From Bondage to Brotherhood: Onesimus

Well, again, those who don't know me, my name is Brian, lead pastor here. And I am thankful to open God's word with you this morning. I haven't met you. I'd love to be able to do that at some point today, if we can. And we have been in kind of a summer series where we were just looking at what's. What we call a cloud of witnesses. We took this from Hebrews chapter 12, and again, we've mentioned this a few times, But Hebrews chapter 11 is what? I don't know. It's kind of historically been called the hall of Faith. And it's just this list of names. And yet there are a lot of other people who are clouds of witnesses around us, loved ones, people who we've looked up to in our lives that have pointed us to Jesus. And so I wanted to do that in the Bible and just look at other people who point us to Jesus, even if they didn't know who Jesus was. Today, it's not that we'll be looking at a New Testament character and so they would have known who Jesus was, but let me just read this passage here. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw up everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter, the author and the finisher, the beginner and the ender of our faith. For the joy set before him. He endured the cross scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Speaking of names, does anyone have any idea who this is? Not my kids. You're not allowed to say anything. Anyone have any idea? It is from the Chronicles of Narnia. Puddle Glum. Yes, this is Puddle Glum. That's extra. Bonus points. Wow, that was. That's a hard name to remember. This is Puddle Glum. He's a Marsh wiggle. All right, if that helps out. And so he's not human or anything. He's a marsh wiggle and he lives in a marsh, as you can imagine. And there's something about his name. When you hear the name Puddleglum, it invokes a feeling. Right? And his name matches his character, right? He's just this. I don't know, he's just so pessimistic and he just is. Everything's bad. And so it was Fun reading this in the silver chair. It was fun reading this with my kids looking at this. This is one. I don't know, review of Puddleglum that someone wrote. For whatever reason, his negative outlook actually makes him surprisingly powerful. Inspiring figure in the Narnia Chronicles. So he's just pessimistic and gloomy and so he just has this voice where I would read it like this, right? And it was fun. We would have fun with. Okay, I'm just going to introduce him because he's going to come back up later on. But today, this sermon we'll be looking at Philemon. There's just one chapter. So it's Philemon 1 through 21. Not looking at 21 chapters. And it's a quick read. We're not even going to. There's a couple of verses we're not going to read at the end, but pretty much the whole chapter and looking at an individual named Onesimus. So let's look at this again. Context and major players in this. Let me just kind of read Paul, the apostle Paul is writing this letter to a man named Philemon and he's going to bring up someone named Onesimus. All right, so Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, he's literally in prison. He's in chains. And Timothy, our brother to Philemon, our dear friend and fellow worker, also to Epaphea and our sister in a Rhipicus, our fellow soldiers. So these two people are named Apathia, might be Philemon's wife, maybe. Or just a leader, a woman in the church. It could be Archippus, might be their son. Nobody knows. It's just the name. But why would he name them specifically? But someone who is doing work and hard work, maybe under persecution, which is why he's called a soldier there, not because he's an actual soldier, a different word for that. And to the church that meets in your home. So they're. Philemon has a house church. All right. Remember a couple weeks ago we looked at Priscilla and Aquila? House church people, couple, family. Now we've got this other house church that's meeting. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 4. I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people, your faith in the Lord Jesus. I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord's people. So you have the apostle Paul writing a letter to Philemon, the leader of the house church. The why? The. This. Onesimus and I haven't gotten there yet, but we will in just the next couple verses here. Onesimus is a slave of Philemon. Okay, so when you have the apostle Paul writing a letter to a guy named Philemon about his runaway slave, like that's in the Bible. Yeah, that's in the Bible. What's. What in the world is Paul saying? So let's look at verse eight. Philemon, verse eight says therefore. Sorry, going back, just kind of the point of this love, not law. You'll see this here. Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold in order you to do what you ought to do, yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. It is as none other than Paul, an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Then I appeal to you for my own Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. Here, Paul uses this word, ought. Right. I could be bold. I could write to you and say, hey, Philemon, you need to do what's right. You need to receive Onesimus back and you need to set him free. I could do that. I'm not going to do that. Paul doesn't use the word ought and should very often. He prefers to convince us some other way. Because law just doesn't work. He says, I could do that. I could law you. I could tell you in the name of God, you need to do what's right. But Paul knows that that method rarely works. And if it does work, hearts are hard and they're dutiful and relationships are broken. So we're going to have a shorter sermon because like I said, we're going to be commissioning North Lakes. So parents, if you've got little ones, if you've got babies in the nursery, I'm actually going to give you a minute to go get them and the older kids are going to come back down because I know the kids and some of the teachers up there wanted to be part of that. So just giving you a quick heads up in the middle of the sermon because I forgot to say that earlier. So let's look at this. What is my motivation to do what I know is right? What is your motivation to do what you know is right? CS Lewis, to keep on maybe on his theme here, which we'll get back into Puddle Bloom in a second in his book the Abolition of Man says this. We become fully human when Reason and sentiment are rightly ordered. Love orders the affection toward the good. In other words, this logically makes sense to do what's right. However, sometimes to do what's right doesn't logically make sense. Does that make sense? It's not logical to set your preference aside for somebody else. It's not logical. Why should I set what I want to do? I know this is survival of the fittest, and this is about me and my world and what I want. Why would I ever set my preference aside for somebody I hardly even know? Doesn't make any sense. Not logical. When reason and sentiment are rightly ordered. Love. Love has to be there. It isn't logical in this context for Philemon to free a slave who's most likely in a huge debt and owes Philemon something. It doesn't make any sense logically from a financial position, it isn't logical to weep and pray when our friends and family are going through a difficult situation. So what is my motivation when I do? Sorry. To do what is right. What I know is right. And love integrates the heart, not the will. Going back to our buddy Puddleglum here. He's got these two children, like in all the Chronicles, Narnia books, two or three or four that you've got, Eustace and Jill. And Puddleglum asks this question a few times and he says, why should I care? Why should I care? Why should I help these two lost children? It got nothing to do with me. You see, love, though, it's interesting. I'm sure C.S. lewis, he was a genius, and so he was sure he did this on purpose. But love doesn't just ask what should be done, what's logical, what should I do in this situation, or where these two individuals were put in front of me and I'm not even related to them, not even part of the same race as me. Why should I care? He doesn't ask, though he does ask, why should I care? He doesn't ask what should be done. He asks, why should I care? Why do I care? And he comes to the realization that he can help these kids. Yes, because it's the right thing to do. Because he's in a position, position of power, as a bigger being, character to help. Or he could do it because of his love for Aslan, who he brings up multiple times. Aslan is Christ, spoiler alert in all these books, and vice versa. Aslan's love for him, this love that Pablo has for Christ or Aslan, and vice versa, is his motivation for doing something that's illogical, but. Right. Let's maybe get into a little bit of philosophy. We've got a few more minutes here. Let me bring this up. Love integrates the heart, not the will. But love is more durable than duty. Immanuel Kant philosopher says that duty is the highest form of moral action. And yet he still would admit that love made duty easier. Okay, so duty is the highest form of moral action. This is what I do because it's right as far as the society is concerned. But he said, yeah, but if you love your country or if you love the thing that you're doing, of course that job is going to be easier. And I will agree with him that obligation and duty might work for some small things. One offs Taking the trash out When I. I'm taking the trash out, I don't think. How does me take my taking the trash out? I'm doing this because I love Jesus. I don't normally think that when I take the trash out, I take it out because it is practical, right? Because it is my duty. The angel has all my duties listed on the fridge. It's not true. It's not true. Right? But it's my duty. I'm just going to do it because it is right. I'm not motivated, but maybe some days it is fluffy that motivates me to take the trash out. But that's not motivating. Love is more durable than duty. Love sustains a long obedience in the right direction. To quote Eugene Peterson, or at least the title of his book that I've never read. I'm sure it's great, especially when doing right is hard or costly or thankless. I do this thing and nobody notices. I do this thing and it costs me money, time, energy, my life. Nobody cares. So why do we keep doing that? Because it's the right thing to do. Because of love. Rule following crumbles under pressure. Duty crumbles under pressure. But if I'm not mistaken, the apostle Paul said that faith and hope and love endure are the greatest of these. But the greatest of these is love. Love endures forever. So love integrates the heart, not the will. Love is more durable than duty, and knowing what is right isn't enough. Socrates was known for talking about this, who said, to know the good is to do the good. If I just know what's right, that's what is right. Or to quote the theologian GI Joe, if you remember the 80s cartoon, it would always end with knowing is half the battle and some knowledge. If I accumulate knowledge, then now I know what's right. And that's now I'm good. The problem is we often don't know, or we often do know what's right, and we still don't do what's right. We know what we should do, we know what we ought to do, and we still don't go through with that. Romans, chapter 7. The apostle Paul even talks about that. The things I want to do, I don't do. The things I don't want to do. Those are the things in which I do. That is a wise human being who's a follower of Jesus Christ saying, the things I don't want to do, I do. The things I want to do, I don't do. Why? Because I'm a sinner and I usually choose me over others. Augustine, very similarly to CS Lewis, said, love must be properly ordered. Augustine came before C.S. lewis, so Lewis said it, probably after reading Augustine, but love must be properly ordered. Misplaced love leads to sin, but rightly ordered love empowers righteousness, knowledge. The information I glean might inform action, but love transforms my whole being towards action. So let's go back and look at Philemon. Let's look at this title of the sermon From Bondage to Brotherhood. The Apostle Paul says this, that I appeal to you, my son, Onesimus. Onesimus means the word name. This was kind of the whole point of the illustration. Onesimus means useful, okay? It's the transliteration of the Greek there, who became my son while I was in chains. Formally, he was useless. So Paul is making kind of a fun little word play here. Formerly, this slave, Onesimus, the useful one, was useless to you, but now he has become useful to both you and me. He says this, I am sending him who is my very heart, back to you. I would have liked to have kept him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the Gospel. But I did not want to do anything without your consent so that my favor. So that any favor that you would do but not seem forced, but would be voluntary again. I want you to do this out of love, not out of obligation. Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have sent him back forever. No longer a slave, but better than a slave as a dear brother. He is very dear to me, but even dearer to you both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord. I want you to do the right thing. I want you to do what's right here, but not because it's right, not out of duty or a rule following, or because I'm an apostle and I order you to do it, or the principle behind it, or because you've acquired some knowledge of that. This actually might be better to free him. But out of love for our brother, I want you to do what is actually inconvenient for our brother. Let me quote John Polhill here. He says this, and I if you were to take what I'm about to read out of context, this could be bad. So let me read this, and there's no ands or buts, because I think he's missing it here a little bit. Slavery in the first century was, for the most part, quite different from the agricultural slavery of colonial America or chattel slavery, the sort of slavery that a missionist would nissimus experience the lot of a household. Slave was often quite comfortable and even offered some advantages where you stop there and you're like, huh, what are we talking about here? This is slavery. I don't care what what's happening. He says this, though, this is why the poor, which is true historically in that context, often gave up their children into slavery and hoped that it would provide a better life. Sometimes people volunteer voluntarily, became slaves to pay off their debts. Many slaves, highly skilled accountants, teachers, physicians, and had a great freedom and movement. But then he goes on to say, still slaves were another person's property. So this isn't like, hey, well, you know, maybe it was a better life, so I guess it was a good thing. So Paul here is not saying maybe it's actually better that an Smith is a slave. That's not what he's saying, and that's not what John here is trying to say. Slaves were still another person's property. They had no legal rights of their own. They could not enter into legal marriage. They could not own their own property. The desire of most slaves was to be free. Slavery is not good, and it wasn't good in that context. And Paul, I think, is making that clear. And so he calls for reconciliation. He says this, so if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back. Not to mention that you owe me your very self. I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord, refresh my heart in Christ, confident that your obedience. In your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask, right? So in case it's not clear. I want you to do what's right. Let me quote NT Wright. He's a pastor or not a pastor anymore. He's a theologian in Oxford. He says this for Paul, much of what he valued, the mutual reconciliation of those who belong to the Messiah, mattered more than anything else. For Philemon to have responded angrily to Paul letter by giving Onesimus freedom but declaring that he never wanted to set eyes on him again would have meant defeat. For Paul, reconciliation was what mattered. That is why Paul wrote the letter. And I think if we pause there, I think we miss the point of the letter though. I think it's that it's reconciliation and freedom. I think it's both because that's the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ doesn't stop at reconciliation. It moves us to freedom to be free to no longer be slaves to sin, to no longer be slaves to the law and slaves to death. I am free to love in a way that I have been loved. I am reconciled to Christ, to God, through Christ, and I'm set free to be loved. That's the gospel and that's Philemon summed up as reconciliation and freedom. And to go back to that quote from C.S. lewis, we become fully human when reason and sentiment are rightly ordered. Love orders the affection toward the good. Jesus is the truly human one. He's the better Adam. He's the true Israel. When Israel is the wilderness, they get tempted and they fail. Every time Jesus is in the wilderness and he gets tempted, what does he do? He goes back and he quotes the passages of scripture that Israel should listen to. And Jesus is tempted like we are. Yet he is without sin. He is the true Israel. He is greater than the greatest of us. And what was his motivation? It was the love of the Father and to love our neighbors as ourselves. He says there's no greater love than this. That a friend lay down their life for their brother. Again, going in conclusion here In Hebrews, chapter 12 says, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. Doing the right thing for humanity was extremely inconvenient for the Savior. It says that he scorned the shame he despised the shame he despises the guilt and the fear. Why? Because it's the right thing to do. Justice is what's right when it comes to humanity. Justice is what's right when it comes to a sinful person confronting a Holy Spirit, God. But forgiveness, brotherhood, reconciliation, freedom, Doing what's right isn't what motivated Christ and it's not what should motivate us, those of us who have been made new in and through Christ Jesus. An application here. Why do you do what's right? And that could sound very like, do better. Do what's right. I want to get to the heart of it. What's the motivation behind this? I just. I want to be a logical person or be philosophical about it or love and the love that Christ has for us. I don't know what decisions you're making in the middle of making. I don't know what decisions you have to make yet, obviously. But I do know that we all will have difficult decisions to make in the future. So my challenge is to encourage all of us to choose to do hard things because of love, the love that God in Christ has for us and the love for others. We're going to have communion after we have the commissioning. So if you're a parent and you've got a baby, you can go get the babies. And then the little ones will be. Will be brought in. And so I'm going to have a little Q and A here with Paul, Paul and Allison. And so the team, or Paul, Just Paul, you're going to get the baby.

Okay.

Sorry. Good. She got up and I was like, I guess Allison's jumping in here just totally fine. So I'm gonna just have a couple questions for Paul, and then I'm gonna have the whole team coming up. And I'm just gonna want to pray for you, all those of you who don't know Paul. Obviously, he'll probably share a little bit of his testimony, right? I'm assuming he was share a little bit of that or no, probably not. Okay, so Paul, Paul. Paul came to Christ at Hope, which is awesome. He started attending Hope downtown. He and Allison weren't. Weren't even married yet. And he gave his life to Christ at Hope. And then what year was that?

That was 2015.

15. So he made the decision to follow Jesus in 2015, and Angela and I came to Hope in 2014. And I was there as an elder, not as an elder. Sorry, that's not true at all. I was there as an intern. They have an LBI Leadership Development Institute that I was part of. And so I had just graduated from seminary with my M. Div. And then was like, hey, I want to learn how to plant a church. And Hope was planting churches. And look at us now, full circle. And so went to Hope to learn how to plant a church, did their LDI program for few years, and then became a pastor. Then we started this church back in 2017. And in those few Years, Paul and Allison got married, and then he wanted to pursue ministry. And so I'll let him talk about church plan a little bit. But they were here for eight years and then they quit. They quit coming to church here. They gave up on us. No, obviously, Paul had a heart for planning church for several years, and so that was always the desire, that was always the plan. And so here we are. So let's just go ahead and jump. Jump into this. So, Paul, how did you. How did God begin to stir in your heart, your heart towards planning a church?

Yeah, the LDAC program at Hope John, where I came to faith, raised up interns, and Allison and I thought it might be something that I should pursue. We were married for a year at the time when I did it. And Hope had always had this culture of church planting. Hope has planted, I think, like 12 churches in its history. And so just I got into that program and as I was in that program, just became more and more clear that this should be something I should pursue. That was actually one of the reasons why we came with Lowertown in the first place, was to get that opportunity in 2017 up close, kind of see what goes into starting a new church. So that's. We have been here eight years. It's crazy to think.

Yeah, yeah, it has. And then you became an elder because you weren't. When they came. He wasn't an elder right away. It was 1819.

I think it was 2020 when I was.

Oh, 2020. Yeah. Okay, never mind. That way. Yeah. So 2020. Paul became an elder that time then obviously, even full well, knowing that this was always the idea that he was going to be sent out, but wanted to get him a little bit more experience with that. So. Okay, next question. So the name of the church officially is Hope North Lakes. And so why North Lakes or where does that entail exactly? And then what excites you about reaching that community?

Yeah, so our vision is we exist to help people in the north suburbs start and strengthen a relationship with Jesus Christ. So whether you're brand new to Jesus, you belong in our church or wherever you're at in your spiritual journey, Jesus to help you strengthen your relationship with Jesus. And so that north metro, though, or the north suburb area has become really what that region that we're trying to reach. And it's one thing that's really exciting is on our current launch team of people, we have a bunch of people here today and a number who couldn't be here. We are representing 13 cities already in the northern suburbs, which is just so exciting because then it gets us dreaming about how we're going to impact that area with a house pulling. So yeah, that's pretty, we're pretty pumped about that.

That's awesome. What has God been teaching you personally in this season of preparation?

That he's big and I'm small. It's been a good lesson to be reminded and I've been really encouraged in particular by our team and everybody that's stepping up the commitment level, the dedication, the gifts and the ownership that people are showing. It's been really cool to see like this is not, this will not be just my church. This is our church. And then, Lord willing, it will become others church as well.

How can our church be supporting you practically and spiritually moving forward?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think prayer, obviously one of the things that goes then into planting a church is that we leave this church. And so I would encourage people to consider ways they can step in, fill in roles, consider new leadership, consider further commitment and connection here. Because that's one of the cool things that comes. Typically when people think about church planting, it feels like loss or you're losing a key leader, you're losing this person, that person. But God does this gracious thing where he brings new people to step up and keeps the water fresh, as it were, in the church of itself when he does this. That's great.

And then what are two or three specific prayer requests that you would like us to be lifting you guys up with?

Yeah, just pray for that we would live out our vision that we would be. I, I personally, I would love to see us baptizing people. That's one of the metrics we're putting forward and saying that's something that either someone has come to faith from within our church or they came into our church, heard the gospel and now they want to declare that. So yeah, pray for baptisms and that we would be effective in reaching the lost and raising up those within our church to have a stronger relationship with Jesus. That'd be the biggest one.

Awesome. Is there anything else that you'd like to add or share?

Just say a couple things. One, we love Lord Town. It's hard to be a while back. I haven't given them to you yet because I just will do it at some point. But I took all my keys for lower 10 off my.

There's a lot of, there's a lot of keys.

It was pretty integral transition feel. And then I would just say to you how much I love Ryan in particular. He's one of my ministry heroes. We've been together doing this thing for a lot of years and a lot of settings and a lot of connection. And so just acknowledging transition. Our team, too. We're all kind of transitioning and we're feeling it. So even maybe add that to the prayer request. Just the reality of doing a new thing for God is exciting and scary and challenging. And so.

Yeah. Thanks, Paul. All right, well, this time I actually would love to have. If you're part of the team and you're. You're going with the launch, come on up. There's plenty of room up here. And I'll just kind of stand behind you and I just want to pray over you. We only have two elders at Hope Lower Town right now, and one of them's not here. So there will be delaying on a pan singular commission you all today. And if you're visiting Hope, you're just like, what like is this. This is wild. This is wild, right? This is. This is crazy. It's crazy. We use this phrase at Hope that we want to build. We don't want to build dams, we want to build tributaries, right? We don't want to just build a huge church that reaches one area and just get this big mega church and be good, right? When our powers combined, we are whole community church. We just don't want to do that. We want to have a smaller church, neighborhoods. And so that's the plan. That's the goal. And so we are sending our best. Right. To go do that at Hertz. He's a friend. Thank you. We're still part of the same network, so I'll still get to hang out with him and see him at meetings every Monday morning. I'll still get to see you and have that kind of relationship, which is awesome to be part of that whole family. And so that's that. I recently remember we had that. We had everyone read the Crane Life. If you read it through, he had this idea of make some three by five cards. So I recently did that. I had one written for Paul and everyone here. And so I don't want to read it all because something's kind of personal. But let me just pray what I have here and then I'll pray for the team and we will send them out and we'll actually have communion to celebrate as a family together, worshiping Jesus and his finished work on the cross, so we can continue doing this as we move forward, help each other. Thank you for Paul, thank you for Allison, thank you for Chase. Thank you for grace. I pray. I pray that Paul would make more fully devoted followers of Jesus than he could ever have dreamed of. I pray that you would give him.

Humility.

In his success and perseverance as a lead pastor. Father, thank you for everyone who's up here right now. Thank you. For those who are not doing what's convenient, they're doing something that is hard. They're probably in a very small similar situation as Paul leaving a church family, leaving something that's comfortable, leaving something they know to do, something that's radically difficult and trying. I'd start at the start to be an adult, to gain friends is a harder thing to do. And so I just pray that you would solidify this team, that there would be unity with them all, that there would just be support of Paul and Allison, that they would just be around, be the support when they needed. But also, Lord, that you would receive the honor and glory that as churches are planted in the cities, that it's your church that we completely labor in vain if you don't build it. So I pray that you would be building up cold Northlakes for your honor and for your glory and our joy. We love you. To Christ's name we pray. Amen.