Conflict Resolution

Because of other hats that I wear and responsibilities on the Council, I've been involved recently in a lot of discussions that will be ongoing regarding the subject of conflict resolution. Dealing with issues that create problems between people. And I think we all recognize that within the Church, among people, in your workplace, in your neighborhood, there's always going to be abrasive situations and times of conflict that will arise that you and I will have to deal with. And resolving those conflicts are always a challenging situation. How many of you here love conflict?

Nobody likes conflict? I'm surprised. Well, I don't either. I don't like conflict. It is not fun to get into and have to deal with, but I think we all recognize that it is a reality of life. It happens. And we have to deal with it the best we can. We can run, but we can't hide from it because ultimately it will catch up to us.

There is a whole book in the Bible that I think presents to us what I call a master's class in conflict resolution. The Bible addresses the subject in many different ways and through stories and proverbs and teachings in all parts of the Bible.

But there is one book where conflict resolution is kind of set out in a master's course that would be helpful for us to go through. And I'd like for you to turn to that book. I won't take the time to go through it here this afternoon. Some of you are already turning to it already. I can hear you. How many of you know which book to turn to? There's only one of you who served this sermon. So, how many of you know which book to turn to?

Only one. Two. Three. So, the book of Philemon. Or the back of the Old Testament. New Testament. Caught you there. The book of Philemon. This is a letter written by the Apostle Paul from prison to a man who is a member of the church by the name of Philemon. That's why it has the name of Philemon on it. I'm going to read through this letter.

Just ask you to follow along as a setting. And then we're going to go back through the letter and I'll break it down and explain a few things about it in more detail. But just read along with me and let's read this as it was originally given and not just to a man, but it was even read to the church, as we will see. And imagine yourself setting and listening to this, being read and needing to learn from it. And listen to it as a letter between friends. Verse 1. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus and Timothy, our brother.

To Philemon, our beloved friend and fellow laborer. To the beloved Athea, our kippus, our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God making mention of you always in my prayer, 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 effective by 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 by you, brother.

Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake I'd rather appeal to you being such a one as Paul the aged and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was unprofitable to you but now is profitable to you and to me.

I am sending him back. You, therefore, receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wish to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent, I wanted to do nothing. But your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary. For perhaps he departed for you for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever. No longer as a slave, but more than a slave.

A beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then you count me as your partner, receive him as you would me. But if he is wronged you or owes anything, put that on my account. I, Paul, in writing with my own hand, I will repay, not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides. Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord, refresh my heart in the Lord, 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. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ, Jesus greets you, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow laborers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. Short letter, 25 verses. To the point, detailing a conflict between a man named Philemon, who had as his slave a man named Onesimus. Slavery was very much of an institutionalized part of society in the first century throughout the ancient world, for that matter.

And this was not just black-white slavery, as we know in our own modern experience. This was very likely one white man owning another white man. It was a part of the world, and especially the Roman world.

Onesimus was a slave of Philemon, and he at some point ran away. He found his way to Paul.

Paul baptized him, made him a member, which changes the relationship. But he said, because he's still legally property of Philemon, he has to send him back. So you can imagine potential for conflict if one of us owned someone else in a congregation.

And if we had slavery to that degree today, and we were both members, imagine how much conflict can be. You know, sometimes one member will work for another member.

That's a recipe for conflict, too. It's not a slave-master type of relationship, but it is an employer-employee, and you can understand that. So imagine this in this setting in this world at the time, and the potential is that we're there, and yet the people had to get along.

They had to reconcile. Paul had to be the one to affect it. Hence, he wrote the letter. Now let's go back, and let me take you through it and comment a little bit more regarding this, and explain a few things, because there are important lessons for you and I to learn in regard to the difference even between reconciliation and forgiveness. There are two different creatures. We'll talk about that when I get to the end. Sometimes we confuse the two, but there is a difference between forgiving and reconciling. In this case, they had to do both, and that is very important. All right, let's go back to the beginning of the letter.

Notice that Paul not only addresses Philemon, but he also addresses the church in verse 2, to the church in your house. So this was a letter with a lesson, not just for Philemon, but it was also for the church, because there were other conflicts there.

This was not the only one, I'm sure, in that congregation. There were others.

Somebody had offended somebody at a potluck, or they didn't talk to them at church, or you know how things come up. Something would have been said that created an offense. So Paul made sure this letter was addressed to everyone, and there were lessons for everyone to learn, just as there are lessons for us today.

Notice in verse 1 how he addresses Philemon. You will see this throughout the letter.

He says, to Philemon, our beloved friend and fellow laborer. Paul, at the very beginning, really establishes a relationship, and what is the basis of the relationship here.

He says, we're fellow laborers. We are working together on this.

We are not only brothers, but we are fellow laborers on this whole matter of relationships and issues within the church.

Do you remember what Jesus said to his disciples in verse 15, the waning hours of his time with him before his death? He said, I call you friends.

I call you friends, and I tell you what will be. Christ, at that point, looked upon his disciples, the ones to be the apostles, as friends. That sets a different relationship than master and student, or slave and owner, or employee or employer.

So, it's a different relationship. Paul wanted that to be very clear up front here. He said, we are fellow laborers in this. Going back to Mr. Armstrong again, those of us that have been around for a few years will remember, how many of you at one point in your relationship with the church became a coworker? I'll have to raise my hand because I became a coworker.

Remember you would get periodic letters that were called coworker letters from Mr. Armstrong?

You became a coworker if you donated any amount of money to the church twice within six months.

That recognized the level of involvement beyond just getting the magazine.

That when you start working over money, you realize we're invested. Mr. Armstrong understood that.

He understood that there was a relationship beginning to develop. He would write those people and as long as they were continually donating, they would remain as coworkers. They would get letters telling them about the work of the church and what was going on, an offer for a booklet or whatever else. I remember my grandfather, my mother's dad, who got her first interest in the church by listening to Mr. Armstrong. When he became a coworker, he really just flew all over him. He said, I don't want to be a coworker. He sent money in.

At that point, he kind of froze out. I don't know why, but he didn't want to get any more than just a subscriber or reader or whatever. Over the years, those who either raised your hand, you obviously progressed from being a coworker to ultimately a member. We still employ that technique in working with people today and understanding that that's building a relationship with people. But there's a genius there. That's why I bring it up. We are coworkers. As Paul says here to Philemon, we are fellow laborers. When we begin to address that and look at each other, we're in this together. We're working together in the church toward salvation, toward the work of preaching the gospel, toward the whole package of the church. When we look at each other as coworkers, it establishes a much tighter bond of familiarity and friendship and family.

That's what Paul is doing here. That's what we understand. What was really one of the foundational philosophical approaches, even, in our modern history and development of the church. It touches upon an important matter in terms of, again, either preventing conflict or managing it and or working through it when it happens as to how we look at one another, how we deal with one another.

That is so important. There was an article in the Financial Times a few weeks ago. It was talking about a particular company and their approach toward their employees. How many of you have heard ever heard of the WR Grace company? Know what the WR Grace company happens to be? Anybody?

WR Grace?

WR Grace, you may not have heard of it, but I'm sorry, I said W.L. Grace. I'm thinking of another company. W.L. Gore. A few more hands might go up. W.L. Gore. How many of you ever heard of the W.L. Gore company? Okay. How many of you ever heard of Gore-Tex? Okay, now we know what Gore-Tex is.

The W.L. Gore company invented Gore-Tex. And when you put on a pair of boots or a coat that's made with Gore-Tex, it's made by that company. Okay, or a multinational company. It was founded in like 1958, I believe, by Bill Gore and his wife Vivian Gore. It's a family business that started small, grew big. This article talks about their theory toward management and leadership within the business. And the title of the article is called the chaos theory of leadership. And chaos, because it's a little bit different than most how most companies are run, but there is a very important lesson here in terms of how people are treated and how they look at one another behind the success of the company. It says that in their company, we don't like the manager word. We get very angry when people call the staff employees. They're not called employees. So there you have it. He says, if you want to achieve 50 years of almost continuous growth, you know now what you have to do.

Abolish management and get rid of all the employees.

A little tongue in cheek there. They call their employees associates. They don't refer to them as employees. They're associates. Now you've seen that in various other companies, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it's just a gimmick. But this was invented at the very beginning of the company, and it stayed. It wasn't a gimmick, a trick, or a technique of whatever leadership book had been read that week to try to manipulate people. It was something that was deeply felt by the founding owners of the company, and it has remained to this day a part of the leadership. I'm not saying that you could take a GM or a first bank or whatever, some other company, and turn it around overnight by doing this, and you would have instant results. Probably wouldn't. But if something is embedded in the fabric of a community, of an organization, and is stuck with, it can work. And it did with this particular company. They've kept bureaucracy to a minimum. They have teams that do the work, but they say that the teams are self-organizing, and that people have learned that by giving up power, they've actually been able to tap into a knowledge of people, and not necessarily lose control, but magnify the efforts that everyone can make within the organization. It says, flat hierarchies can be confusing to traditional managers. They describe their style of management as a flat hierarchy. Interesting. They still have a hierarchy, but it's rather flat. There is a CEO, there are managers, there is leadership, accountability, and all the things that go along with that, but they take a different approach. They call it a flat hierarchy. It says that can be confusing to traditional managers. When you invite the head, this is an important statement describing their culture. When you invite the head, the head, the heart, the spirit of associates, you get the normal dynamic of teams forming and storming, and so it's very chaotic, their leader says today. It doesn't mean you can't put discipline in place, but you have to be willing to almost give up power. For many folks, giving up power and actually tapping into the knowledge and not being a person that's in control, and ultimately the decision-maker, is scary. But it has worked for this particular company all these years, and they are a successful company in their particular field, and it has worked for them. Again, it wouldn't necessarily turn around an organization that doesn't have that as a part of their DNA, but it works. And when you look at what people, again, Paul says to Philemon, and he calls him a fellow laborer, then you recognize that he's taking a different approach to people, and when you do that, then you can begin to work through and manage the conflict that so often comes up. And it won't do away with human nature. It won't do away with problems, but at least it can minimize them, and it can give a more effective vehicle to resolve them over a period of time. You have to start with the right foundation with people. Now, let's go back to Philemon as he goes on here. He says, in the beginning of verse 4 and again through 7, leading into the meat of his letter, he says, I thank God, and I make mention of you always in my prayers. I hear of your love and your faith, the sharing of your faith. And he says in verse 7, I have great joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. Here in about four verses, Paul goes through a great deal of praise and compliments and praise for Philemon and the people there, but particularly for Philemon as he uses these terms. And he means it.

How often do you hear compliments on your job? I had a man tell me one time he had taken a job working for a bank, and he was just in an entry-level clerk position, but after working there several weeks and turned into months, he said, you know, my supervisors would compliment me. Tell me I was doing a good job. Now, he wasn't making the big decisions in the boardroom had he been doing so. Maybe the bank would have done better. But he said it was good to get compliments, because in his former job, he didn't get many compliments. And he said, it's a new experience for me, and it's good. We all like to be noticed and complimented and told that we're doing a good job. And again, if we know that we are, we know that it's not false and it's not meant in any way to manipulate us. False praise is one of the worst things that we could do, but when it is certainly deserving, we should do it. And it is good to receive. And Paul understood this. Now, in verse 8, he says, therefore. This is where he shifts gears when you see the word therefore.

On the other hand, let's get to the heart of it. Though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting.

That's where he's saying, in another way, he said, I could tell you what to do.

I'm in charge. I'm the boss. I'm the great apostle. I hold the keys to the government of God.

I have all authority with the government of God. He could have pulled that sermon out and played that card on the table. And that's what he's saying in a few words that I just said. He said, I could be very bold to command you do what is fitting. Yet, for love's sake, I rather appeal to you, being such a one as Paul the aged and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

He could have pulled rank, ordered Philemon to take Onesimus back.

And maybe Philemon would have done it. If he had been, quote, under God's government, he would have done it. But would he have done it with his heart?

Or would he have just had a begrudging compliance?

How many of you have been told to do something by a minister?

And the implication was, if you didn't do it, you might be put out of the church. Or talked about it in a sermon or something else. And you did it.

I use myself as an example. I may have mentioned this before. When I was 18, I joined Spokesman's Club. And the minister told me to shave my sideburns, cut my sideburns off. Said they were too long. Yes, sir. I did it. Now, they weren't by today's standards, they were short. Or by the standards of the 70s, maybe. I don't know what it would be today. They weren't even below the year. But I was told to shave my arm. He also told me to change my name. That was another story. Did that too. But, you know, you did it. That's not a very major example. But, you know, in the church, there have been those who didn't know any other way other than to bark an order. Give a command. And expect people to ask how high on the way up. And so, we've all lived through that.

Or, some of us have, and we understand that. And so, when we read what Paul says here, we can relate that he could have done that. But that's not the approach that he takes.

He says, I'm going to appeal to you. And I appeal to you, in verse 10, he says, for my son Onesimus.

So, he's asking that Philemon consider this. There's a wonderful story from American history of George Washington. After the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress had not paid its soldiers and its officers. They had promised that they would pay them, but they didn't.

The Americans won the war. The British surrendered at Yorktown. The months drug by, and the army had not been completely disbanded, nor had they been paid. Now, you can well imagine an army not being paid is not a very happy army. Washington was their leader. He had gone to Congress. He had pleaded with Congress to release funds. Washington had even paid, in some cases, and provided out of his own money for the army's needs. But it hadn't happened. And in January of 1783, there were a group of leading officers gathered near Philadelphia wanting their money. Congress wouldn't advance the authority and make the money available to them. Washington had gone before Congress. He had gone to the soldiers. The soldiers were gathered a few months later on a Saturday in March 1783. Washington walked into a room full of his officers. The air was electric, because they were about to mutiny and march on Congress and take it over. They wanted Washington to do so at their head as their leader. Had he done it, they would have followed. They would have routed to Congress. He could have established a dictatorship. Washington understood just how dangerous the situation was. He came before soldiers and he counseled patients. He explained that Congress was slow in making decisions, but he was confident that they would provide the money for them. He goes on to explain all that happened. He gave a very moving speech, urging patients and trying to calm things down. And then Washington did something at that particular point in time. He reached into his pocket, kind of like this, and he pulled out a letter that he had received from a sympathetic congressman. He began to open it up and he pulled out his glasses, kind of like I have to do. He put them on to read them, because his eyes were weak to read this particular letter. He was having difficulty making out the words.

And he apologized for the delay, and he made a simple remark. He said, I've already grown gray in service to my country. I am now going blind.

And that remark just softened the whole room. The men started crying. These hardened soldiers started to cry, recognizing that their revered leader, George Washington, was physically ailing as a result of his years of service. And so, well, what's our beef? And so he made that offhand remark, finished reading the letter, and everyone came up and shook his hand, quietly left the room. The situation was resolved for that moment. Now, Washington was a bit of an actor, historians will tell you. So whether he knew what he was doing or not, whether he deliberately staged that, as some leaders might do, or it was just a natural reaction, we don't know.

But that is true as to what happened, and the impact quieted everyone down, settled for the moment, and a rebellion was averted, as he in a sense appealed to his age and his infirmity.

So when you read what Paul says here, as he reaches out to Philemon, he said, I am Paul the Aged. I'm the old man, and I'm also a prisoner.

I think Paul was sincere in putting this out as he was making his case to Philemon, and basically said, look, I don't have control of my life, and I've labored for years, and where has it gotten me? But still, he's saying between the lines, we've got to make this work, we've got to find a way to go forward with this. Bear with me, Philemon. So he says, I appeal to you for Onesimus, my son, who might be gotten while in my chains, which means that he had baptized Onesimus. Onesimus found his way to Rome, where Paul was, and Paul counseled him and baptized him.

And so this is what he means when he says that he is as my son, I've begotten in my own chains.

Then he makes another statement, verse 11, he says, who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me. I'm sending him back.

Now, he's making a play on words when you understand the Greek here and the name Onesimus, because Onesimus, the name of the slave, that word means useful. Useful. It's like saying, you know, your name's useful. But he's saying, but Onesimus had become unuseful by leaving Paul.

Or by leaving Philemon and going to Paul. Because Onesimus was a cost center.

He was a source of capital or revenue, if you will, for Philemon. And by leaving, it was like, you know, a top employee or a whole division walking out. Money was walking out the door. So it wasn't very useful to Philemon. So Paul is saying, look, he was once unprofitable to you, but now he's profitable to both of us. Because his status has changed. He's become a Christian. And he is saying that through that, he can be a far more valuable person to you, because now he is subscribing to Christian values and teachings. And he has changed. And so I'm going to send him back in verse 12, which is what he says. And he says, you therefore receive him, that is, my own heart. And so he refers to him. He says, I wish to keep him with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel.

Paul is saying, look, I'd like to keep him here. And then he could help me. And it would be like you helping me through him. And that would be that. But he said, I'm going to send him back.

So receive him there. Even though I sure would like to keep him here, he would help me.

But he says in verse 14, without your consent, I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary.

So he didn't want to confiscate Onesimus. He would have wanted, perhaps Philemon, to say, well, you keep him as a gift and we'll just, he'll be an outsourced employee for you.

That's how he would have wanted it. He didn't, again, want to command and to take that with him. And so he says, but I won't do it without your consent. Again, Paul knew that he couldn't take something that was not his or manipulate someone like Philemon by guilt, by use of authority, by whatever other means. He couldn't do it that way.

Even though Paul knew that, humanly speaking, and if he wanted to employ certain tactics, he could have done it. You ever used guilt to get something? Manipulate somebody by guilt?

Or do you manipulate somebody by throwing a fit or by making a threat? But if we consciously do something to get somebody to do something for us, or to get something from someone to get an advantage, and we do it through some artifice, such as anger, fear, guilt, or whatever, people will may respond, we may get it, but it's not going to be done in the right way by their consent, with their heart, with their total involvement. And we will pay more for it in the long run because people will resent it. You resent it when you've been manipulated, when you've been taken advantage of.

Again, Paul knew through this that this was not the way to deal with people.

And so he didn't... there was already enough conflict. He didn't want to magnify it, thinking that he was solving the problem. You see, sometimes we think we solve problems by issuing an order, issuing a directive, writing a memo, making a decision, being in charge.

All these things. There may be a time that, you know, if property or life for a very critical situation where decisions and authority does have to be exercised to preserve a company, a church, a family, a situation. But that's not the norm in terms of the way things are operated.

This was a situation where Paul knew that there was going to have to be a great deal of finesse and tact and diplomacy represented in order to get this done. Now, going back to verse 15, he begins to speculate. He says, for perhaps... let's look at it this way. Let's stretch our mind, Philemon. Maybe Onesimus departed for a while. Maybe he ran away for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever. No longer as a slave, but more than a slave. A beloved brother, especially to me. How much more to you both in the flesh and in the moor?

In these two verses, Paul does some imaginative thinking. What if? Let's try to understand what might be behind this action that Onesimus took. You may think it's only a runaway slave, but Paul is saying, perhaps it's something else. Perhaps it's something deeper. Perhaps it's something bigger than both of us, than all three of us. It might be that God is in charge here, that God has arranged this as he is working in this one man's life to bring him into the church and to bring us all together. Maybe there's something bigger working here.

Paul casts what is. What is and is this? There was a runaway slave who was now baptized.

Now, sometimes when you face a conflict and you walk into a problem, you've got to be the mediator, the conflict resolver. First, just determine what is as opposed to what isn't.

Find out what is. What are the facts? Do the old dragnet line. Line from drag. Just the facts, man. Just the facts. Find out what is. Is someone a thief? Is someone a liar? Or is he or she not?

Find out what is. Not what emotion says is. What three or four people say is. Find out what is. What are the facts? Paul laid out here, this is what is. But then he went on to speculate as to what could be. Paul couldn't change what had happened. Well, these of us had already run away.

He couldn't change that. There had already been an offense. There had already been a loss.

There was something else Paul could not change. He could not change slavery as an institution. He couldn't say to Onesimus and Dephilemon, look, slavery of this sword is not sanctioned by God therefore in the church and therefore you're free. He couldn't do that. It was a legal binding structure of the Roman government. Paul could not override that. The church at that time could not.

That was another point of what is determining that. And so he couldn't change slavery.

But what Paul did know was that he could influence two people.

Two people. He couldn't influence the whole Roman Empire, but he could influence this opportunity, two people, to recognize an opportunity to forge something positive out of a crisis.

This is what he did know that he could do. And so he focused on that. There was a crisis of a conflict, and Paul focused on what he could do to bring something out of it.

The new President, Barack Obama, President-elect Obama now, has a new Chief of Staff, former congressman named Rahm Emanuel. You'll hear that name quite a bit. Rahm Emanuel.

Emanuel. He is said to have, as one of his slogans, one of his sayings, is that never allow a crisis to go to waste. Never allow a crisis to go to waste.

Take advantage of it. Make something positive. Learn something. Build something out of it. It's not a bad idea. This is what Paul did. He had a crisis in front of him, and he wasn't going to let it go to waste. And so he takes this approach. And he has confidence in Philemon that it will happen. In verse 17, he says, if you then count me as a partner, receive him as you would me. He knew that he would. He felt that he would. He said, receive him as you would me.

He wanted him to forgive the debt. And he looked at Philemon as a partner. They had equal shares in this endeavor that they were going to have to work it through together in their own lives.

Verse 18, if he's wrong, do you owe anything? Put that on my account. Again, Paul didn't just try to sweep away what was. There was a debt. Lost revenue. Lost time. Paul says, put that to my account. I'll pay for it. Then he kind of makes another buddy. He says, I am Paul. I, Paul, am writing with my own hand. I will repay. Not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides. To make the point, well, you owe me a lot, but I'll repay the debt if we want to, if we need to. And I think Paul would have. But he brings up something there to make perhaps a larger point for Philemon. Verse 20, again, he says, Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. Refresh my heart. Paul was in prison. He wasn't his own man. It was kind of a house arrest, but he was still, you know, his future was uncertain.

So it was not a very pleasant, preferred position for him to be in. And at this point in time, Paul was just as human as I am and you are. You get weary with problems.

You don't want to hear that phone ring. You don't want to open that email. You don't want to open that letter that may come or whatever, because you recognize, well, that may be trouble. And we get tired of conflict. Paul was like that. So he said, refresh my life. He says, refresh my heart in the Lord. He wanted something good out of this conflict. He wanted something positive. He didn't want it to be just another problem that didn't get solved. I'll be honest with you as a minister, there are some problems that you see coming or you hear about or that land on your desk. I'll tell you, I'll share something. You get on the Council of Elders, as I've been in the last six months, and you start getting people writing you and calling you with problems that need to be dealt with by another man, their pastor, a regional pastor, or someone else, but they try to appeal and jump to the top. And in that sense, you start getting all kinds of stuff. And you sympathize and you understand there's problems there, but I can't do it. I can't do anything about it. And you recognize there are certain processes you have to honor, and there are real problems as well, but that's just not something I can get into. And I sometimes look at that and realize there's a lot of situations that people out there have to deal with. And in this case, Paul wanted to have a happy ending, here with a friend. He didn't want to lose a friend. He sees a chance to get some joy out of a problem, rather than a failed friendship and a failed relationship, and a moment when the stress would be relieved. So he says, refresh my heart in the Lord. Having confidence in verse 21, 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. And then he refers to him again, and to the others with him as fellow laborers, in verse 24. You might notice in verse 24 that he mentions Mark is with him. Now, you remember Mark from the book of Acts. Mark was the young minister that went with Paul and Barnabas on the first evangelizing trip that they made. And he got out on the road with them, and he got homesick, whatever something happened, and it was too much. It wasn't what he bargained for. Mark left them. You remember that? And then on a later trip, Barnabas wanted to take Mark. Paul said, nope, I'm not going to take that right behind the ears mother's boy along with me. And they split up. Barnabas takes Mark. Paul takes Silas, and they split up. But here we find that Mark is with Paul, which tells you that somehow those two had made up Paul and Mark. So that Paul's writing this from a little bit of experience, that problems can be resolved. Where two people couldn't get along, given enough time, given enough prayer, given enough water under the bridge, forgiveness, and whatever, people can be reconciled. Here, as he mentions Mark, you find a clear example of that. And then in verse 25, he says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace leads to reconciliation. Grace leads to peace. Forgiveness has to be there. Now, what happened? What do you think happened as a result of this letter? We're not told, you know.

It just ends. We don't know what happened. Did Philemon take back Onesimus?

Did he say, I don't want that man anymore? Did he take him back and still hold a grudge at Paul? We don't know. Did he obey? Did Philemon get offended at Paul because he dealt with it this way?

And even though Paul was very tactful in his approach, did Philemon get offended and go find another congregation to fellowship with? We don't know. We don't know. The only thing we do know is this. That we find in here teaching for you and I as to what we should do. That's what we do know. Because this is ancient history, but today you and I deal with conflict. And it will come our way. And we have to learn to deal with it. We have to work through it. I said out of verse 25 where he said, that grace leads to reconciliation. And I said earlier that forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things. We should understand that. There is a difference.

You can forgive. In fact, we have to forgive. God commands you and I to forgive when an offense is done against us, when someone sins against us. We know many scriptures about that. It is our Christian duty to forgive. And if we don't, then as some of the teachings are, we may not be forgiven by God of our sins. And that's a very real matter. We come to the Passover every year. All of us kind of look at ourselves and are there things we need to settle up? We don't want to take the Passover with an unforgiving spirit. So we're reminded at that time about that. So we have to forgive. But what about reconciling? I still don't like them. I don't want to sit at the table with them. I don't want to be in the same room with them. I don't want to be at the same feast with them.

These are things I actually hear. I can't let them come back into the church.

How about reconciliation? You know, when you look at what Jesus did when He was dying, what did He say when He was hanging there? He said, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they do.

He forgave even in His last moments. But is He reconciled to the world, to those that caused His death? Not completely. Not completely. That's one of the lessons we learn from the Day of Atonement every year. There has to be other events that take place for full atonement or reconciliation between the world and God. We remember the lessons that we learned on the Day of Atonement.

When Christ returns, He will ultimately then be reconciled to the world. He is forgiven, but He hasn't completely reconciled yet.

Now, we don't have that luxury. You and I don't have that luxury of saying, well, I'll forgive them, but I'm not going to reconcile with them. We can't do that. For you and I, we have to forgive and reconcile in this life. We have to make those steps. At the very least, we have to make the effort. If somebody doesn't want to reconcile with us, or if it's physically impossible for somebody to reconcile, I recognize that we can only do so much. But in time, that forgiveness has to be translated into efforts and hopefully a conclusion of reconciliation with a fellow Christian. Because reconciliation means establishing and re-establishing a relationship.

Maybe it won't be always as it was, but you have to have some level of a relationship or work toward that. Or be willing to work toward that. That is incumbent upon us.

That's a whole other subject to spend time explaining from the Scriptures.

The key is this, though. Christ has to be at the center of our relationships.

If that is to happen, when He is at the center of our relationships, then those relations can be transformed. There can be forgiveness and there can even be reconciliation. Even in situations that might be seen as hopeless, they can be transformed into a deep and loving relationship. But God has to be at the heart of it. That has to be. And if He's not, then that reconciliation will not be completely possible. I tend to think that Philemon and Onesimus reconciled. I'm an optimist. I like happy endings. I always like to watch movies with a happy ending.

I don't want bad endings or inconclusive, weird, ironic, cynical endings like some movies have. I want it all wrapped up with a neat little bow and we all live happily ever after.

Doesn't always happen, but that's what we should be striving for. But that's what I imagine for this particular situation with Philemon and Onesimus and the Apostle Paul. And I hope that we can work toward that in our own relationships and the times when conflict comes up, that we can take the steps, that we can learn some of these basic lessons that are given to us here in this master's course of conflict resolution, knowing how to deal with one another, how to look at one another as a fellow laborer, a co-worker, and not as an adversary, not as someone below us, but as someone with whom we can work together. If we can do that, we can go a long way toward preventing conflict and even working through the problems that do arise in our lives. But we have to have that attitude and that approach. If we can do that, we can go a long way toward learning a lesson that we learned from Paul the aged here in the book of Philemon, learning to love God and love one another and build those relationships for God's kingdom.