Build Trust

Good morning, everyone. Good to be with you back here in Shelbyville. It's been a few months, I think, since we were here. And I told Mr. Campos that I would be glad to come down every four to six weeks, perhaps, to give him a break. And so was he, who he comes down with. Stay home and relax. Stay sad at the rest.

No, he has come down. So I think that shows how much they want to be with you all. And this is their Sabbath home and with you. So we're glad to be with them for the drive down and back and chat and catch up. Mr. Campos and I have offices right next to each other in the office there in Cincinnati. But he gets in his office, and I get in mine, we get busy, and we can go a whole week or more without even really saying otherwise just saying hi and passing in the home in the lengthy conversations you don't get into it all unless you just make a point to do so. So we're catching up on our Sabbath here. And at any rate, I don't really have too many of the comments to make on some of the matters that he mentioned there. I would ask that you would just continue to remember the work of the church that we are all collectively in and that God would give us the wisdom to effectively preach the gospel and to care for those that are listening and hearing. We are reaching a...we have, I think, a very good reach of people with our literature, our website, with our television program and everything that we're doing. We watch this stuff very, very carefully, and learning this is...I've been in the office working in media just how we are reaching people, especially through the Internet. Our Internet site is inching up in terms of responses, people coming to the site. We are...we surpass some of the other religious, well, better known religious personalities, I should say. And their websites, not that we're necessarily bigger than they are, but in terms of...at least on the web and in interest, we are holding our own with many names out there that are probably better...certainly well known than ours. It was interesting, on Wednesday, just following the day after the election this week, we had a big spike of interest on the website. And Aaron Booth, Sincerity monitors all this, and I mean, he can tell you by looking on the Google Analytics chart just how many people are on our website and where they are at any given moment. And the numbers are just changing there, and it's fascinating to watch that. But on Wednesday, we had a big spike of traffic after the election. And what do you think was the most compelling...or the most searched for a type of article on our website? What would you think?

Yeah, I remember that! It would be the end of the world! They were searching for articles and coming in with search words on Google like that. And they were...of course, we do have a number of articles that address that topic, but that's what people were looking for. So we saw a spike on that.

What I'm saying is we do have a lot of information. We are reaching quite a few people, and we are continually working to craft the message of the Gospel in such a way that we hope that God can use it to make disciples, and ultimately from that members that he calls. So please be praying about that, that the efforts that we're making can be further refined and brought together to accomplish that with the resources that we have, and be using God's hands to add additional people to the churches. He wills it.

So we are all, I think, in a very interesting time as far as this nation is concerned. I think everybody's trying to figure out what happened, what's happened, and what has happened. I think we all would agree, at least from our perspective, and all, I mean, everyone who thinks like us, which should be everybody else.

I think that's what you think I see I've been saying.

I think we're all trying to figure out where our country is and what has happened with our country right now. I think that's one thing that speaks to the election that has taken place in the, as we all watched it, and certain individuals' pundits predicted one thing that didn't happen.

So I think that that's probably the biggest question, not just who was elected president, President Obama, but also some of the other initiatives that other states had on the ballots in regard to morality and personal choice and behavior. And people are wondering what exactly has, how our country has shifted and what that means.

And things have changed. As I look at that, I have to realize, when I write an article, when I look into the camera on the telecast, how do you reach that audience? And what do you say and how do you say the gospel? And I think at the beginning, you realize that there's not much more to do other than to open a Bible to read what God says and let it speak for itself.

And I hope that God did. It will convict people to change and to repent and that they will begin to seek God, at least those that are going to. I know there are a certain segment of this world, our nation, that they're not religious, that are not interested at all in a religious message, but there are still a segment of people who are.

And those God-fearers, if you want to call them that, people who are religious, they can call them if they indeed are truly seeking the relationship with God and concerned about their life and our country as well. So that's kind of some of the things that we've been thinking about in the depths of the office as we preach the gospel and tune the message of the church. So please join us in praying for that as we move forward. I wanted to talk with you this morning about a subject that has been on my mind for more than a year, quite a long time, probably because of the continual onslaught that the church goes through as we deal with ourselves and some of the internal issues. A subject that I have continually come back to just to learn myself and make sure that I'm practicing. It's the subject of trust. Building, maintaining, and establishing trust.

Another word for trust, obviously, is faith. But sometimes it's just a plain, simple word like trust. I think all of us recognize that trust is at the heart of every relationship.

As we look to God as our Father, we develop a trust in God that He hears us, that He will intervene in our lives, that He is. And that has to have a high level of trust to work spiritually within us. Our human relationships are based on trust as well. A relationship between a man and a wife is based on trust, fidelity, and confidence. That's what really is one of the key components of love between a man and a woman in a marriage relationship and what makes a family work. The interpersonal relationships that we have are based on our trust in one another. One's word, one's character, one's ability to produce. There's no business that can survive unless there is a culture of trust that is ingrained in the culture of the company and the people who are making a product, producing a service, whatever the purpose and mission of that business is. There has to be a very high level, high culture of trust that is developed, or it is not going to work. Trust is at the heart of our relationships.

The Bible can speak to that in many different ways. There's one story in the Bible that can help us to learn some lessons about trust that is very succinct and can offer us a very key lesson. I'd like to take us through that book here this morning, the time that I have with you. It is the book of Philemon. If you would, search through your Old New Testament. The book of Philemon wedged right in between Titus and the book of Hebrews. It is the epistle of the Apostle Paul to a man by the name of Philemon, a church member. It's a very short book in the Bible, only 25 verses.

The Apostle Paul compacts into this very short letter a great deal of wisdom. Many lessons for us. My purpose today is to bring out some of the lessons of trust that are here in this letter to us and help us to examine that and examine ourselves and to learn a few things in regard to this. Let me first set the stage. This is a letter written by the Apostle Paul from prison. It was during the time that he was a prisoner in Rome. He writes it back to a member of the church by the name of Philemon.

There are three people involved in this letter. The Apostle Paul writes it, Philemon, to whom it was addressed, and a runaway slave by the name of Onesimus. Onesimus was a slave who was only by Philemon. He ran away and found himself with Paul and was baptized. Paul then has to deal with what is a very delicate situation, brought about because of the matter of slavery as it was in the first century, and the fact that now all three of them find themselves as brothers in the church of God. Let me say a word a little bit about the institution of slavery that we must understand as it was in the first century.

Slavery was a key component of the Roman Empire in the first century, actually the ancient world. It's a little different from the slavery that we might be culturally and historically aware of from our own American experience. When we think of slavery, we think of the American slavery experience of the white man enslaving the black in the 1800s, which was a key component of the conflict between the states that led to the Civil War, that Abraham Lincoln himself emancipating the slaves, and then the whole subsequent development of American history after the war, and on even into our time, because those of us, many of us in this room, well remember the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, and those marches and issues that formed that period of time, the backdrop of American society then.

We think of slavery in those terms, and that's because of our experience. However, slavery in the first century was not quite that level. Slavery back in the ancient world was not just the whites enslaving the blacks, it was whites enslaving other whites.

As a whole group of the race of people, or ethnic group, would have been subjugated by, in this case, the Roman Empire, many of those people would have been brought into slavery. And so it was a basic form of society that when the Church came into existence during the time of the Apostles in the first century, the Church did not... they had to coexist with that.

They didn't seek and set out to change it. That was not the mission of the Church. And so while in our own experience in America, the civil rights was largely driven a lot within the religious churches of the time. Martin Luther King was first a Baptist minister, so the Baptist minister, and other churches got involved in it as well. The Church in the first century didn't really try to overthrow or correct this problem within society. And that's why when we find here this letter to Philemon, that the Apostle Paul doesn't tell Philemon, setting free, you will see, that doesn't happen. And there's no other indication from Paul's letters that he advocates that. Basically, indeed what he does say, when he does address slaves who found themselves sitting in the same congregation, in this case, with a man who owned him, he basically tells him, and if you're a slave, he said, go along, you know, make the best of the situation, and learn where you are. He did not advocate overthrowing because he recognized that was just not going to happen, was not within the scope of their mission. But he did have to deal with the very, very complicated, sensitive issues that were created because of now a runaway slave who was considered property, now having to deal with his owner, who was also his spiritual brother. So can you imagine the complexities there? And that's partly the problem that we're dealing with here, but it's a big part of the problem. How Paul addresses that is the beautiful part of this letter, the wisdom, the tact, and the skill in which he addresses that, and seeks to reconcile some powerful streams of emotion that create conflict among people. So, you know, you might well imagine yourself with setting in a whole different type of church structure, a cultural structure, than what we have today, and one of you being owned by someone else in your fellowship. You not only worked for them, but they had control over your life, in the sense that you were considered property. You did not have the freedom in that time to go out and live your own life independently from the will of the person who owned you. And yet you found yourself in the same congregation. You think we have difficulties and challenges today? Add something like that into the mix. That's what we find here. So a little bit of a background to that. Let's go ahead and get into the letter, look at it, and I'll comment, draw some lessons as we go through it. It opens in verse 1, as Paul addresses Philemon. He introduces and says, Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved friend and fellow laborer.

And so they were together in the church, and Paul addresses this individual as a brother. You can see already that Paul is coming in a humble spirit. He chooses to address it, Philemon in that way, our beloved friend, our beloved and our fellow laborer, worker together.

And he said, in that he pronounces himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ, even though he was technically a prisoner of the Roman Empire at this moment. He recognized that in a larger sense, he was a prisoner of Christ by his life having been bought and paid for.

And then, in this direct way, as a minister, his life had been subjugated to a prison term because he was brought into conflict for the preaching of the Gospel, because of the preaching of the Gospel. That's why he was there.

But he came in that frame of mind, which was a spirit of humility. He didn't come across as an apostle, setting across from a man in a big office with a big desk in front of him, but as a prisoner and as a fellow worker. He could have come on stronger, perhaps asserting himself a little bit more, but he recognized that and would have pushed Philemon away.

And he wanted to establish a relationship that worked toward a solution rather than to drive it even deeper. And that's not what he wanted. Verse 2, he says, "...to the beloved Achaia, or Kephas, or fellow-soldier, and to the church in your house." So he includes other well-known members of the congregation.

He doesn't neglect them knowing that this is going to be a letter discussed. It's not read by others, so at least he brings in others and notes their contribution to the church and develops again just a good rapport of a relationship there. Verse 3, he says, "...grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." As is common, he opens up many of his letters asking for God's grace and peace from upon people. Those that he's addressing in the church are in this case the individual. Always an opportunity to study what grace really means whenever you see it used in this way.

But grace is more than just the forgiveness that we have of our sins freely by the sacrifice of Christ. Grace is also a state of mind. It's a relationship between people. It's an umbrella of protection, if you will, under which we all live, as children of God.

Knowing that in this case, as he connects it with the relationship, the peace we have with the Father and the Christ, that begins with grace. That begins with a generous desire on the part of God to have a relationship with us to the point of providing a means by which we can be forgiven, come into a spiritual relationship with the sacrifice of Christ, and what that then should create among the people who bear that grace. In other words, grace leads to peace, not only with God, but among ourselves. And it should create an atmosphere of graciousness among us.

The Old Testament word that is the equivalent of the word grace is really a word that means the goodness of God. It's the Hebrew word hasset, H-E-S-E-D, and it's found throughout the book of Deuteronomy. In fact, you could preach a sermon about grace from the book of Deuteronomy. You wouldn't have to turn to any of Paul's epistles, because time and time again, Moses talks about the goodness of God toward you as he speaks to Israel. And he's using the word goodness that really is the equivalent of the word grace.

And when you recognize that, you understand that grace is an all expanding and comprehensive frame of mind that produces an attitude and an atmosphere among people of graciousness. You know? You ever... Why do you like to go to some people's homes as opposed to others? Because you're welcome.

Because they make you feel at home. Because it's inviting, it's warm, it's comforting, but there's a gracious hospitality about it. And it's created because of goodwill. It's created because of good karma. You know, this is just an atmosphere that can be created because of a smile, of a warmth, of a friendliness, a hug, a handshake, and a good cup of coffee, and a nice meal.

And just the whole experience is one of grace. And that is what comes from God. That's what comes from His approach toward us. And how we should develop and cultivate a culture of grace among ourselves as a result of our relationship with God and how that then impacts.

And this is kind of undergirding this letter to Philemon when you approach that. Grace is a big, big subject that goes far beyond just the mere forgiveness of sin. It speaks to a whole way of life. Sometimes, you know, I don't know if anybody here has the name of Grace somewhere embedded in your name, but I had a couple of ants named Grace. You still see it used from time to time today. People who named their daughter Grace. A lot of people named Grace through the years, and some of them live up to their name. I had a very good friend. She was a minister's wife. Years ago, she came down with cancer, and she died.

I remember the last conversation I had with her, we called her one night, talked with her, and I just told her, I said, Grace, if there was ever a woman who lived up to the name of Grace, it was you. She was just genuinely a very gracious lady. There are certain names that exude that. I could go on and on about that, I guess. We went to Kenya for the feast this year.

There were nine of us, Debbie and I, and the preaches, Whitney and Erin, and Preach. There were five other internationals that were traveling together through Kenya with three different sites. One of the sites, as we were leaving the last service, they called us all up individually, and they gave us a Kenyan name. They gave us a robe of different multicolors, literally. But they gave each of us a name. I learned later that Kenyans, especially, some of those tribal characteristics, they really do place a great deal of emphasis on importance, and they're able to discern people's personalities, and they will name people by the personalities. They got a couple of us exactly right, and the names that they gave gave to us.

But it was a reading about that coming back. I learned that. So it comes off the idea of grace here. Some of the names that we will use to name each other, we would hope that always those names do reflect on our character in a positive way. In verse 4, Paul says to Phylen, I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers. This is another common phrase that Paul uses as he talks about the... In his letters, he always mentioned his people and the members who kept them in their prayers.

He uses this term a lot. I always thought that Paul must have had a very long prayer list of people, because he must have labored at that prayer on behalf of others, because he's always saying, always without ceasing or praying always for you, always in my prayers. He knew a lot of people, had a lot of responsibilities, and that prayer list must have been very, very long.

So, as he says here to Phylen, I make mention of you always in my prayers. Again, that begins to really get to the heart of the relationship with the man.

Because Paul's saying, you're in my prayers, always in my prayers. And if there's a bond with the spirit of God between two people, then that is going to strike a note. Whoa! That means something.

My name's being brought by my minister to the throne of God on a regular basis.

And if you're, again, moved by that, you're going to listen very, very carefully.

And, you know, you think about that among ourselves. If we're praying for somebody, if we're praying about a situation, even if there's conflict between us and other people at times, and if we are praying about that, then it might make it just a little bit harder to talk about that person when they're not around, behind your back.

If we're talking to God about them, then it should impress upon us that, hey, wait a minute, that's where it goes and that's where it stops.

And leave it there.

Even those that are maybe our enemies are not treating us quite the way we should. They should at a particular time. We can choose how we speak about people.

And if we're taking their name to God and the situation and the conflict with it, then that may be all that is necessary if we really understand it.

There is an opportunity in prayer to talk sincerely and boldly to God about a situation, about a time of conflict, about a matter that may be pressing upon us very, very hard. And if we do that, then it can at least cause us to stop. And it may be a principle by which we might choose to live.

And before we talk to someone else, do we talk to God? Before we talk about someone else to another person, do we talk to God?

Now, there's a time to go to a person, and there are times to go to someone else about a third party as well.

If you want to make sure that you've got your facts right, if you want to make sure that it is your place to do it, you want to make sure that this is the right time. There are a number of things to get in line. But if we first resolve to take it to God and talk to Him about it, it can act as a check and a break on us and our gossip and our frustrations at times, perhaps to say things we shouldn't say or involve someone else who really shouldn't be involved.

If we take it to God first, perhaps and resolve to talk to Him alone about a brother who was created in a fence where we are involved, then it may be that God can lead us in wisdom to know exactly what is the best path to deal with the issue directly. And I mean deal with it, honestly, indirectly. You'll just shove it under the rug, even by just praying about it. I think that we pray, and then there comes a time when we have to act, and we may have to address the situation. But if we are confident that we've taken it to God and then we've built a relationship with God on that spiritual level, then it can be something that we at least begin to develop an element of trust with God. And it also can help us in developing a level of trust in our own relationships, because let's be blunt. If someone comes to you talking about somebody else, which at least has happened, and probably all of us in this room have been guilty of doing the same thing, but if someone comes to you, drops in your office, or picks up the phone and calls you, or stops you and says, you know, I've got this problem, so-and-so has done this, or whatever, and they did, as we say, they dump on you.

What is your reaction? Do you commiserate? Do you say, well, yeah, that's so-and-so. I know what they're like. Yeah, and because of your relationship with your friend, whatever you take their word first as the final word, or perhaps the complete truth, and it may or may not be, but how do you handle it? Here's one thing we should all understand. If somebody comes to you and starts talking about somebody else, you can pretty well bet they're talking about you to somebody else at another time.

And so, you know, you may not like that other person, and it may be your ego to hear dirt on somebody else, but don't be fooled that you're going to be totally clean or innocent or out of it because you're in a very dangerous situation.

They're probably talking about you, too. And it could be that it's just a symptom that you've been involved with as well. What I'm talking about here, right, even at this point, is that this is a matter of trust. This is a matter of trust because if you do know that they're going to talk to you about you somewhere else, then you're not going to trust that person either.

At the very least, you don't want to be in that same type of character. I used to have a supervisor who would always critique the other ministers in conversation with me. And he was a supervisor, and it would seem that whenever I had to talk with him about anything that somebody else would come up, and it would not always be in a favorable light. And I would listen. And what I learned after a period of time was that I really couldn't trust him with my thoughts because I felt that he would then take them to somebody else.

And I learned by experience, through mistakes, but then I eventually learned, because I had to interact with this person, I couldn't just completely ignore them in my life, that whenever a conversation would drift off into somebody else, I just learned to keep them out shut and not commiserate or offer any other information myself because... or my thoughts, I just learned to shut up because I couldn't trust him. And it was a lesson to me then, can I be trusted? What is my level of trust? You see, how it works among people and within an organization and within the church.

How important that is. It gets back to what Paul is saying here at Philemon, that I'm talking to God about you all the time. And that's probably where it should be the most and left most of the time. Until there is a need to talk directly to a person or maybe even report a situation to get some rectification, solve a solution.

But if you talked to God enough about people over a period of time, God in His wisdom and as He's working with us, we're going to be in a better frame of mind than to be seeking the best for the individual. If indeed there has to be some type of something said, we're going to be seeking restitution, a solution, reconciliation, and not to get somebody, not to expend our energies and frustration there. Take your frustration to God and talk to Him and learn to trust Him and even ask God to help us understand what we need to understand in those types of situations.

The teaching that James has about the tongue in James 2 always comes to mind. It's hard to tame our tongue. When we start rattling off our frustrations and our feelings, at times we will say things far beyond what we should. James says the tongue is an unruly evil full of deadly poison. Paul says to Philemon, I'm talking about you, but I'm talking about you with God, always in my prayers.

We'll go back to verse 5. He says, Hearing of your faith and hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith may become effected by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. Philemon had a good reputation of love and faith toward God and toward everyone in the church.

This is what Paul recalls to him. And again, that's just like, bring up the good in a person. Even when there's a real problem that needs to be addressed. Bring up the good and bring it up first, then deal with the negative, and then remind them of the good. Some of you that have been through the Spokesman's Club program over the years, it became almost a caricature.

In the evaluations, we'd have to give one another after a speech. And we always start off with something positive, but then there's this phrase that we had, But I have something that I want to bring out. And then if you're sitting there, you think, okay, here comes the hammer. I'm going to get now. And evaluating somebody, critiquing somebody, is an art.

It is an art. And I've had some bad evaluations, I've had some good evaluations. I've given some good evaluations, and I've given some miserable evaluations. Not only in the Spokesman's Club speaking type of setting, but just in the beginning of the people. Here's a lesson in, look at what Paul says. I've heard good things about you fighting. You have a good reputation, and you've done some good things.

You're a faithful man, you're obedient, and you've, you know, when somebody needs to be moved, you're right there as part of the moving group. Somebody's having a hard time, and they need some groceries. You may be either chipping in the money, or leaving a sack of groceries on their doorstep, and ringing the bell and beeping. You're doing something without being told. You have a good reputation. You have that type of rapport with people, and that you have shared your faith with people. So, right up front, he sets the stage there, and it's a good principle to do that.

Now, he also, in verse 6 here, he says, all this is in you in Christ Jesus. Every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. Paul always brings it back to Christ as we should. You know, we're not good by ourselves. We do these things. We should humbly understand that we do it because, again, God's grace to us first, and then we extend that out to others. And that we're even led to be more giving, more charitable, and right in a proper way in time.

That is also from God as well. Paul brings it right back to Christ. But in doing this here, he's also setting the stage for what is the ultimate basis of the relationship and a reconciled relationship among people where there's been a rupture, and that is the relationship with Christ.

He's saying, finally, you've done some good things. You've got a good reputation. All of that's indicative of Christ in you and all of his work within us. So we can't take the full credit ourselves. Leman couldn't, nor could we. And Paul is reminding that what you've done, you've treated each other well.

And now, how we treat each other always reflects upon Christ. This is really what he's getting to. The way we love and respect and deal with each other is always going to reflect upon Christ, who is the head of the church. And this is what he has in mind as he crafts this masterful letter to deal with the difficult issue with the intent of reconciling everyone involved and keeping peace within the church. Verse 7, We have great joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. Again, just the generosity that he must have had refers to him as a man of faith and love, shared by all.

But Paul also knew that Philemon could be a better person and that this incident that was now going to be dealt with was going to give Philemon an opportunity to make a breakthrough and come up to another level. He's about to address something that he perhaps had even seen in Philemon, which could be improved.

We don't know all the details of Onesimus and the relationship with him, Onesimus and Philemon. Onesimus ran away. And why did he run away? Why did somebody put a job? Because, you know, more money someplace else, or sometimes it's just not a good work environment. They have a bad supervisor. You just can't live there. I've known members of people at times to quit a very good-paying job because they just couldn't deal with the environment in which they had to work. And at times because of the supervisor, the president, or whoever it may have been.

They had to move on even to their herd. And that happens. So why did Onesimus run away? Well, that's not going into here. But Paul perhaps knew that there were certain things Philemon needed to address. And so he's setting the stage to begin to do that as he approaches this.

Verse 9, he says... Verse 8. Did I say verse 9? You're right, verse 8. Yet for love's sake, therefore, he says, I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, which he could have done, but he chose not to. He didn't choose to command. He says, Yet for love's sake, I rather appeal to you, being such a one as Paul the aged and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

Paul could have commanded, that is, used as authority, as an apostle, as the pastor, as the spiritual leader, but he chose not to. He says, for love's sake, I'm going to appeal to you. He's going to appeal to his better nature and to something that he must know that is there in Philemon. But then Paul says something as he does this that must have been a stroke of inspiration for him to do this.

But being such a one as Paul the aged and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. This is where Paul kind of pulls out the violin. He says, but I'm getting older.

But I'm Paul, I'm a little older and also a prisoner. And you have to imagine that that touched, hopefully, the heart of Philemon, as he did this. Age and experience will temper us all. If it doesn't, then we're really in trouble. If we continue to operate, as we perhaps did at age 18 or 28 or 38, when we're past 60, let's say, we haven't learned a whole lot of wisdom and human relations and what works, what doesn't work.

Experience and age will temper us. And I think that it had tempered Paul as he dealt with this. He had time as a prisoner to reflect and to think deeply through any of the matters that came before him.

In this case, he had to have understood the personalities and the issues and the potential outcomes. And it seems that Paul, above all, was wanting to achieve a peaceable resolution in this particular issue of a conflict between members that brought about unity rather than division. And so he had the time to think it through. And he knew in this case that he couldn't pull rank.

That wouldn't work. And so he starts, I'm older and I'm in prison. There's a wonderful story from American history dealing with George Washington. It was at the end of the Revolutionary War. And Congress had not paid the soldiers like they should have. They didn't have money. Things were quite disorganized. But they had won the war. The war was over. As the Army was disbanding, there was a great deal of disgruntled among the ranks because they had not been paid by the Continental Congress.

And it came to a head in New York, on one occasion, several of the officers. Had gathered and they were disgruntled. And they were talking of marching on Congress. Probably Congress, or, you know, to get their money. Which would have been a very, very challenging, difficult situation for the young nation. Not yet fully formed in terms of its governmental structure. And with Washington and his role, they could have tried to make him kind of the king or the acting regent general or whatever. And he had the authority and he had the popularity to do so.

And there was a place, I believe it was in Newburgh, New York, where the officers were gathered and plied. And Washington went there. And he came into the room and he had to deal with a very tense situation. And he knew that mutiny was not the answer. And he had to compose some words to them. And he had it on a piece of paper. And that paper was in his pocket like this. And he pulled it out and started to look, unfold, and read.

And he couldn't see because he was older at the time. He pulled out his spectacles, his glasses. And he said, you'll excuse me. He said, the war has, you know, taken his toll on me. And my eyesight is not what it used to be. And he put his glasses on. And he read the letter. And according to the story, it just changed the whole mood of the officers. Because they had such a regard for him that they realized, hey, we can't do this.

And he read a letter that he'd written that was conciliatory. And it broke the mood of discontent that was there in the room at that moment. But he also did it as much because of not only what he wrote, but it was that gesture of putting on his glasses and making an honest comment to them that asking their forgiveness because the war and his ravages had impacted his eyesight.

He too was over. And so when Paul says to Philemon, you know, as much as Paul the aged and now a prisoner of Christ, as Philemon read that, it must have touched him. It should have. We might expect that it would have touched him that this indeed was an issue that he needed to deal with. So, verse 10, he says, I appeal to you for my son Omesan was that I have forgotten all in my chains. So he indicates that Omesan must have been baptized, possibly while with him.

He says, I've forgotten him while in my chains. He calls him my son, Omesan. So this is a relationship that changed not only with Paul, poor Omesan, but by implication to toward Philemon. Because he says, he is my son Omesan who might be God while in my chains. And the implication would be to Philemon. Now he's your brother. He's no longer just a piece of property. He's no longer a slave. He's no longer a runaway slave. The relationship now has changed. What are we going to do about this?

Paul is saved. He said in verse 11, he was once unprofitable to you. But now he is profitable to you and to me. What do you think he meant by saying that he was unprofitable? Had he been a Hagon? Lazy worker? Costing Omesan by Philemon more than what it kept to cost to keep him up? He stole it when he ran away. Did he take something of Philemon's as he ran away? We don't know. But he had been unprofitable.

So you do the math. You figure it out as to what can make someone in a relationship unprofitable. Or took something of value just by leaving himself. Hard to come to grips with it from our way of thinking today. But Omesan was on the books as an asset to Philemon. That's the onerous part about slavery, isn't it?

The human being is looked upon as an asset. After the feast last year, we were out at Virginia Beach for the feast. We went to Charlottesville, Virginia, and spent a few days weekend with some friends. We went up to Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello. Of course, Jefferson was a slave order. He ran the whole operation on that hilltop with slaves. You get immersed in that. You spend a day up at Monticello and realize what slavery was, at least in that period of American history. These people were property and they were on the books as assets.

It could be bought and sold. So Omesan must leave him, whether he took anything or not. Paul says he was once unprofitable for whatever reason. Again, you see how Paul weaves us together. So, whatever he says, now he's profitable for both you and me. What's interesting here is that Paul is now having to deal with this relationship.

He plays it even-handed. He doesn't play one off against the other. No doubt, though, Omesan must probably have some grievances. He probably had said some things about Philemon to Paul. Whatever Paul felt, knew, or understood about Philemon, he doesn't bring it up here. Could it be that Omesimus was first in his cause? He seemed to be right. The proverb says he who was first in his cause seems just, but his neighbor comes and finds him out.

It's a biblical proverb. And you wonder, did Omesimus sit down with Paul and say, Well, that rat, Philemon, he's just a bad boss. He beat me. Or he doesn't take care of us. He didn't give us what he promised. Or he's unjust, and this and that, and all kinds of stories. He could have made that happen. But Paul doesn't deal with that here. He had no desire to use Omesimus to gain anything on Philemon.

He seems to have a pure motive to restore the two to a sound relationship. And so, again, just notice how he craps this. He did not poison Omesimus's mind against Philemon. And now he challenges Philemon in a right way to stretch himself beyond the prejudices of his life and of his time and the mindset of his age, of slavery, of an owner, you know, slave and an owner, the prejudices of whatever nationality or ethnicity Omesimus would have been. Perhaps Philemon was a, probably no doubt, a Roman citizen, maybe of some renown, maybe of some family, famous family, perhaps, or whatever.

But Philemon's got to stretch himself now to receive this man back, to receive him not just as a piece of property, but as a brother. And so Paul's having to set all of this up and to challenge Philemon to stretch himself beyond the familiar prejudices of time as well as whatever his own personal problems would have been, and to look and see somebody with a different set of eyes. Because Paul is basically saying he's been baptized, and you've got to accept him as a brother, his sins are forgiven, and things have to change. And so he has to be reached with the simplicity of conversion, with repentance, and the fruit of a changed life.

And I should ask ourselves the same question. Can we, as we deal with people, can we be reached if we see a repentant heart?

Can we be reached if someone says, I'm sorry? Can we be reached if someone does indeed change? Can we be touched by the fruit of a changed life when it happens? A hard heart will not accept that in somebody else. And we have to watch that in our relationships and develop a relationship that comes from a godly simplicity here. In verse 12, Paul says to Philemon, I'm sending him back. You therefore receive him. That is my own heart. He says, receive him. That is my own heart. Now Paul is opening himself up and exposing himself, his heart at least, in a right way to Philemon. Receive him. Will you do it? Will you do this? Receive him my own heart. Verse 13, whom I wished to keep with me, that on your behalf you might minister with me and my chains for the gospel. So he would have liked to have retained Onesimus as a helper, as an aide.

And doing so, he even kind of tweaks Philemon a little bit. He says, on your behalf. Consider it a gift from you. And Philemon would say, oh, okay. Well, all right. But Paul isn't really doing that. He's going to send him back to it. But he says in verse 14, without your consent, I want it to do nothing.

So how could Philemon refuse such a request? How could he refuse what Paul is asking? Paul is opening himself up emotionally and exposing his heart, and biting even a rejection hurt. Have you ever been hurt by somebody that you open yourself up to? You can be rejected. You expose your feelings, honest and sincere feelings of sympathy, forgiveness. I'm sorry. And it's not acceptable. When you see that it's rejected by someone, that just adds more pain. That could have been what Paul was dealing with, or the possibility here. That he was opening himself up to Philemon, and Philemon rejected Paul's overture. That would have really been a very messy situation. But he says, without your consent, verse 14, I want it to do nothing. That your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary. He wanted the good deed to be voluntary. And so that is really the true foundation of a relationship, not only with God. We voluntarily choose to obey God. Because God gives us, individually, the freedom to choose. But also in a relationship with each other, we have those relationships based on mutual trust and good will, not by coercion or compulsion. Verse 15, he says, For perhaps he departed for a while, for this purpose, that you might receive him forever. Interesting, huh, Paul puts it. Maybe this is for something beyond any of us. Perhaps he left your house, for a while, for this purpose, that you might receive him forever. So Paul takes it from the perspective that he has, where the onceus has gone to him. He's been baptized, and now there's a potential for this, what is a bad situation, to become better. And Paul puts it in such a way that maybe that's for the reason that he left. And, you know, sometimes we say, you know, well, all these things happen for a reason. You ever use that phrase? Sometimes we say it sincerely, sometimes we think we say it because we don't have anything else to say.

We don't know where it has to turn out. We hope it's for a purpose. We hope that in the end there will be something good will come out of a bad situation. Then we'll be able to fit all the pieces together and say, oh, that's why that happened. That's why that happened.

Paul seems to have been able to rise above the situation and see it now as, okay, this has happened, Philemon, and for this purpose, that you might receive him because he's now a brother and the two of you are going to be in the kingdom of God together forever.

Okay, so it had to happen and God's hand is in this.

Kind of what is implied between the lines. And, you know, that's pretty powerful.

Not too many points in situations in my life can I finally connect all the dots and say, yeah, this is why it happened.

But I've had a few episodes over the years that with time and thinking back on it, putting it all together, I can say, yeah, this happened.

There's a good purpose for this.

And I hope there's more yet to come out of even some of the ones that may yet be unresolved, or I can't figure out why this happened to me or to the church or to someone else.

But sometimes it comes down to how we react to it.

And the individual reaction that you and I have then can create a good purpose, a godly purpose in the end.

By the way, Michael said, you know, I'm not going to do it, Paul. He's worthless. And you think that's what you keep. Just let him go. I don't care anymore.

He could have done that. That would have been his choice based on his emotions or whatever.

But, getting, I mean, that's not told to us in the story here, but how we react can determine the purpose of the situation and how it will come out.

Verse 16, he says, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

He's saying he is God's, not yours. And that was another, probably another thought for Philemon to come to.

He's no longer a slave. He's more than a slave. He's a brother. He's a brother to me and to you. And he's God's because he's been baptized.

Verse 17, if then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would be.

I ask you, look at this question. If you were a Onesimus, would you have gone back? Would you have gone back into that situation, into that household?

As a slave, could you have had trust in Onesimus? Or in Philemon? Could Onesimus have had trust with him? Because he still would have been a slave upon his return, unless he would have been set free by Philemon out of the goodness of his heart.

But there were no guarantees. And so Onesimus had a choice to make as well. If he was not set free, he'd better learn to be content where he was.

So Onesimus had to trust Philemon. He also had to trust the judgment of Paul in this as well, with what Paul was laying out.

In verse 18, Paul says, if he has wronged you or owes anything, put that on my account. I'll pay for it.

If he's wronged you or owes you anything, I'll pay for it. But I Paul, in writing with my own hand, I will repay, not to mention, he says to you that you owe me even your own self.

Another masterful of the cat. I'll pay for it, but you know what? You owe me a few things. You owe me yourself. Besides.

Then he says in verse 20, Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord.

So he's appealing to settle this, to accept him back, and let's all be refreshed and let's all get some joy out of this unfortunate situation.

Then in verse 21, he says, Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.

Now that is trust. I have confidence in your obedience, that you'll do even more.

But meanwhile, also prepare a guest room for me, for I trust that through your prayers I shall be granted to you.

So he was expecting to have his freedom to be able to travel again, and he would pay by leaving a visit.

Then he closes it out with greetings to everyone else, sending others greetings. In verse 25, he says, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.

Now, it's a fascinating letter. It's a marvelous example of wisdom, tact, diplomacy, of Paul, in a very difficult situation dealing with human relations between two people.

That is even more highly charged because of the slavery issue, the cultural environment of the first century, and the taking of perhaps money or property and the whole runaway situation.

So it's a wonderful, wonderful story with so many dimensions of lessons available to us. I'd like to draw three lessons, three points in conclusion to this for us to kind of note as we look back on this, that can help us to build trust and to learn something about trust.

And I'm going to take three points that come out of the book that I've been studying in regard to this over the past several months. It's called The Speed of Trust. It's written by Stephen M. R. Covey. He's the son of Stephen Covey of the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People Training.

This is his son. It's a very interesting book. It's a very good book. It has a good basic primer on the matter of trust, of building trust among people within organizations.

And he brings out a number of different elements that must be cultivated to build trust. And there are three that we can apply here.

The first one is that to build trust, and a culture of trust, you have to demonstrate respect. Respect must be demonstrated.

And in this case here, Paul showed deep respect for Philemon as a person, for who he was even as a slaveholder, the rights that he had by law within Roman culture.

He didn't dishonor them, and he showed respect for him. Go back to verse 8 and 9 of Philemon here. Just note this.

He said to Philemon, remember, Therefore though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake I rather appeal to you, being such a witness Paul the aged and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I could command this, but I appeal to you. Paul was showing respect to Philemon at every level. As a brother, as a fellow human being, as indeed a slave owner in this situation, and the rights that he did have as a Christian, and he was showing respect for him. Which is something that we must always strive to do in our relationship no matter how tense they may be, no matter how grave the offense.

If we ever hope that we're going to achieve a reconciliation, something good, we've got to demonstrate a respect and learn to be able to do that in our relations with each other. And demonstrating respect touches so many different aspects of our life and of our relationships with one another that we learn to respect who we are, what has been done.

You say thank you. You send a note of thanks if somebody does a good deed for you or even for someone else. Or you show an appreciation for a job well done with a word, with a note, with a commendation, with a raise, I guess, if you're the boss. But we show respect for people. We demonstrate that in many different ways. Acknowledge the contributions that people have and give credit where credit is due. And not take it for ourselves, but always within a congregation, within a family, within a division of the company, or always give credit to people.

Covey brings out an interesting story in regard to this. It's a professor at a business school who is giving a final exam in the graduate course to his students. And he has a question that he puts to the students. In the school, he says, what is the name of the person who cleans your dormitory room?

And the reaction that came from one of the students who's going to be graduating with a business degree was, who cares? Why are you asking an unfair question? What difference does it make what the name of the person who cleans my dormitory room is? And the professor takes her aside and says, it makes a big difference because you're going out into the business world. You're going to be working in a company, in a big building. You're going to be working with all kinds of people who have various jobs to make a company work and keep the building in the way that it is. There are going to be clerks. There are going to be mailroom people. There are going to be janitors. There are going to be all kinds of people in the building. You need to show respect by even knowing their name and referring to them by name. Even the one who empties your waste basket or delivers the mail from the cart into the mailroom at your business. If you're going to succeed in the business, you need to show respect for people. You need to know their name. And in the end, he uses it to show that that's how you build respect. And that's how you build trust in a culture of showing respect for people. The second element of trust is to right the wrong that he brings out in his book. A culture of trust will involve people who are able to correct a mistake. We will right the wrong. We will make ownership at whatever level. And this is what Paul did back in verses 18 and 19. Remember what he said? He said to Philemon, if he's wronged you or owes you anything, put it on my account. I'll pay for it.

Did Paul make the mistake? Did he steal? No. Did he have the obligation? Technically, no. But he was the boss, the impossibly, the minister. And he was in charge of the church. And in this case, he had to own the problem. And sometimes, the boss goes into the supervision of the role or whatever. To build trust, somebody has to own the problem. Sometimes you have to own it even if it's not yours.

Or if you're not directly responding to it. Paul did not commit the offense, but he took the steps on his own end to correct the problem. I'll repay it. Put it on my account. I'll take care of it. And that's when a mistake is made. He brings out some examples there. He brings out in this book an example of one being of the President George W. Bush. And an aide who secretly taped him. Who got his permission. And wrote a book about it. And then it came out that he had taped the President of the United States about his permission.

Big no-no. Huge ethical lapse. And this individual came to himself and he owned the problem. And he admitted, I messed up. He didn't get a bank of lawyers. He didn't go on all the television shows to justify. He admitted it. He stopped his book tour. Turned over all proceeds from his book to charity. Gave the tapes back to the President for him to have to do whatever he wanted to do with.

And said, I made a mistake. I violated this man's trust as an aide. He started on it innocently, but then it got out of control and I made a mistake. A mistake is made at the minute. So I'm sorry. We're going to correct this. We're going to correct this policy. We're going to correct this situation. And we're sorry. We're going to repay. We're going to deal with the individual. We're sorry. But say it happened. We made a mistake.

The quicker that has done, the quicker you can move on with the business of the organization, with your life, and put it behind you. Deny, deny, deny. And in today's highly internet-connected world, it's going to come out. We're going to tweet you to death. And if it's a commodity in the business world, they're going to kill you. If it's a bad product or a product mistake or something that happens, whether it's Apple Computer or Proctor Gamble or whatever it might be, if there's a mistake or recall these, we may get it off the shelf, get it done, get it behind you, and move on.

Own the problem and right the wrong. Hold it back. And that builds trust among people. That builds a culture of trust. Third point we can learn from this is that we need to learn to extend trust. We need to learn to extend trust when it comes to our relationships. In verse 21, Paul said to Philemon, Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.

Be trusted, Philemon, to say, I have confidence that you will do what's right. And if you can say that to someone in a tense situation, as you, again, after you've had all the fireworks, you've laid out the issues, you've laid out the events, the problem, and you can say, Look, I know you'll do what's right here. And you let them go out of your office, you let them go out of your home, or you let them go on and express confidence that they'll correct your behavior. They'll take those measures to correct the situation.

You extend that, you verbally say that, and then you can build, again, a culture of trust. And he says, I have confidence in your obedience. So it has to be done. So when you look at a letter like this, there's many different levels of human relationships that are operating. And we don't know how it all ended, because we're not told, but I think that because it was built into the Bible, that it had a happy ending.

They all lived happily ever after. That Onesimus and Philemon were reunited, that they had a better relationship. Maybe Philemon gave Onesimus his freedom of time. There are interesting stories from the early period of the Church of a later bishop of one of the cities, an Antioch who was named Onesimus. That would have been within a few years of the context of this time. Some commentators speculate that perhaps that this Onesimus became a bishop of the Church. Could be that just the story became so well known throughout the Church, that somebody named Onesimus, who was named Onesimus, later became the bishop of Antioch.

So we don't know. But I think that it ended well. It can end well for us if we learn certain lessons that don't trust among ourselves and benefit the Church of God.