This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Hi, this is Pastor Tom Holliday, and we are starting a study
today in a book of the Bible that you're going to be very excited about something.
You're going to be able to finish this book of the Bible this week. We're going to be
studying the book of Philemon.

It is one simple chapter of the Bible, but it has awesome truth for our lives.
As we've walked through this book of Philemon, we're going to take a particular
look at a subject that many of us deal with in our lives on a daily basis.
Philemon is a book that tells you and I how to resolve conflicts.

Tells you and I how to resolve those situations where I don't know what to say,
I don't know how to make it right, I've got something going wrong with somebody
else, and I don't know how to get in a different place. When someone is doing
something that you wish they would change, you know they need to change. How do
you get 'em there?

Or when there's a disagreement in a relationship and you don't know how to bring
that relationship back together again, how do you begin through a conversation
to do that? Philemon is all about that, because Paul is writing a personal
letter to a friend of his by the name of Philemon. And in that personal letter,
he's dealing with a conflict that they have.

And this letter, it's the only personal letter, one guy to another guy in the
New Testament. All the others, it's Paul writing to an entire church. Here he's
writing to a single person.

And in this writing to Philemon, you and I see the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit in how he writes. And in that inspiration, you and I can learn, how do I
do this? How do I resolve a conflict?

The book of Philemon is in some ways a companion to the book of Colossians
actually, because it's about a person who lived in the town of Colossae, was
written to in that church. Philemon had apparently become not only a friend of
Paul's, but as we read through this, someone who was one to the Lord by the
apostle Paul in this church. And Paul writes to him to address an issue.

Now in writing to him, Philemon is Paul's shortest letter. It's only 335 words
in the original Greek. And it's also his most personal letter.

Other letters to people like Titus or to Timothy, they weren't dealing with
personal issues. They were dealing with the entire church. So it was a letter to
Titus, but it dealt with what are the qualifications for leadership?

This is a letter about a personal issue to a person. It's written to Philemon,
but it's also written to some others. In fact, let me read for you the first
three verses of this book.

Just the beginning of what's happening. It begins by saying Paul, a prisoner of
Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our dear friend and fellow
worker, and Afia, our sister, and Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the
church that meets in your home. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ.

To this seeming family. It seems like Philemon, and then you have Afia, our
sister, and Archippus. Are they Philemon's parents?

Are they somehow brother and sister? We don't know, but it seems to be some
family connection, and a church also meets in this family's home. Church of
Colossae, you have the idea here, meeting in their home.

It might be another church locally in the area. It meets in their home because
in that day that's where churches met. Why did churches meet in homes in that
day?

They didn't have anywhere else to meet. There were no community halls you could
rent. There certainly weren't any church buildings in the first century.

For the first three centuries there weren't really any church buildings. No,
they just met in homes. They met in homes, and in those homes they worshiped
Jesus Christ.

In those homes they talked together about the New Testament that had just been
written, and they read it together, and they learned together about who God was
and how he wanted to work in their lives. And here's Paul writing to this
church. He's writing, the Bible says, as a prisoner in Christ Jesus.

That's not him just speaking figuratively. Paul is a literal prisoner in Rome as
this is written. And Paul is writing about a difficult issue.

Philemon is all about difficult relationships. It's about how to unstick sticky
relationships. Someone called this book, and one book about Philemon, rewiring
relationships.

When a freeway gets closed, how do you find your way around? When a road gets
closed in your area, how do you find your way around? How do you get through the
detour and back on the road and back up to speed again?

This is about how you do this in relationships. How do you resolve conflicts
within your marriage, within your family, with people at work, people at church?
How do you walk through the minefield of personal communications and not have
things blow up in your face?

These are verses about how to respond when you get caught in the middle. It's a
blueprint for how to confront someone. As we go through this this week, it's
going to be stuff you can use today.

Amazingly enough, Philemon gets this letter, and it's inspired by the Spirit.
How would you like that? One of the letters you get in the mail today happens to
be inspired by the Holy Spirit.

That'd be pretty powerful. That does not happen anymore, but it did happen in
that day. And I don't know how Philemon first treated this letter, whether he
treated it as something holy or something common, whether he was excited about
what Paul had to say here or he ignored it or he was angry about it, but he
could not help but recognize the inspiration of the Spirit in it.

As you and I cannot, as we read it. And the Spirit inspired Paul to talk about
an issue that they were facing. There was a friend, a mutual friend they had by
the name of Onesimus.

We're going to talk about him as we go through this book. And there was an argument
they were having about Onesimus. And because of this argument, they were coming
almost to blows with one another, it sounds like, sometimes.

These are verses about the resolution of conflict. Now, before we get into this
this week, before we talk about the resolution of conflict, let's talk about
responsibility. If I am wrong by another Christian, here's the responsibility
part.

Am I responsible to go to them or should I wait for them to come to me? The
Bible says, you can look this up in Matthew chapter five, 23 to 24, and in
Matthew 18, 15 to 17. If you want to write that down somewhere, Matthew five, 23
to 24, Matthew 18, 15 to 17.

The Bible says in Matthew five, if you realize somebody has something against
you, you go to them. The Bible says in Matthew 18, if somebody has done
something against you, you go to them. Either way, it's my responsibility to go
and solve the conflict.

Now, Matthew 18 is about sinning, someone who's sinned against you, not someone
who has some kind of disagreement with you, someone who has some difference of
opinion with you. When I realize that I have been wronged in some way, I go and
I meet with them and I make it right with them. That's what Paul is doing here.

He's writing a letter to make it right because there is a wrong in this
relationship that needs to be righted. How do you do that? We're going to walk
through five specific steps in how to do that.

As we walk through the book of Philemon, beginning with the first today. In
verses four to six, he talks about the first of these steps. You begin by
applauding the positive.

First thing you do is you applaud the positive in your relationship. Here's what
he says to Philemon. I always thank God as I remember you in my prayers in verse
four, because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all
the saints.

I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith so that you will have a full
understanding of every good thing that we have in Christ. Your love has given me
great joy and encouragement because you brother have refreshed the hearts of the
saints. Positives balance negatives.

And Paul is about to say something negative to Philemon. So he starts with a
positive. Now biblically, how do I do that?

If I want to start with a positive, I can start with just flattery, but that's not
the way to start. How do I start biblically in a positive way when I have
something difficult to confront? You do what Paul did here, two things.

First, you thank God for them. And secondly, you pray for them. You want to start
a discussion in a positive way?

Before the discussion even starts, you thank God for the person. Paul said, I
thank God for your faith. I thank God for your love.

And secondly, you pray for them. I pray, he says, that you'd be active in
sharing your faith. I love what it says here, active in sharing your faith
because that's going to deepen your understanding of God's goodness.

You can't fully understand how good God's salvation is unless you share it.
That's what this reminds us of. But let's get back to the main point.

The point is, how do I prepare for a confrontation? Do two things. Thank God for
the person and pray for that person.

Now, let's take a moment right now to pray and do those two things. As we talk
this week about a confrontation, I have no doubt that as you listen to this,
some of you are facing a confrontation. So right now, even though you're facing
a difficulty with someone, thank God for them.

You can't thank God for everything right now, you say. Thank God for something
in their life. God, I thank you for this in this person's life.

And then pray for them. Pray that they would become a more faithful person. Pray
that they'd become a believer if they're not yet a believer.

And then pray that as a believer, they would be faithful in letting other people
know the good news in their lives. Pray a genuine, humble prayer for God's
blessing in this other person's life. Start there.

That's how you start positive. Jesus, help us to start there. Help us to start
where you would start.

Start with love for the other person. In your name we pray, amen. Tomorrow, once
you've taken this step, we're going to talk about what you do next.