This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome back to day two of our look together through the book of Philemon. We're
seeing together through this book how you and I can confront someone in a
difficult situation. And we talked yesterday about where you begin.

You begin by applauding the positive, two specific things Paul taught us to do.
You want to pray for the other person, you thank God for the other person. If
you have something difficult to confront, make sure you go in with the spirit of
thanksgiving and prayer for that other person.

That more than anything else, that is going to set up the situation for a
successful conversation. But it can't stop there. You have to go to the next
step.

The next step is you appeal with wisdom. First you applaud the positive, second
you appeal with wisdom. In verses eight to ten, here's what Paul does.

He says to Philemon, "Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order
you to do what you ought to do, yet I appeal to you on the basis of love. I then
as Paul, an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus, I appeal to you for
my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. " He appeals to
Philemon for Onesimus.

Who is Onesimus? What is this conflict that they have with one another?
Onesimus, we're going to find as we go through the rest of the book, is a
runaway slave.

He'd run away from his slavery in the household of Philemon. And somehow he'd
met Paul while Paul's in Rome, and he'd been led to Christ by Paul while in
Rome. Maybe Onesimus had been sent to Paul by Philemon in some act of service,
but then he decided to stay there and become a runaway slave.

Maybe somehow they had accidentally met in Rome, wouldn't that have been
miraculous? However it had happened, they had met with one another. And this
runaway slave is going to be sent back to Philemon.

And in being sent back, Paul is appealing. He's appealing for something
different to happen. You see, slavery in the Roman Empire was an ugly thing.

In these days there were 120 million people in the Roman Empire, and one-half to
three-quarters of them were slaves. Now, it wasn't slavery in the terms of how
we have slavery today in many places where it is a forced slavery based on your
heritage, based on the country that you grew up in or the color of your skin.
Much of the slavery in this day, some of it was based on the capture of foreign
powers, but much in this day was based on finances.

People ran out of money, and then they had to indebt themselves to someone else,
and they never got out of it. For the rest of their lives they were slaves.
There is a story in ancient Rome of 2,000 lords who owned 1.

3 million slaves. One of the horrible things about slavery in Rome was that one
held the power of death over a runaway slave. There's a story in AD 61 about the
time that Philemon was written of a Roman senator who was murdered by one of his
slaves, and legally all 400 of his slaves were put to death.

This is the culture into which this was written. And Paul is riding into this
culture, Onesimus, a runaway slave. He's going to go back to see Philemon again.

And legally he could have had him put to death because he was a runaway. Paul is
writing to say, "No, things have to be changed. Things have to be changed.

We have to live in a different way because now we know Christ. " So what does he
say to do? How do you begin to appeal with wisdom?

Paul does three things here. Number one, let's say it by ABC. A.

Ask, don't tell. B. Be humble.

C. Clarify the situation. That's how you appeal with wisdom.

A. Ask, don't tell. Paul writes and he says, "As an apostle, I could order you
to do this based on the command of Jesus Christ.

Instead I'm appealing on the basis of love. " You don't tell people what to do.
You must do this because of this.

You can almost see your hand waving your fist in front of their face or your
finger in their face. You don't tell them. Do you like it when somebody tells
you what to do?

Of course not. It forces you to go the opposite direction. When it's said
offensively, it is always received defensively.

So you ask. Orders are for drive-up windows. Appeals are for people.

I hope you talk differently to people than you might talk to that little box at
a drive-in window. "I want this. I want this.

I want this. " I even hope sometimes you talk differently to the box at the
drive-up window. You can never force a relationship to work.

You can never force someone to choose how you want them to choose. The truth is
people have the freedom to choose, so you have to recognize that they have that
freedom. And Paul does that.

He asks. He doesn't tell. "I don't want to do anything without your consent," he
says.

So he says, "I appeal to you on the basis of love. " "Be. " You ask.

You don't tell. "Be. " You be humble.

Paul says, "I'm just an old man. I'm a prisoner. " Now as I read that, I think,
"What could he have said?

I am an apostle of God in Jesus Christ. I have suffered for Christ. " And he
could have made the list.

He did it in other places in the Bible for different reasons. I have brought the
Church of Jesus Christ, the message of Christ, into being in Galatia, in
Ephesus, in Corinth. He could have made the list.

And in fact, in Colossae, where you live, look at what God did through my life.
Think of what he could have said. But instead he says, "An old man, a prisoner
of Jesus Christ.

" What Paul is saying here is that I'm just appealing to you personally, just
based on who I am. It's a reminder to you and I that when you talk to someone in
a confrontation, it's always better to speak as a fellow struggler because you
are. We all struggle in this world.

We're bearing one another's burdens. We're not judging one another's faults.
We're not adding to one another's load.

So Paul just says, "I'm Paul. I'm a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I'm an old man.

And humbly, I want to ask you for something. A. Ask.

Don't tell. B. Humble.

And C. Clarify the situation. This is how you appeal with wisdom.

You clarify the situation. You would be amazed at how important this is. The
reason you're disagreeing is you're seeing it from different perspectives,
entirely different perspectives.

And a few moments of stating how the situation looks to you can reap incredible
rewards in your communication. Not telling people how it should look to them,
but stating how it looks to you. So instead of using language that says, "You
should see it this way, and you should see it this way," you use language that
says, "This is how I see it.

" As we walk through this, we're going to walk through part of this today and
part of it tomorrow. It's so important. As you clarify the situation, the first
thing you have to do is you have to clarify the question, "What's your
perspective?

" It's amazing how one word or phrase can change your entire worldview. I
remember hearing the story a while back of a large statue, of the large statue
for Christ that was erected high in the Andes, Christ of the Andes, a statue
that was there to symbolize a pledge between the two countries of Argentina and
Chile, that as long as that statue stands, there's a peace between Chile and
Argentina. Shortly after that statue was built, the Chileans began to protest
because they had been slighted.

They realized that the statue had its back turned to Chile. Jesus had his face
turned towards the Argentines. So the temper started to go up, but then there
was a newspaperman that saved the day.

In an editorial that not only satisfied the people, but also made them laugh, he
said, "Well, the people of Argentina, the face of Jesus is towards the people of
Argentina because they need more watching over them than the people of Chile. "
Somehow just getting people to laugh, getting a different perspective can change
everything. And Paul does that in these verses.

He does it with one word. He does it with one word in verse 10. "I appeal to
you," he says, "for my son, Onesimus.

" That's the word. That's the new perspective. My son, Onesimus.

Not your slave, Onesimus, my son. Paul saw Onesimus, he's saying here, not as a
runaway slave, but as a new Christian, because that's who he is. He was his son
in the faith.

They are brothers now in Christ. And so the perspective changes. All of a sudden
there is a new way of seeing things.

He clarified the situation. The perspective here is, is Onesimus deserving of
death, or is he needing encouragement in his new life? One commentator says,
"This is the appeal of a brother to a brother on behalf of a brother.

" That was Paul's perspective. And he begins to help Philemon to have that
perspective by just using that one word. He is, "He is my son.

" He's using a word that reflects the new truth that's in their lives. So where
in your life right now are you dealing with a conflict? Where do you need to
have a conversation?

You appeal with wisdom. You can change right now. If you feel like, "I've been
doing it all wrong," you can change right now, it'll begin to change everything.

You ask, you don't tell. Where do you need to do that? Be humble.

How could you express that? Clarify the situation. You begin by getting a new
perspective.

Tomorrow we're going to talk together about how you continue to appeal with
wisdom. But today, as we close, I want to end by beginning this process of
changing a conversation through the power of Jesus Christ. Let me pray for you.

Lord, I pray for someone right now who has a difficult confrontation in front of
them, a relationship that's not going right. God, I pray that you would give
courage and wisdom. Lord, we think we know the right words.

We don't always know the right words. So help us, strengthen us to know how to
say it, but also give us courage. I pray that faith and not fear would lead the
way in our lives.

We pray it. We pray it, Jesus, in your name, amen.