The Need for a High Level of Trust

Good afternoon, everyone. It's good to be with you here again in Dayton.

Mr. McCready had asked me several weeks ago, actually back before the feast sometime, to come up here on this weekend. He, I guess, is down in San Antonio solving all the marriage problems with his marriage seminars. And so we wish them well and certainly hope that it will be beneficial down there for those who do attend that seminar and in that very important subject. But we're glad to be here with you again.

We get a chance to go around to the congregations in the area here. We were down in Louisville last Sabbath, and then next week we're back home again in Indiana for Thanksgiving with our family over there. So we kind of making the circuit throughout the Midwest here and hope all of you have a good Thanksgiving wherever you may be if you're traveling or family are coming in. This is a good time of year. Other than the holy days, this is my favorite time of year. I really like Thanksgiving and I think we all do. It's become quite a significant holiday for us in many ways, nationally at least, as an opportunity for all everyone to get together.

It is still endured as a wonderful tradition in America since it does not have a it's not directly tied to religion even though Thanksgiving to God is certainly religious and important and spiritual because it's not Christmas or Easter or whatever. It has been a unique American experience and a unique American holiday and has continued to be quite strong in America. So I hope whatever you're doing on Thursday and the next weekend will allow all of you to give it the opportunity to give thanks to God for your health, for your life, for your calling, for your families and all that you may be able to list between now and then.

I was reading something the other day that was talking about Thanksgiving and it made the point that it's important to every day put down something that you might be thankful about as a means of just mental stability, mental health, spiritual well-being, many multiple benefits that come from being able to list and focus on being thankful.

There's so many negative things that we can focus on in our world today especially and then even in our life and sometimes even unfortunately within the church as well as the experiences unfold around us. But the world we are a part of has enough to be fearful about, be concerned about, but there is also when we stop and develop that relationship with God we have a lot to be thankful about and if we can focus our minds on that it will help us transcend some of the other challenges and fears and problems that we might have in our own life or that will come upon us from the society around us which are plentiful in their own right as we all recognize.

I thought today that I would give you a sermon that I have given a few times in the in recent months. I keep coming back to it. My wife will have heard this now maybe this is the third time she's listened to it. Be sure and pray for her. I said, honey I'm going to give this sermon one more time. I think I need it.

But it was also just handy to pull it off the computer and print it out and give it again without writing a new sermon. I told her next week in Indianapolis I'll have a whole new sermon that we'll go into but please bear with me once one more time on this subject. But I've given it a few times of late. It's a book and it's a subject I've gone through many many times over the years and every time I give it I say, well maybe there's something I need to learn from it as well and some wonderful lessons.

But the sermon, the book, and the thought stems from a continual need that I have observed and been focusing on in my own personal reflection and study and a point of life in the last several months. And that is the need for us to always be operating at a high level of trust. I think that trust is a very important quality that binds people together in marriages, binds people together in fellowships, it binds people together in any successful business or organization.

When trust is broken between two people, half a dozen people, or a hundred people, when trust is broken you don't have anything. You don't have a relationship. You have some very, very big problems. And so this has prompted my study actually for several months now and some reading and some reflection. And this one book in the Bible is a study in trust. And so I'd like for you to turn, if you will, to the book of Philemon.

This is a very short letter that the Apostle Paul wrote, sandwiched in between Titus and the book of Hebrews. It is 25 verses, but there's a great deal of wisdom, there's a great deal of information and understanding. And after we go through this and talk about this, we'll read it as it is, a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote. We'll draw three lessons on building trust. Three qualities that need to be involved in any relationship where trust is.

It's not an exhaustive list, but I only have time for three. And you'll appreciate that by the time I get to that because you'll be hungry. And we want to get to the potluck and the celebration for the Marklands 65th wedding anniversary. I just want it known at this point in time that I was, I could not have gone to their wedding. Not that old, all right?

Mr. Nick could have, some of the rest of you could have, but I couldn't. So don't push me any further into that direction than I already am. I'm close enough as it is. Okay? But anyway, congratulations to the two of you. The book of Philemon, a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a member of the church by the name of Philemon. There's three people that are involved in this story.

The Apostle Paul, who wrote the letter, Philemon to whom it was addressed, and a third individual by the name of Onesimus, who was a runaway slave owned by Philemon. And for whatever reasons, he ran away. He found himself with Paul.

We're not told exactly how or why. It may be that he knew that Paul knew Paul because of past acquaintance, having been in the home of Philemon. And Paul was in prison, and he found his way to Paul. And Onesimus then was baptized. And Paul is having to now negotiate a very severed relationship and try to mend it while keeping and maintaining order in a cultural situation because Onesimus was a slave.

All right? But also, Onesimus becomes a member of the Church. And there's some complications, big complications, because of that. And Paul has to negotiate through that. And the wisdom and the tact that he demonstrates in this letter helps us to learn some lessons about trust and how quickly it can be broken and how important it is to be maintained.

So let's begin in chapter verse 1. There's only one chapter of this. It says, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved friend, and fellow laborer. And he also mentions in verse 2, Thea, our beloved Thea, our kippus, and our fellow soldier, and to the Church in your house. So it appears that this Philemon was well off financially to have housed the congregation in his home, not a very large congregation, perhaps, but at least a sizable home that that could have been done.

And all that is not given to us here. But when you look at what transpires as Paul addresses this letter from the very beginning, you see that he is approaching Philemon in a humility of spirit. He says, I am a prisoner of Jesus Christ. And he's writing this on behalf of Timothy and to our friend and our brother, our fellow laborer Philemon. And so he comes across as a prisoner. He doesn't come across as an apostle. He doesn't write from a position where he's feeling superior or reminding Philemon that I'm your minister, I'm your boss, I'm over you, I'm above you, I am a prisoner. I am a prisoner. And a fellow worker.

We're in this together. We're in this together. He could have come differently, but he chose not to. That would have just pushed Philemon away. None of us like to be reminded of those things in a relationship. If you have to pull your rank, remind someone that you're in charge, you're really not in charge. You may have a hole over the person at a time, but you may not have their heart. And that won't go very far. What Paul wanted to do here was establish a relationship that worked toward a solution. And that's what was important. He did not want to further widen the rift that was here because of the runaway slave Onesimus from his owner, his master, Philemon.

Paul includes others here. Thea and Archippus mentions them, notes their contributions, good point of human relations to remember other people and to include them at various times into the solution. Verse 3, he says, "'Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.'" A common phrase Paul uses when he writes his letters. He mentions grace, which is a form of greeting, but it also is a forerunner of peace. He says, "'Grace and peace from God our Father.'" We can't have peace unless there is first a gracious environment of well-being that is created because of love and good relationships with people.

The concept of grace is an important concept in Scripture theologically from an aspect of our forgiveness that we have. We are forgiven of our sins by the grace of God. Undeserved, unmerited, there's that element of grace. There is also the element of looking at grace from the Bible, what we should learn from it. It also sets the stage for a balanced harmonious relationship. If you have anything less than grace, you're not going to have peace. If people are not gracious to one another, kind to one another, caring, getting to know and caring and looking after the needs of one another.

You're not going to have a peaceful church. You're not going to have a peaceful office, business, or certainly family. If there's anger, if there's just abuse, if there's neglect in a relationship, those are not elements and qualities of grace. Think of, you know, it's interesting that from time to time I still see little girls named Grace. We had one little girl named Grace down in the Cincinnati congregation until the family moved here a few weeks ago, but it used to be a far more common name.

I had at least one or two aunts, I think, in my background named Grace. And if you think about people named Grace, you certainly hope that they come up and they live up to their name. I don't know if any lady here is named Grace. Perhaps you are. I hope that you come up with, you know, and you live up to that name. I had a good friend one time. She died of cancer far too young. She was a wife of an elder.

Her name was Grace, and she was a very gracious lady. She lived up to her name. And if she just demonstrated that with her smile and with her demeanor and always welcoming you and taking care of you, she was a very, very fine lady. But Grace here is something that Paul invokes in the relationship here. It's very important in having peace not only with God, but also among ourselves. Verse 4, he says, I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers. Very common phrase that Paul uses, that he mentioned people always in his prayers.

Prayer is a labor on behalf of other people. And again, when it comes to the relationships that we have with one another, if we're praying for one another, and if we're praying always for one another, as Paul says here, I mention you always in my prayers. Now, you can... that's going to give you some more things to say on your knees about, or to go to God more frequently for. If we develop a list of people that we are praying for, or situations or needs that we may be always mentioning in our prayers. There's another thing that what Paul is saying here can help us to understand about, again, just the relationships that we would have, since this is what Philemon, as the letter is dealing with, it is if we're praying for someone, even someone that we might think of as being an enemy, if we're praying for them, it's going to be a little less hard to speak evil of them. Because if we're truly taking them before the throne of God in heartfelt prayer, then as we talk about that at times, perhaps with other people, then it might cause you and I to stop and think, well, wait a minute, if I'm talking to God and asking for peace and reconciliation and working this out with God in prayer, then do I really need to talk to somebody else about it in a way that maybe just keeps the wound open and keeps any healing from being there? Can we talk to God first? And can we talk to God only about certain situations that we might be involved with and just leave it there?

And if we need to come back, we'll come back later and open it up in prayer again. But resolve in some of the most difficult challenging situations we have, it may be that we should resolve to talk to God alone about a brother who's offended us, our sister, or of our situation that is challenging, and leave it there with God. How confident are we in the relationship we've built with God on a spiritual level to let that happen? Even in that, for you and I, in our spiritual relationship with God, that speaks to trust. Can we trust God to work it out? Can we trust Him, or do we feel that we have to do it in our own might and in our own power? Think about that. So this is what Paul is doing, and it speaks to, again, good relations of how we might have with one another. Very, very important. Verse 5, he says, 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 acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.

And so he really aims the matter right straight to Christ here at this point, and that the way we treat each other reflects on Christ. He says, Acknowledging every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. And he's recognizing that, again, the relationships that we have reflects on Christ.

And that speaks to what Christ said in Matthew 25 and verse 45, when some people in the judgment that is portrayed there ask Christ, Well, when did we visit you in prison? Or when did we clothe you? And he said, Assuredly I say to you that inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. Matthew 25 verse 45. You didn't do it to the least. You didn't do it to me.

Again, the way we treat one another reflects on the way and the relationship that we have with God and reflects on Jesus Christ. And so when Paul says that there's an acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you, in Christ Jesus, he's really, once again, setting the stage in this letter to Philemon that the issue that we're going to have to deal with here does reflect on Christ. And so we'd better approach it carefully, prayerfully, wisely, because we're dealing here with the church and the relationships within the church. And that speaks again to the element of trust highly. Verse 7, he says, We have great joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. So again, he calls to mind in this letter to Philemon what he must have been doing among people. He must have been a generous person, helping people, Philemon, that is. He refers to him as having a reputation of faith and love that is shared with all people. But Paul knew that Philemon could be a better person as well. And the incident here gives rise to opportunity. Paul perhaps could have addressed something that he had seen in Philemon, which could have been improved. And so he's mentioning here the joy and the consolation that he has, and that he has taken care of many others here. And that presents and brought a great deal of joy for the congregation and for the people. Now, in the setting here of the church in the first century that we have, we should talk just for a moment about the issue of slavery. Slavery here, because I mentioned that Philemon owned Onesimus. Now, slavery in the first century was a little different than what we may have looked at in our own American experience of the last few hundred years and since America's founding. We've had worked through and did work through our issues with slavery. It took a number of decades of civil war in the mid-1800s, and then convulsive civil rights struggle even in our own lifetime here in the 20th century, in the 1960s, to bring about certain changes in a society and addressing of historical matters from that perspective. Slavery in the first century was a little bit different in that it wasn't a strictly white person owning a black person, as our American experience is. It was a very, most often, a matter where Roman owned another white person or Caucasian. It wasn't a matter of skin color, but it was a matter of, again, still slavery and a matter of owning someone else. But it didn't have the clear racial distinctions that our own modern experiences had. But still, when one class of people enslave another, that's serious, and that is a problem. Paul does not, in any of his letters, tell the church and address the church to deal with that or to eliminate it. He does not lobby against it. He makes other statements where he says, if you're in that state of mind or if you're in that state, abide with it. He tells you to respect your masters. We find no evidence of Paul and the church in the first century dealing with slavery and trying to mount a social revolution against it. They learned to live with it. That was the way it was at that point. But now, in this individual relationship, it becomes something that is a little bit more unique, but it still has the challenges that come with relationships between two people. And in this case, you have a situation where two people would be sitting in the same congregation and one owned the other. Think about that one. That would be challenging. We have enough to challenge us as it is, at times, in our relationships within the church. But imagine one of you owning another one here in the congregation.

In that you looked up, they were on your personal financial statement as an asset, property, but as a human being. It wasn't a cow. It wasn't an animal. It was a human being.

That's what slavery does, reduces a human being to that level. That's serious.

And Paul has got to address this now in the context of this whole matter here and maintain a level of trust among the people. And so he says in verse 8, Therefore I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting.

He said, I could command you to do something. He had the authority to do it. He was the pastor. He was not only the pastor, but he was also an apostle. He had wide-ranging responsibility and authority over a lot of other elders and churches. But if he had done that, how much resentment would have been left? He said, I could be very bold to command you what needs to be done, what's fitting. It would have left resentment, and likely Philemon would have done what Paul said. But how many of us like to be ordered?

I don't see any hands going up, so I guess none of us do.

But yet we're all under authority to somebody at some point. If we're working, we have a boss. Society has to function properly, and there has to be somebody in charge, and a rule, a policy, a law for things to function properly. Every one of us, under some type of authority, under someone, must answer to someone in some way, to one degree or the other. And when we have that authority in our hands, as a husband, as a parent, as a supervisor, it is important that we handle it well.

Because the smooth functioning of the church, of the family, of the business, whatever it might be, the gang has to go well, has to be done. Paul says, I could do this, but, in verse 9, 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. I appeal to you.

That's wisdom. And he does so, he says, being such a one as Paul the aged, and also a prisoner of Christ. He's saying, I've grown old, and I'm in prison. He's already mentioned that. But, you know, I'm aging. This is making me older, and so I appeal to you. Now, age tempers all of us, as well as experience. And Paul had learned, probably at this point, how to use time as a means of reflection and examination and patience. He's in prison. When you're in prison, you have time to think. Because when you're in prison, you don't do anything else.

I've had members in prisons over the years, back in Indiana, that would regularly visit.

And you go into a prison setting, and as you get acquainted with their routine, their life in prison, you understand that they've got plenty of time on their hands. Years are stretching out in front of them. And they eat, and they may have a job working somewhere in a prison, doing something, but they have interminable hours of idleness. And it's not always good in a prison, but it's the way it is. And if a prison goes on lockdown, they can't leave their cell.

Sometimes, one member that I last visited over in Indiana, when the whole prison would go on a lockdown because of a big problem, then he could go actually weeks and several months, even, not really getting out of the cell. Maybe once a week to bathe. You think you talk about time, that's an extreme example, but Paul didn't have that necessarily type of an incarceration in Rome.

From what we read at the end of the book of Acts, he was in a house, but he still was restricted.

And the point is that, as he considered this situation, he had time on his hands to think through. And he was also able to reflect. He had the years, several years of experience and maturity, and just because of that, and that's what he says. So he knows, he knew how to handle this, think it through, understand the personalities, the issues, potential outcomes, and experience it taught him how to work toward a peaceable resolution that brought unity rather than division. And that's a lesson for every one of us. Whatever might be in front of us, at any given time, in a challenging situation, at work, at school, sometimes in the church, in our interpersonal relationships, resist the urge to lash out, to get even, to work, in every case, toward some quick solution that is your solution, that you think is the only solution.

Think it through, pray it through, and draw on your own experience. Draw on what you've learned, and resolve to work toward unity rather than further anger or rancor or even division, separation, if you can. This is what Paul was saying. He said, for love's sake I appeal to you, for the sake of unity to keep things to get together.

In verse 10, he says, I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains.

He baptized him. He says, I'm appealing to you for this, my son.

And so, he's been baptized, and likely that he did it while he was with Paul, which changed the dynamic completely. Now Onesimus was a brother to Philemon, not just a piece of property. He was a brother, and that changed things.

The relationship was now different, but there was still the social structure of slavery, and Paul doesn't change that. He doesn't just ignore it and say, well, it doesn't exist anymore.

That's not the case. In verse 11, he says, speaking of Onesimus, who once was unprofitable to you, but now was profitable to you and to me.

Now he's profitable to both of us. There is some use here. Now, you have to stop and think, perhaps, and read between the lines. What may have been going on here?

Onesimus winds up on Paul's doorstep. He had run away from Philemon. What might he or what could he have said, what might he have said to Paul about Philemon? Why would a person run away? Why would a person leave his employer, leave his home, in this case, and run away from the situation? Was Philemon abusive? Had Onesimus just done this on a whim? Did he steal something when he left? Just his leaving in itself was, in a sense, a problem because, again, he was owned by Philemon. And so the leaving was a loss, which, again, gets into why he says, now he can be profitable for us. We can turn this around.

But you might imagine that Onesimus could have had opportunity to have said, you know, given a report and said bad things about Philemon to Paul, and which is something that often happens. Perhaps if that did, maybe Paul just listened, but didn't believe everything that Philemon said, or believe that even if even part of what he said may have been true, that there was a way to solve this. Perhaps Paul, remember the proverb that says that he who is first in his cause seems just, but his neighbor comes and finds him out.

Perhaps Paul realized there are there's two stories here, two sides to the issue.

And needed to be very, very careful. Paul, it seems, had no desire to use Onesimus to gain anything over Philemon. You know, that sometimes happens in relationships where one person might go to another party against another, and gossip and slander and accusation might be made, and if the third party decides to take sides for whatever reason, maybe even to gain something against the other person, if it's nothing more than just vanity and ego, it doesn't create harmony. It leads to some strife. Paul here doesn't seem to have any desire to use Onesimus to gain anything at all on Philemon. He appears to have a pure motive to restore a sound relationship, to try to work together to bring people back together. He did not poison Onesimus's mind toward Philemon.

So he challenges Philemon in a way that will have a positive outcome. He's basically saying to Philemon, stretch yourself. Don't go back to the familiar habits that often take place in this type of situation. Don't go back to the mindset of his age that, in Philemon's case, well, he's mine. I own him. He's my slave. And let's get this back. Or he wronged me.

Or whatever else might be. Paul's appealing to Philemon to stretch himself. And, you know, that's what has to be done to resolve the challenges that come about in our relationships. We have to stretch ourselves beyond what we would normally do and the reactions that we might normally have and seek to handle it in a different way. The best way that would bring about a solution, a positive solution of reconciliation is the question for us to ask ourselves as we look at this, put ourselves in Philemon's shoes for a moment and ask ourselves, could we be reached by Paul's argument? Could we accept a conversion, repentance of another person, and see and look for the fruit of a changed life? Could we allow for that? Because this is what Philemon is having to do.

If our heart is so hard that it would not allow for that, then we would have a big problem on our hands. If there indeed was a change in someone, we couldn't accept an apology. We couldn't accept and see the fruit of a changed life. A hard heart will not accept a change in another person.

And it will continue to divide because we would fail to practice good, solid human relations.

Human relations must begin with a godly heart and a godly approach. If we can't do that, then we're going to have challenges. We go on here in verse 12. Paul says, 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.

He said, I am sending him back. Please receive him.

My own heart, as someone that I send back, Paul was really opening his heart up to Philemon. That's a risky business, especially for a guy. We men tend to keep it close and not let our emotions be shown. We don't always show that. Women are perhaps known more for having tender hearts than sometimes we men do. But in this case, Paul is saying to Philemon, I am sending him back. Will you receive him? That is my own heart. This is my desire that you do this. I am taking a chance. I could have kept him with you. I wish to keep him with me.

That on my behalf he would minister to me. On your behalf, he would minister to me in my chains for the gospel. He is kind of saying to Philemon, I could keep him here. If I did, I would thank you for it. That would have then put Philemon back. Oh, okay. I am glad to be able to do that. Even though he hadn't initiated it. But he says, I am going to send him back to you. So Paul is kind of, I hate to say playing mind games with Philemon, but I think he is showing that what could be done and what he chooses to do then. I am going to send him back. What are you going to do? So what are you going to do, Philemon? That is really how it is being set up here. Verse 14, he says, Without your consent, I wanted to do nothing, but that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary. And Paul is very crafty and very wise here. He is saying, essentially leaving it now, that Philemon may think that he has a choice, but in reality he doesn't have a choice other than to accept Donissimus back, give him another opportunity to maintain his relationship with Paul, which he no doubt values. Because Paul is saying, in essence, if you don't take him back, you are offending me. You risk severing our relationship.

And so he doesn't do that. Or at least he sets it up to where he won't. And so, in verse 15, perhaps Paul writes, He departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever.

Perhaps he departed for a while for this reason, that the two of you would be now bound together in a different relationship, a spiritual relationship as brothers, no longer as a slave, verse 16, 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. And so Paul kind of raises it to the level of, you know, maybe this was the reason that he did this. Do you ever stop and think about why and how certain things happen in your life? And sometimes we think that things happen because we do it ourselves or somebody else did it and they did it and it happened because of that. But Paul is really saying that, open your mind up to the reality that now if we handle this right, God's will would be done and God and Christ's purpose could be furthered if we handle it well.

And so he's really establishing a completely different view upon relationships than we typically think about. He's saying, look at it from a different point of view. That his running away can then be turned into a greater purpose that you might receive him forever. He's speaking to the relationship that can be then in the kingdom of God between two people forever. If you accept him back as a brother by Lehman, then the two of you can work together and grow together in the journey toward the kingdom of God. And you will be receiving him into a relationship that has eternal possibilities. And so this is what Paul is saying, open your mind, expand yourself, stretch yourself to see that. If we can do that in our relationships, then we can work toward solutions and build trust. And he says, no longer 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. Then in verse 17, if you if then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me.

Receive him as you would me. And so Paul makes his case. Now, if you switch to Onesimus for a moment and to his view of all of this, if you were Onesimus, would you go back? Would you voluntarily, willingly put yourself back in the employ, in this case, the ownership of Philemon?

Now, he has to take a chance because he'd still be a slave. He would still be a slave.

Think about it. Onesimus right now, with Paul in Rome, he's got a level of freedom.

Come and go what he wants. Do what he wants. He goes back to where Philemon is, into the house of Philemon. He's back in that same relationship. How will he be treated? Will Philemon treat him fairly? Will he seek somehow to get even? So he has to take a chance.

He would have to be content. And so Onesimus has to learn to trust Philemon in this.

In verse 18, Paul says, if he has wronged you or owes you anything, put that on my account.

Okay? If he owes you anything, put that on my account. I'll pay for it.

Verse 19, I, Paul, am riding with my own hand. I will repay.

And not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides. So Paul, once again, says, well, I'll pay it back. But you know what, Philemon? You owe me more. You owe me. Now, how are we going to balance the ledger here?

Philemon's trust in Paul is being put to test here. Can he rely on Paul's judgment about Onesimus?

And so he's saying, really, what's being challenged here is the amount of trust in Paul's account for Philemon. Because that's what trust comes down to.

We will give people the benefit of the doubt. We will take their word for something if there's a balance in the trust account, in the relationship.

But if there's a deficit because it's happened before and because there's a pattern of Ones' word not being held in honor, somebody says, I'll be there at eight.

And you know they're always going to be there at 8.30 or a quarter to nine.

Can you trust them?

I had someone in the church one time years ago. Every time we'd have a planning meeting for something, this person's hand would go up, I'll do that. I'll take care of it.

Whatever it might be in the congregation.

When I was first the pastor of the area, I realized, okay, well good.

You know, they're willing, they're capable.

And we put it down, all right, you'll do this.

But then it wouldn't get done. Or it wouldn't be done well.

And over a period of time, whenever we'd have organizational meetings and a project or something would come up and this person, I'll take care of that. Eventually I learned, well, let's give the opportunity to someone else. Because this person didn't have a lot in his trust account with me and I learned others in the congregation.

There was a willingness, but it was perhaps for other reasons and the production just wasn't there.

If someone cannot do a job because they lack the capabilities, if they have chronic problems being tardy, late, or cannot deliver on time, you can't trust them. So there's no account balance there. It's empty. And so with Philemon here and Paul, it's being put to the test as to how much there is in this trust account that Philemon has toward Paul. As Paul says, taking back, if you always do anything, I'll pay for it. But you owe me too. In verse 20, Paul goes on and says, Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. He wanted to have pleasure in seeing the two reconciled.

He makes that appeal. Verse 21, 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. And then he closes it out very quickly in three verses by mentioning others. And he sends greetings on. And he concludes in verse 25 by saying, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. End of the letter. And we're not told anything else. We don't know how it was resolved. Did Onesimus go back? Did Philemon take him? Did they live happily ever after? We assume and we hope. We don't know. There's one story that you'll find in some of the commentaries that they speculate that Onesimus became a minister in the church. In later years in the city of Antioch, there is a bishop recorded by the name of Onesimus. Now, whether he's the same Onesimus or he just took the name from the story about Philemon and Onesimus, I don't know. The truth is that the Scripture here doesn't tell us. We have this very short letter. But if we look back at the point that I was wanting to make to this, in that it is a letter that teaches us some elements of trust. Let me give you three here in conclusion. Three lessons that we can learn from how Paul handles this that help us to learn how you and I can build some trust in our relationships. It's not exhaustive, as I said, but these three are certainly within our grasp. The first element is that trust, to build trust among people, that you must demonstrate respect. Respect. You must show respect for one another. And Paul showed deep respect for Philemon in this letter. If you go back to verse 8, he said, 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 one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I could command you, I could be bold, but I'm not going to do that.

And not doing that, by not pulling rank and doing like the big old hound dog did in the Aristocats. How many of you have seen the Disney cartoon movie, The Aristocats? I happen to have that because it's my grandson's favorite Disney movie when he comes to visit now. So we always have to pull out the Aristocats. That's the only reason I keep a VHS recorder in my house now, because years ago we bought, when they were really dirt cheap, all these Disney movies on VHS.

So we have to keep them because when the grandkids come, they love it. And they love the Aristocats. And there's this one scene where the two dogs are out in the country and the midnight bark goes out, and the little yippie dog is starting to take over from the big hound dog. His voice is Pat Butram, if you remember him. And I remember Pat Butram because my mother said she knew him when they were kids in Alabama together. And Pat Butram went on to Hollywood, and my mother went on to have me. I don't know. That's how it goes. But the little yippie dog is going to take charge of the situation. And the hound dog says, wait a minute. I'm in charge here.

I'll say when we'll go. And he pauses and he says, let's go. Some people want to make sure that they keep their authority or whatever in that way. But yeah, you have authority if you're given it as a supervisor, as a teacher, as a father, as a parent, as a minister, but you have to demonstrate respect for people. And you don't pull that rank.

That's the action of last resort. Paul didn't do it here. And it probably helped a great deal.

Show people respect and respect people. There's a story that's told in a book about this whole subject of trust. It's written by Stephen Covey, the son of the Stephen Covey that wrote The Seven Habits. He wrote a book about trust. He tells a story in there about a graduate school, graduate business professor, was giving a final exam to his business students. And one of the questions was, what is the name of the person who cleans your dormitory? And one student says, what difference does that make? This is an unfair question. I'm going to be in business. I'm going to be working in a corporation in an office. Why do I need to know the name of the person who cleans my dormitory? To which the professor replied, because you're going to be supervising people.

When you get into an office, a big corporation with a big name on the door, you're still going to be supervising people from all different levels within the company. The mail clerk to the secretaries to your peers. And everything's got to work well together.

And you're going to need to know the name of that mail clerk or the guard at the door.

So you better know right now, you better start learning who it is that cleans your room and show them the respect. And that builds trust among people. People know each other's names.

Or when they send a thank you note, when they recognize a kindness, we all have that within our reach from time to time. Say thank you. And to send those notes, demonstrate respect for one another. It helps to build up the trust account. The second element of building trust here is that sometimes a wrong needs to be corrected.

Own it. This is what Paul did in verse 18 and 19. We just read it. He said, if he's wronged you or owes you anything, put that on my account. I will repay.

Paul didn't steal or he didn't really owe Philemon anything. If Onesimus had taken anything when he left, Paul didn't have the moral or legally, he didn't have the responsibility to write that, to pay for it. But he wanted it, he owned it as the minister in this case.

Sometimes we have to own it. If we're anywhere in the chain of the events, of the organization, and we have a responsibility and a duty, and we're all in it together, we have to own it. We can't pass the buck. We can't say, well, I didn't do it.

But sometimes you have to clean up the mess that somebody else made. Think about it.

If somebody makes a mess, literally on the floor, and it's your place or where you are, you work there, you didn't do it, you don't own it, you don't own the building or the apartment or the classroom or the office or the church hall or whatever, you still are a part of the operation. Own it. Show some respect. And clean it up.

Sometimes if it takes your time, sometimes if it takes a little bit of sacrifice, and it gets a little bit uncomfortable, or even sometimes if it costs money out of our pocket, own it. That's what Paul was doing, because he wanted a solution that kept the relationships together, that kept the congregation working smoothly, and in his own mind that reflected well upon the body of Christ. And so he owned it. How much trust do you think that that probably built up when Philemon read that? I tend to think that it said, Philemon said, hey, if you're willing to do that, then what can I do?

And so, right the wrong. Own the problem. Thirdly, extend trust. Extend the trust.

In verses 20 and 21, here's what Paul says, having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.

That is trust. Paul trusted Philemon, and he told him he trusted him. And he expressed that.

How do you think Philemon felt when he read that? How would you feel?

If someone wrote you an email over a situation and said, I know you're going to take care of this.

Joe, Mary, you're in line authority and say it's a business situation or something with your business, I know you'll take care of this, and I thank you for it.

Your supervisor has the confidence in you, and they express that. You're going to respond well to that person, and you're going to want to perform, and even probably go above and beyond, all other things being well. This is what Paul says, I have confidence that you're going to do what needs to be done, and you'll even do more.

Philemon said, yeah, I will. Thank you. That's what I imagine that he did, and he said.

But to build trust in the church, to build trust among ourselves, we have to essentially demonstrate by our words and our actions with one another that we trust each other, and we demonstrate that. We right the wrong, we own them, and we demonstrate that respect and trust for one another. That, I think, is what brought this whole affair of Onesimus and Philemon to a rather positive conclusion for the congregation, and that, I think, is why it became a letter that was included into the canon of the Bible, as they put it all together and recognized that, in my own way of looking at this story, the letter that we have, I kind of imagine that this was a story that was noised abroad among the churches of God during this time. And that's why we have this very short letter, which is unusual, considering all the other letters that Paul wrote that were included that are heavy in doctrine, instruction about the church, like Timothy or Titus. Here's one that just deals with a relationship and an issue between members that we would have never known about. But I imagine that others did know about it, and it was of such a positive impact that it was included for us to think about and to learn. We need to build trust. The church of God needs its individual members to trust one another, to trust God, and when that happens, good things can be done. So let's learn from how Paul handled it here, and let's work on our own lives to build trust and confidence among each other.