This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day four together of our look through the book of Philemon. The entire
book we are studying this week is one chapter book in the Bible, an amazing book
about how you and I can deal with conflict. We've been talking about the steps
that the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write in this book.

First you begin by applauding the positive, then you appeal with wisdom, then
you appease those who are wronged, then number four, what do you do? You apply
your faith. You let faith be lived out in the relationship.

Here's what Paul did in verses 20 and 21. He writes to Philemon, "I do wish,
brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in
Christ, confident of your obedience.

I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask. " Paul writes
with faith. How many times have you gone into an argument?

How many times have you gone into a conversation and you really expect failure?
You really expect them to act like they've always act or you really expect it to
one more time, here we go, to give the best opportunity to confront the conflict
so that a solution can happen. You have to walk into the conflict expecting God
to work.

If you're not expecting God to work, why even have the conversation? If you're
not expecting God to work, the only thing that can happen out of the
conversation is another argument. And yeah, I know, we're human beings,
sometimes we want another argument.

Sometimes we're just so selfish that we want to get involved in the argument one
more time. But once you're ready to get out of the argument, once you're ready
to solve the conflict, once you're ready to confront that thing in your life
with somebody else that just isn't working, once you're ready to confront
someone about something in their life that isn't working that you want to see
changed, you desperately want to see changed. What do you do?

You have to apply your faith. Why? Because faith raises your expectations.

When you have faith, you expect something different. Without faith, you expect
failure. You might wish, and I mean a human wish here, you might wish something
good would happen, that some surprise would happen, but you walk in expecting
failure.

With faith, you expect the two things that Paul expected here. You expect
obedience and you expect grace. He writes and he says, "Confident of your
obedience, I write to you.

" Not obedience to Paul, by the way, but obedience to Jesus Christ. I just want
to say you have every right to expect another believer to obey the Lord. Why?

Because God's given us his word to help us to obey. He's given us his spirit to
strengthen us to obey. So you can expect obedience, not in a selfish way, but in
a faith-filled way.

When you talk to someone about their faith in Jesus Christ, you need to talk as
if their faith in Jesus Christ can be lived out. If not, why talk about it at
all? So you expect obedience in this conversation, and you even expect grace.

You even expect the more that only grace can do. Paul writes and he says, "You
know, I expect even more. I know that you'll do even more than I am asking here.

" Grace is that even more. Grace is not just keeping the letter of the law,
that's the law. Grace is going well beyond whatever law or command God has set
to live it out in our hearts because of who he is.

That is grace. So faith, you walk into the conversation applying your faith,
raising your expectations, speaking, expecting obedience, expecting grace.
Faith, here's what faith does.

It does what Paul talks about in these verses. Faith refreshes your heart. And
if you want to solve a conflict, you know this.

You need a refreshed heart. Maybe it's a conflict you've been having with
somebody that's been going on for a long time and you just can't seem to get to
the right conversation. Or maybe it's been something you've been trying to get
through to a friend for a long, long time.

You know they're headed the wrong direction. Maybe it has to do with some habit
in their life. Maybe it has to do with some relationship in their life that's
going wrong.

Maybe you can see them slowly but surely walking away from their faith. And
you've tried to confront it again and again and again and you just can't seem to
get there. What you need is a refreshed heart.

Without your heart being refreshed, you're not going to be able to have the
conversation with a sense of faith. So Paul writes and he asks for that even
from the one that he's talking to, even from Philemon. He says give me some
benefit.

The word there is actually usefulness. The word there is onesimus. It's the name
of this slave that has run away.

Give me some usefulness, some benefit. Give me some onesimus. Paul is writing to
Philemon as I'm sending onesimus back to you.

How is this benefit going to come? This onesimus? He says it comes as you
refresh my heart in Christ.

One of the most refreshing things is to see Jesus Christ work in people's lives.
I love to see him work in people's lives. I love to see change lives.

To see his love evidenced in somebody's choice. I would choose something
different now because of who Jesus Christ is. I would choose character over the
easy way out because of Jesus Christ.

To see his love evidenced in forgiveness in somebody's life, that refreshes your
heart. To see his love experienced in the way that they love someone else, that
is like a spring breeze to your soul. It can change everything.

Sometimes I can see it just in the light in somebody's eye. There's just a
different light in their eye because Jesus Christ has changed their life. So now
they have hope, even in a seemingly hopeless situation.

Now they have strength, even when they feel like they are totally without
strength. Refresh my heart in Christ by letting me see Jesus Christ at work in
you. What an awesome picture.

If you do the right thing in a relationship, the impact of that will refresh the
hearts of many, many people. Anytime anyone lives with the burden of a conflict
in their relationships, it affects everyone around them. And anytime someone
lifts that burden, that impacts everybody around them too.

If a conflict is bringing you down, I guarantee you there's other people around
you that it's bringing down as well. You need a refreshed heart. And my prayer
is that that refreshed heart might come from even the person you're having a
conflict with, a disagreement with, or someone that you're trying to confront
something with in their life that is just taking them down.

I pray for a refreshed heart in your life. That change would happen in that
person's life. Where do you get your expectations raised?

Where do you get a refreshed heart? It can only come through Jesus Christ. It
can only come from what He can do in your life and what He can do in other
people's lives.

So today as we close in prayer, I want to take some time, just some time to pray
that Jesus Christ in the way that only He can would refresh your heart today.
Jesus, that's what we ask for. Some of us, we started the day today with the
spring on our step and we felt lots of energy and the truth of the matter is it
doesn't take us very far to get to a refreshed heart because we feel a lot of
physical energy, a lot of emotional energy.

Some of us today, we began the day physically down, maybe because of what we're
going through with the doctor and with medicine in the hospital. Some of us, we
began the day emotionally down because of what a friend is going through,
because of what a son or daughter is going through, or husband or wife, because
of what we're going through. Maybe choices that someone else is making that's
tearing their life apart or choices that I have made that are now hurting other
people.

And Lord, we need a heart that's refreshed. I pray for the miracle of a
refreshed heart through the presence of your Spirit in our lives that you would
refresh our hearts right now. Give us the spark of hope that only you can give.

And then I pray, God, we ask for the even more personal miracle of seeing that
spark of faith of life in someone else, maybe even the person that we're having
a conflict with, maybe even the person that we're having a disagreement with or
we need to confront. Let us see change begin to happen. God, you know how we
need hope and you know how hopeless we become when we depend only on ourselves
or only on our circumstances.

So today, this day, Jesus, help me to choose not to look at my circumstances,
but to look at you. Help me to choose not to look within, but to look up. Help
me to choose not to look at the past, but to look at your future.

Jesus, I can't refresh my heart. I can do a lot of things, but I can't refresh
my heart, not truly, not deeply, not eternally. You can.

So I pray, I pray by faith, even though I don't feel that it could happen, maybe
I pray by faith that you would begin to refresh my heart today. And I ask this,
Jesus, in your name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to continue to look through how
to deal with a conflict, how to help someone with a conflict in their lives.

We're going to look at the importance of looking toward the future.