, are we doing it in a positive, gentle, and loving way, or are we barking at big, you know, ugly, nasty people, like, you're going to do this, right?
There's people that are out there that are like that, especially at work. They come in and, you know, they think it's just a place, they're not going to be heard if they're not just nasty, just, I'm going to be that person that everybody sees, I don't care.
I'm going to get what I want one way or another, right, and they're just nasty, ugly people.
Or you have other people that come in, they're mellow, they're loving, they're gentle, you know, you look forward to seeing them.
You come in and you're going to take notice, you know, and the day that they're not all smiles, you're going to know something's wrong.
So you can ask, hey, what's going on, right? Fellowship. Those are the people that you want to fellowship.
Nobody wants to be in fellowship with people who are nasty to them, right, who are ugly to them, or only coming around when they want something, right?
It's like when you come in, it's like you could, you know, you have someone there who's loving and caring and you're just having just a hard day, right?
It's a tough day and you just kind of need to step away for a second. You come up and here's, you know, here's Ryan.
He's sitting here. I haven't seen him for a while and I see him sitting there. He's smiling, right?
He's like, hey, how you doing? It's going to feel good. Kind of takes your thought off of everything for a second, right?
It brings that refreshment. Like Katie, how you doing, buddy? Right? Not to put you on the spotlight there, you know?
But it is, you know, just walking in, you have that person who lights up a room and suddenly everything becomes OK.
You know, it's like when you have kids and you have a tough day, you don't really have anyone talking to you, you come in and hear it.
Mommy, daddy, whatever, and they give you a big old hug, right? OK. It's not that bad after all. It's pretty good.
It's a good life, right? You know, so, you know, that's what we need to ask ourselves.
Are we that refreshing person or are we holding up walls and barriers that keep people at bay?
Or are we working that, you know, doing things that are bringing people down as opposed to lifting them up?
You know, after all, we are supposed to be encouraging, right? We're supposed to lift each other up. That's biblical.
You know, and sometimes, you know, it's hard when things are happening and people start talking to you a certain way.
It is really hard to remember to act Christlike, right? Because nobody likes being yelled at.
And when you have all this negativity coming in at you and someone's working at you all the time
or just issuing commands and not having any leeway or being loving, you know, eventually we all get to a breaking point where we snap back at them, right?
Like, what do you mean? No. And whatever reason it is, and all of a sudden we're not Christlike.
We're saying mean, ugly, hateful things just like they are. You know, and even if we're not, maybe we're saying things in a way that comes across as anger, right?
And that doesn't lift anybody up because now all of a sudden they're on the defense like, whoa, and it becomes a fight.
So Paul's letter here, you know, he's not acting impulsively. And he's setting the stage for the request he's about to make.
And what he's doing, what he's saying all this, you know, thank my God by making mention of you and that I'm hearing all this.
You know, he's reinforcing the fact that, you know, Phil, he's learned of Christ. He's learned of what Christ has done, right?
And done for him and all of us for that matter personally.
Now, if we go to Ephesians chapter two verses 14 through 18, right? So Ephesians two, 14 through 18, the word says,
For he himself is our peace, who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished his flesh, the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in himself a new man from the two, thus making peace,
and that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And he came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near.
For through him, we both have access by one spirit to the Father.
So in other words, Christ came down to take down the barriers between all of us and to take down the barriers between us and God, right?
To reconnect us, to put us back in the proper fellowship with one another.
You know, and you think of the outcome of that, to unify us as one family in his kingdom.
He's taken away the divide, the barriers, all the nonsense that we put up that's helped people stay out of my bubble. He came to break all that down.
Or as we see in Colossians, chapter three, verses 11 through 14, so that's Colossians three, verses 11 through 14. The word tells us, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.
If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, you also must do, but above all those things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.
Especially us as Christians, right?
Where, you know, the saying, ambassadors for Christ, right? We have to set the example.
We can't wait for the example to be set because the example was already set by Christ.
We have to set the example, especially for those who don't know Christ. We have to show them the example that Christ set for us, right?
Forgiving is hard, but it's not forgiving for the sake of another person. It's forgiving for your own sake because of what God's done for you, what God, what Jesus has sacrificed for you and for me, right?
Taking our inequity and the suffering and the death that we deserved so that we don't have to.
You know, it's easy to complain and, you know, moan and, you know, degrade each other, but we need to put that to the side.
And we need to act in love. We need to show people what love is. Remember, love is an action, not just a word.
You know, we need to stop looking at people on the basis of the color of their skin, their status in society, the cars they drive, the way that they dress, the makeup that they wear, you know, the homes that they live in or don't live in, right?
The way that they talk, because let's face it, some people, they have a certain vernacular, depending on where they come from or a certain way of speaking, right?
People back East speak way different from people back here in the Southwest, right? That dialect.
And just hearing a certain dialect will put people on guard and all of a sudden that wall comes up, right?
The stereotype that New Yorkers and people from Jersey are all just mean, nasty, despicable people.
It's like, oh, I hear that accent, ah, not anybody, stay over there, uh-uh, right?
We hear that just with dialects in our own town.
So it comes up and, you know, maybe they have a Mexican or Hispanic accent, people go on guard, right?
You know, or Native. We see a whole lot of that same stuff right here.
You know, the, the racisms and the bias, you know, judging people based off of their politics.
Politics is a huge one, right? You don't have to agree with them, but you still need to love them.
You know, whereas we have people out there, professors, there are pastors in this city standing up in the pulpit
in major churches in the city saying, if you're a Democrat, there's no way you're a Christian.
That's not true, is it?
I know Republicans are twice as nasty.
It's not a matter of politics. You know, although our politics should reflect what's biblical,
but that's where we have to discern, we have to go through the facts, you know,
what their office, the way that they voted and all that to find out what's going on.
Not this nonsense of vote blue down the line, vote red down the line.
Because there's people there that have no business being there.
Shouldn't be voting for them just because of what party they're affiliated with.
I'm not telling you how to vote. Don't get me wrong.
But the laws that people put up just on that stuff, right?
Most everybody in here is on social media at some point.
Log in, spend five minutes on there.
I can almost guarantee you're going to find at least one person that has some rant
or some other nasty meme or something up, right? Causing a divide.
It's the same thing.
Even when we think about the things that other people have done that we don't agree with,
or maybe they did something that hurt us personally, maybe it was intentional, maybe it wasn't.
But have we talked to them about it?
Or did we just go straight into a tirade, you know, throwing our hate at them?
Most of the time, we start barking, don't we?
We start nipping at heels and biting, taking cheap shots.
We don't really talk the way we're supposed to.
So we have to let go of these garages. We need to stop talking down to people.
You know, they deserve the same forgiveness that you and I have.
So we need to forgive.
Sometimes that's the only way to get them to forgive you for any trespasses that you've had against them as well, right?
Like, hey, you know, I'm sorry. I know I messed up, too. I love you.
Kind of like a marriage.
Marriage is a big one. Those are kind of big words that we use, but it's not just there.
We can use them in friendships. We can use them with acquaintances, coworkers,
because everybody needs to hear this once in a while.
Turning back to Philomon, we're looking at verses 8 through 11.
Paul continues to write, Therefore, I might be very bold in Christ, command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake, I rather appeal to you.
Then such, a one as Paul, the aged and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ, I appeal to you for my son, Linsimus, whom I had begotten while in my chains,
who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and me.
Paul was a person of authority in the church, right?
He carried some weight, some gravitas wherever he went.
When he went somewhere, people gathered.
Now, what he's saying here, he very well could have said, you know, hey, you're going to do this whether you like it or not.
He could have issued a command, right?
He had that ability. He had that position where people were looking up to him, where he could have exercised it.
But instead, he put that to the side as he's saying in the interest of love.
He's like, I know I can do this, but I'm not going to.
I'm going to tell you what's up.
And I'd like for you to think on it.
Look into your heart, pray and make the right choice.
Instead of coercing him to do it through a command, he was convincing him to do what he needed to do with a grateful heart,
to do what needed to be done because it was the right thing to do.
And he wanted to do it, right?
Sometimes doing the right thing isn't always the easiest thing.
But even once you go through and you do it, you're like, you're going to do that.
That's really what he's going for here, right?
It's not tail wagging. He's just reminding them, hey, Jesus forgave you.
Why don't you do the same thing? Think about it.
It's something all of us can do.
He was reminding Philomonte of the commitment and the duty that he has at Christ,
the same commitment and duty that we all have, searching in our hearts, living in a Christlike manner.
Once a mess, he was a runaway slave.
And under the law of the land, Philomonte could have just killed him.
And we're not talking about a slave.
And even by the standards of that day, slaves are still property.
Even though people volunteered themselves, if they broke their word, they ran away, whatever,
they were still property. And if they were seen as being disloyal,
then the slave owner had that right to just, done, right?
Take him out.
So once a mess, understandably, for whatever reason he ended up on the lam,
he was literally running for his life.
That's scary. I can guarantee you this is a scared man.
And all of us have been in scary situations. You're on the road, here comes somebody,
you're having to swear to keep him getting hit.
And here's someone who knows that there's a bullet coming after him.
Well, in those days, not so much a bullet, but a spear or something else, a sword, knife, rope, slingshot,
any number of things. But still, you get the point.
Here's a dude, he goes, hey, if I go back there, I'm in big trouble, and they're going to off me.
So he's scared. And Paul, he's demonstrating, there's been a change in status.
When he left, he was a pagan, he was a nonbeliever, he did not know.
But now he's come to me, and while I'm a certain bondage here in this cell,
we've had fellowship, we've had time to talk, he's come to know Christ.
He's no longer just a slave, but a brother in Christ.
That's a big thing, right?
Even the Bible tells us, for every soul that is saved, the angels in heaven rejoice.
There's a party in heaven.
And so he's saying, hey, this is not just a stranger doing work for you, this is now family.
This is a family member.
And you need to look at this, you need to respond to it at this situation as such.
And we look at it, and there's specific steps that Paul used here and that we've seen going through.
First, he's identified the people who are involved, ones in this and Philomar, right?
And he's working to rebuild that trust by identifying them as fellow Christians.
And you look at the verbiage that he uses, my son, right?
He's showing that connection, that familial connection.
Next, he's making a request.
He's not making a demand.
He's making that simple request.
Hey, take a look at all these facts, search your heart, pray, do the right thing.
Do what's in your heart to do, because when it's in our heart, we do things happily, we do things joyfully.
He looked to get that voluntary consent, just do what you've got to do.
It's like if you go the other way, so be it, but I'd rather you didn't.
As opposed to the submission that would have come with the order, like you're going to do this, right?
You get a bias, it's my way or the highway.
He's saying, I'm not asking you to submit, I'm just asking you to do the right thing.
That's a good thing.
A lot of us, we respond well to that sort of thing, right?
In the corporate world, they like to say people like options.
He gave them an option.
He appealed to Christian love.
And let's face it, Christian love is not the same as any other love, right?
Because outside of Christianity, a lot of time, love is very selfish.
It's love of self, right?
People turn themselves into an idol, what they want into an idol.
You look at how people respond to athletics and musicians and everything.
They put them up on this pedestal, right?
They're like, oh, I got to go backstage.
I had that VIP package.
I got a picture with them.
Look at this.
Right here, look at it.
Right?
And they're big stuff.
And they go over and over and over again, because it's where they put their value,
as opposed to putting it in other people and putting it into Jesus, right?
Responding the way that we should.
Taking care of one another.
Looking out for one another.
Telling each other when we're messing up.
That's a big one.
People don't like to do that.
Sorry, I thought I was going to sneeze there.
But yeah, people don't like to hear it, right?
It's hard.
But sometimes the truth hurts.
Sometimes truth is hard to hear.
But we need to hear it.
And that itself is love.
And then he's agreed to deal, as we're going to see, with any restitution that's needed.
What we're going to see here is that he's literally going to say, hey, you know what?
Whatever money you're out, whatever damage is done, I'll pay for it.
I'll take on that burden.
Let's take that out so that you guys can actually focus on the relationship.
Let's take the rest of the nonsense out, and I will foot the bill.
Right?
So these are good steps.
These are steps that we can apply to a whole lot of conflict.
Right?
So moving on.
Oh, a side note here.
The nerd in me.
So the name onesimus also means useful.
So Paul actually kind of got a little play on words here.
A little pun.
Paul has a sense of humor.
He's a punny guy.
So just a little bit of a thing there.
But picking back up verses 12 through 16, Paul continues to write, I'm 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 be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary.
For perhaps he departed for a while, but 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 flesh and in the Lord.
So he's in fellowship.
He's got his barriers.
I love this guy.
I'd really like to keep him with me.
But you know what?
I don't want to create a barrier between you and I.
So I'm going to send him home so that we can squash this bug and get things back on track.
So one of them is being sent home.
And the request is being made that Thurman accepts him.
Like I said, no longer as a slave, not as just a forgiven slave, because he had that option as well, right?
I forgive you.
But as a brother in Christ.
And let's face it, when we know someone's a Christian, we respond to them differently, don't we?
It's kind of like I know someone's a veteran when I first meet them.
They went from a stranger to a brother like that, right?
You're talking to someone, oh, you're a teacher.
Cool.
What do you teach?
What grade?
Right?
All those questions.
And it's the same thing in any other profession when you meet other people.
That's the way.
Yeah.
I got green light.
I can hear it.
Can you guys hear it?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's still green.
We'll keep going.
Oh, wow.
My volume just jumped in there.
Okay.
Anyway, I got a guess.
He's being sent home.
He needs to be seen as a brother in Christ.
He needs to be accepted that way.
The request is that he responds that way.
And the thing is, as a Christian, and as Paul is talking about here, he's not saying, he's taking the 30 out of the equation, right?
He's saying, we're all Christians.
We're all brothers in Christ.
And he's fighting things from the chance of being seen where one person's down here, one person's up here, and bringing them both together.
So everyone, all three of these men are on equal footing, because we're all equals in Christ.
And it doesn't matter who's up here, or who's sitting out here, or who's listening online or any of that stuff.
to what a lot of other people will say
and a lot of other people will submit.
You know, there's countless videos out there
of people in the pulpit even having a meltdown.
I'm up here and I'm talking, you don't.
I'm the staff member, who are you?
Get out of here, right?
And they're having these meltdowns.
That's not the way it's supposed to be.
We're not just in the fellowship,
but outside that's not how it's supposed to be.
Because we're not meant to be superior to one another.
We're meant to be on equal footing to have fellowship, right?
It talks about the body of Christ.
The left hand and the right hand are different,
but they do the same thing.
The left foot and the right foot are different,
but they do the similar things, right?
Different parts of the body, different organs, same thing.
None of them is any more superior than the next.
They're all needed to function together.
You know, if one lung doesn't work, the other one does,
okay, cool, there's a way to get
that other lung working again, hopefully, right?
Things have to work together
because otherwise what happens, you die.
And unfortunately in our relationships,
we become dead to each other because of the walls
and the barriers that we put up
and how we treat each other and talk to each other.
You know, being a member of God's family,
that in itself transcends any other status
that we have here on this earth,
which is why Christians respond to Christians.
You know, the word puts it this way in Galatians 3,
verses 26 through 29.
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
For as many of you, excuse me,
for as many of you as were baptized into Christ
have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek.
There is neither slave nor free.
There is neither male nor female.
For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And if you are in Christ, then you are Abraham's seed
and heirs according to the promise.
And when you look at this, you realize
there's something much more serious
at play in the background.
There's something happening in the background
of all of this.
Does anybody see what it is?
Is anybody kind of picking up on what's happening
in the background of all this?
Like we like to say God is in the works?
It's love.
Love is what's at play,
not only in the redeeming of this relationship,
but building upon it.
And the precedent that's being set up
is an example that's on display for everyone to see.
I mean, look at it here.
How many centuries later?
And it's still an example for us, right?
Next in love, it's an action.
You know, and it's not just the obvious of,
you know, forget and love one another.
It's, you know, things are being seen in play right here.
You know, like I say, at that time,
slavery was running rampant.
You know, we like to say, you know,
love breaks all bonds and everything.
But you know what?
Sometimes at that time, they did not have a political voice.
They did not have a clock.
They did not have a way to work towards slavery
at this point and changing the way people were seen
and treated.
What power did they have to exercise love
and to demonstrate it for others to see,
to set an example for others to see, right?
The example that we set as Christians is noticed by others.
And it breaks down once through the gospel,
through the relationships that we have,
when other relationships are transformed.
People's lives are transformed.
And when this transformation happens,
we start breaking through.
And remember, I used that analogy of the Kool-Aid man earlier.
That's Jesus working in our lives, right?
He's destroying that wall so that we could talk
to the person on the other side of it
so that we could come back in the fellowship.
And when this happens, has anybody in here been
to like a Christmas service with the candles, right?
You know what I'm talking about?
And they have one person up and they turn off all the lights
and they have one candle.
It's dark, you can't really see.
But then somebody comes up and they light another candle.
And then those candles light some more and then some more.
And everybody's turning to each other.
And after a while, even though there's no lights,
all this candlelight illuminates the room
and it's absolutely gorgeous, right?
You can see things.
Yeah, it gets a little warm sometimes, but it's beautiful.
Our example, our sharing of love for other people,
our sharing of the gospel and people being transformed
is the exact same thing.
It is that fire on us from the Lord
and it's lighting somebody else on fire,
causing transformation, guess what?
They go on to the next person and the next person
and the next person.
And that's how we reach the world
and that's how we effect change.
By sharing the gospel and what Jesus has done for us
and is still doing in our lives.
The cross is like this for a reason.
You go to some places, they still show him on the cross.
I don't know about you,
but my Christ is no longer on the cross.
He was buried and he's risen again.
He's not there.
That's just a symbol to remind me
of what he has done for me and for you.
And that is the passion and the love
that we have to share with others to take down those walls.
Turning back to Philomon, verses 17 through 22,
Paul continues to write,
if you then count on me as a partner,
receive him as you would me.
But if he has won you or owns anything,
put that on my account.
I, Paul, am writing with my own hand.
I will repay, not to mention to you that you own me
even in your own self besides.
Yes, but let me have joy for you in the Lord.
Refresh my heart in the Lord.
Having confidence in your obedience,
I write to you knowing that you will do
even more than I say.
But meanwhile, also prepare a guest room for me.
For I trust that through your prayers,
I shall be granted to you.
Now, I'm addressing Philomon as a partner.
Again, this comes down to speaking to him as an equal,
not as a business partner,
not as somebody in authority and a subordinate,
but as equals, equals with Christ.
This isn't the tolerance that we see
in so many places today
and so many fellowships today, unfortunately.
I say, what I say earlier, it's not that litigious.
Oh, I'm a staff member, you're not.
What do you gotta say?
Oh, I went to school for this and you didn't.
What do you gotta say?
There's a lot of intolerance
when it comes to certain things.
People, they wanna be untouchable.
They surround themselves with yes-men
so you can't get to them.
There's pastors, like, oh yeah, send me an email.
I will schedule time and call my secretary.
And suddenly they're booked up for days on end,
weeks on end, months on end, right?
It's not supposed to be like that.
I should be able to call you
just the same as you should be able to call me, right?
I should be able to say, hey, brother, hey, sister,
mom, dad, and just like, you should be able to do the same.
You know, this is not meant to be a business.
The church is not a business.
When we turn it into a business, we prostitute the church.
And when that happens, we destroy it, brick by brick.
We cannot do that, nor can we allow others to do that.
Which is why we collect each other, right?
You know, it's, with talking to them in this,
you know, it's reminding, we'll put it this way.
When somebody's in a pulpit
and all they're talking about is give, give, give,
it is a red flag that everybody should take note of.
Because at that point, they're no longer acting as a pastor.
They're working as a financier.
They're working as a banker.
They're working towards that bottom line.
And it should never be a problem.
And it should never be like that.
Because God provides for us.
Whatever we need, we pray.
And what's in his will, he will provide.
Because it is in his will and in his time, right?
Not just because we want.
You know, by agreeing to take on this financial burden,
like I said earlier,
he's taking this little part of the equation
so two people can heal.
And not only that,
but he's also working towards strengthening the faith,
especially the ones of us.
Because, you know, when I said, here's a dude,
he's in fear, he's scared.
And rightfully so,
because he doesn't know what he's going back to.
He knows what he's hoping will happen,
but he doesn't know for sure.
So he's having to trust in Paul.
He's having to trust in God.
You know, so by doing this,
and Paul taking on this burden himself,
God himself is calling his strength in ones
and it's just like, hey, you know what?
You don't have to worry about that part.
I got that.
You just go focus on this.
He's helping to build that bridge.
You know, and he's also providing relief to Philamon.
Okay, I'm not this,
but it's gonna get replaced either way.
We're good.
So God's at work, right?
Things are being taken care of.
So instead of having to focus on the hurt and the loss,
they could focus on the relationship.
They can tear down that wall
and those barriers that are between them.
And sometimes that's what you and I need.
You know, we need to be able to remember,
take those burdens and push them to the side.
When you look at marriages,
one of the top reasons why divorce is out there
is because of finances, money, right?
How are we gonna pay for this?
How are we gonna pay for that?
The problem is, so many of these couples,
they don't actually sit down together
and discuss their finances,
how much they're bringing in versus how much is going out,
how they can adjust their budgets,
what they could cut out of your life
that's not actually needed, right?
And that's just one example.
There's so many other things that people fight about
that can use the exact same thing,
use the same steps that we're just looking at earlier.
That's right, Twinkie, that's right.
So, in doing this, Paul,
he was making a sacrifice for both of his brothers.
You know, in love is sacrifice.
We sacrifice things for the people that we love.
Sometimes it's painful, but you know,
that is the cost of love.
You know, and in demonstrating self-sacrifice,
he was again, you know, demonstrating the love of Christ,
right?
Because Christ did make the ultimate sacrifice for us.
So closing out on this book,
let's look at the last few verses, 23 through 25.
Paul writes,
Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus greets you.
As do Mark, as, I'm gonna butcher this name, I apologize.
I always have trouble with this one.
Aristarchus, Venus, Luke, my fellow laborers,
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you in your spirit, amen.
So just as Paul was looking to reconcile this relationship,
Jesus came to do the same for us, right?
No, he took the cross, he rose again
to reconcile us to the Father.
We need to remember that in forgiving others
and being graceful and merciful.
We've already had this sacrifice for us,
why can't we do it for others?
And if you can't do it for others,
you need to step back and evaluate, why?
What do I need to change?
Lord, help me find it and help me to change it.
Now, take this burden from me.
Because it's something that we all need to change.
And at some point, we all have somebody
that we have that barrier there, right?
We're on that cliff.
And God's saying, jump, it's gonna be okay.
But we're so caught up in our own garbage,
our own nonsense that we won't make the jump.
We won't take the leap of faith
and we keep that barrier in place.
And who do we end up hurting?
Ourselves.
Because if we don't make the jump,
we go down with the rebel, right?
Each of us accepting the gift that Jesus gave us,
we're able to reconcile with others.
There's so much hurt out there,
so many family relationships,
so many estranged people.
And the biggest part of it comes
because they don't have that relationship with Jesus.
And that's why we see these, especially addicts, right?
Especially addicts and drunks,
people are filling that void.
Once they come and know Jesus, what happens?
It becomes so much easier for them to reconcile
and mend these bridges and come back into a relationship.
Why?
Because they now have a relationship with Jesus
and they know the example to follow, the example to set,
and they're able to accept the things that they've done wrong
and ask for forgiveness themselves.
They're able to forgive themselves.
You know, if there's something that you feel guilty of,
something that harbors you, you need to forgive yourself.
You need to forgive yourself
because Jesus already did it.
And if he can do it, so can you.
You know, it wasn't that long ago,
somebody could kind of knock on the door
and we would answer it.
It wasn't that long ago, somebody could call
and we'd pick up the phone.
And now we're not doing either.
It's unfortunate.
We get so caught up with these barriers that we put in place.
So I'm not expecting anybody, I'm gonna hide behind the door
and I'm gonna go over here and hunker down
at the time nobody's home, right?
Somebody's calling on the phone.
Right there.
Oh, I don't know that number, I'm not gonna answer it.
Now from the beginning,
we were not expecting anybody to come or answer our phone.
Unfortunately, when it comes to our lives,
when it comes to hiding behind all these barriers,
all the stuff that we've built up
to keep other people at bay,
we think we're protecting ourselves and we're not.
Don't let the barriers that you have in place
be the thing that keep you from Jesus
because you're going to miss out on so much.
If that's you today, you need to take that home,
you need to pray, you need to meditate
and figure out what you need to do to make that change
so that you can open the door.
Because when it comes to Jesus,
not just a matter of opening the door,
it's inviting him into your house, right?
Because the Holy Spirit dwells in us.
You can't miss out.
Things are way too legalistic these days
for allow that even at the slightest chance of that.
So all these questions that we've gone through today,
it is an opportunity for all of us to go home and reflect
on how we treat others, how we respond to others,
what barriers we have in our own lives,
the things that are keeping us separated from Jesus,
as opposed to being able to enjoy life fully with him.
Right, let's pray.
God, we thank you for being with us.
We thank you for reminding us
that our connection with each other
is also dependent on our connection with you.
We ask that you help us to overcome the various walls,
barriers and obstacles that we've placed in our own lives,
that you help us to get out of our own way
and to reconcile with you and with one another
before it's too late.
We thank you for your love, your mercy, your grace
as you lead us down the pathway standing before us.
And we ask that you continue to do so
and help us to see the changes
that we need to make along the way,
the processes that we need to adapt
and how we can fully come into a better,
more loving relationship with you and one another
and to reflect that example for the world.
And all these people say, amen.
Remember you're loved and you are blessed.
So when you leave here today, be the church, all right?
Thank you for joining me today
here at Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
If you'd like to know more about our ministry
or how you can support us,
you can do so by going to our website
at bethelightsanctuary.org
or you can visit us on Facebook at Be The Light Sanctuary.
We'll catch you next time.
God bless.