The Gospel Transforms Lives — Part Three

All right, verse 8 of Philemon. We return to Philemon. He’s set the scene, and now he says:

“Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you—I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus—I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. (Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.) I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel, but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own [free will]. For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a [slave] but more than a [slave], as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.”

Paul’s Gracious Tone

Well, I think, again—and just as I hear my own voice reading it, we realize again just that tone really matters, doesn’t it? Tone, not just in musical terms, but the tone that… You know, when you study homiletics, when they teach you homiletics, they teach you about pace—whether you’re moving too fast or you’re dragging. They teach you about volume—whether you’re loud or whether you drop your voice. They teach you about pitch—whether you’re high with a voice or low with a voice. And all those things are important. But you know what the real issue is? Tone. Tone.

What is the tone? Does the tone come from the pulpit like “This guy thinks he really knows everything, and so he’s going to let us know”? Or is it like “I’m not sure he’s sure about anything at all; I don’t know what he’s doing out there”? Tone really matters. And when you write a letter, tone matters. What’s the tone?

Well, what’s the tone here? It’s humble, it’s gracious, it’s endearing, and it’s actually difficult to resist. If you look at the text, you see it’s a request. It’s not a demand. It’s made only on the basis of love, not on the basis of rank or authority. It’s heartfelt. He says, “This is in my heart. I’m going to send him back. He’s very dear to me.” It’s selfless: “I’d actually like to keep him.” It recognizes God’s providence in the circumstances that have put them together.

Spurgeon used to tell his students—he taught them many things, but he told them on frequent occasions that more flies are caught by a jar of honey than by a pot of vinegar.[1] It’s such a simple thought, and yet when you think about that in relationship to being a schoolteacher or being a medic or whatever it might be—anything that deals with people, and usually in times of challenge or difficulty or vulnerability or whatever it might be—it’s vital that we learn from Jesus in this regard. He is the Good Shepherd. He’s the shepherd who gives his life for the sheep.[2] He leads the sheep; he doesn’t drive the sheep.

People ask me now at this point in my life, “If you started again, what would you do differently?” There are many things I would try and do differently. And one would be to try and learn sooner than I did that you don’t move people forward by being horribly hortatory. It’s like “Come on! Come on! Come on!” You know? You can’t listen to that for very long. You’d go out of the building; you’re like, “Why does he keep saying that to us?”—and to suddenly realize, “No, the people need to understand the indicatives before we move to the imperatives.” We need to understand who we are in Jesus and what we are and what he has done for us before we then move on to all the imperative action.

And you can see that Paul is absolutely super here. He’s far more friendly than he is forceful.

And I guess, you know, old habits die hard. My son, who was part of things just last Sunday night, is also the person who was in the back seat of the car when, after I had been giving very straightforward directions to everybody else on the road while I was driving the car and explaining to everybody, “Hey, move it over there! Get… Stop! Don’t… Move! Go! Go! Ah, go!” You know, that kind of stuff. And afterward, there was a silence, and then the voice from the seat said, “And that’s another kind word from your pastor.”

Did I just say something about tone?

Well, verse 8, I think, if you just look at it, it makes very clear that the apostle’s tone is exactly that: entreaty. He entreats him rather than demands of him or commands him. And in giving up his right to command, he actually advances the ball up the field to obtain what he desires.

It’s important, I think, we recognize, too, that this is a letter. There’s nothing here that is mechanical or manipulative. Philemon, who, we saw yesterday, is the “beloved brother”—he is agapētos. He’s full of agapē love. And so it only makes sense that the appeal that Paul makes is on the basis of love: “If you are the agapē man, I’m going to appeal to you not on the basis of duty.” Duty’s okay, but that’s not his appeal. He says, “After all, you should realize by now that I’m an old man”—I guess as old as he feels. And once again, he acknowledges that he is a prisoner for the sake of Christ.

And once again, as we said—and I don’t apologize for reinforcing this—he remains truthful, and he remains tactful. Tactful. And having done all of that, now, in verse 10, he finally comes to what he’s on about.

A Surprising Providence

Now, all at the beginning of this is not like a bad history essay on the part of myself when I went to school, ’cause you don’t really know the answer to the question, so you try and pad it with as much information as you could possibly find in the hope that the teacher will miss it. How they ever would I don’t know. But anyway… So this is not a lot of foo-foo stuff here for the first nine. No, this guy was trained as a lawyer, don’t forget. He knows exactly what he’s doing. And so now he says, “I appeal to you for my child Onesimus.”

Now, think about this. We know this, because we’ve read it a couple of times. If this was read from a scroll, and as he goes through this—and “an old man, I’m a prisoner,” and so on—and Philemon’s going, “Yeah. Yeah.”

“And I appeal to you for my ch—”

“Onesimus! You mean Onesimus, the guy that ripped me off and ran off?”

“Yeah, I guess he’s on about Onesimus.”

“I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment.”

[Phillips] does a wonderful job in this. He says, “I have become a father though I[’ve] been under lock and key, and the child’s name is—Onesimus!”[3] And this by the power of God, changing his heart. It’s always the power of God that changes the heart. We don’t know the backstory to this in Onesimus’s case any more than we do in relationship to Philemon. “But,” he says, “what you need to know is that this Onesimus, who was formerly useless to you, he is actually now useful to you and to me.” In other words, “The Onesimus that I’m writing to you about just now and I’m going to send back to you is not the same old Onesimus. He’s a new Onesimus.” “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.”[4] Therefore, he is a new Onesimus.

Incidentally, in that first song, there was a typo in there, I think. And we sang, “One in himself.” It’s “one with himself,” right? Okay. ’Cause I thought maybe you’re starting to change the words, and then we’re going to have a conversation. You’re going to have to go see Joe. Okay, that’s very important, because “one with himself, I cannot die.”[5] Why? Because if I am placed in Christ in his death, I am placed with Christ in his resurrection. Therefore, it is an ontological impossibility for me to die, to be separated from God in eternity, because it is “one with himself, I cannot die.” Sorry. Anyway, I just saw that because I looked at my notes.

“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.” Therefore, Onesimus is a new person. “I know he’s been pretty useless to you,” he says, “but you’re going to find that he is useful.” It’s a play on words. If you know your Bible, you know that this is an irony, because the name Onesimus actually means “useful.” So Mr. Useful was blooming useless until he became a new Onesimus and became peculiarly useful.

It ought to be an encouragement to us, because some of us have asked questions—and I had a number of questions along the lines of “Well, what about the kids that don’t believe?” and so on. These are big questions, and there are big issues for prayer. But let’s remind ourselves of this: that Christianity knows nothing of hopeless causes. There are no hopeless causes as long as Jesus is a resurrected Lord, as long as we have life and breath, and as long as we can pray, and as long as we can influence, and so on. People would have said, “Onesimus is a useless character. Why do they call him Onesimus? He’s pathetic! I mean, we haven’t seen him in ages.” What a radical change that came about not only in the life of Onesimus but in the life of Paul!

There are no hopeless causes as long as Jesus is a resurrected Lord.

Because think about this: Here is the one-time heir of Jewish exclusiveness describing a gentile slave who has become a follower of Jesus. It’s fantastic! And he says, “He is my very heart”: “I[’m] sending him back to you, sending my very heart.”

If you [should] leave me now,
You’ll take away the very heart of me.
Oh … baby, please don’t go.[6]

“Please don’t go.” It’s the tone.

Actually, the word that is used there is a graphic word. In fact, those of you who were brought up in the King James Version know this word, because it gives you—it’s the word that was translated in the King James “bowels.” “Bowels.” I always thought that was funny when I was a kid. I liked it when they read it, ’cause I could laugh about it. But the fact is, it’s like if you get airport stomach, if you get anxious or something: It goes right to your gut. And what he’s saying here is “When I think about what has happened in the life of Onesimus, when I think about what God has done in him and is doing through him, and when I think about sending him back to you, I’m not trying to get rid of him, because I would like to have kept him if I could. I’m sending him back. He is my very heart.”

I wonder if Paul, in thinking about this and in urging this response on Philemon, doesn’t flash back to his own conversion experience when he goes to seek to join the disciples, and they’re afraid to have him. And it’s Barnabas that plays the role of bridging that gap. And now Paul is playing the Barnabas role in some ways in returning Onesimus.

You see, the real test in all of this is: If Onesimus is as useful as Paul says, then it makes sense that he would keep him if he could. And that’s exactly what he affirms: “I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel.” If Onesimus had stayed with Paul, then he could have done what Philemon would have done—that is, have looked after Paul for the gospel’s sake.

And then verse 14: “But I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own [free will].” “God loves a cheerful giver,”[7] and Paul desires that Philemon should know that joy—the joy that is found in doing what ought to be done not grudgingly but freely and happily. “For,” he says—think about it—“this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while.” Do you like that “perhaps”? I like it. I like it a lot. I think if I was the apostle, I wouldn’t say “perhaps.” I would say, “And I know that this is why he was parted from you.” But Paul doesn’t say that, ’cause he doesn’t know. He says “perhaps.”

You see, the providences of God are seldom self-interpreting. I get a funny feeling up my spine when people come and tell me all the things they know, as “This is what has happened, and this is why it is going to happen, and this is how it is going to happen.” I say, “Where do you find all these things? How do you find these things?”

You think about it: when, for example, Mordecai says to Esther, “Who knows?” “Who knows?” he says, “But perhaps it is that you have not come to the kingdom but for such a time as this.”[8] Who knows? God knows! Mordecai doesn’t know. He’s going to find out, and so is Esther.

The providences of God are seldom self-interpreting.

So, it’s a wonderful thing, the providence of God. Because most of our understanding of the providence of God is not looking through the front of the car; it’s looking through the rearview mirror. You go through it, and you say, “I don’t see how this works. Why has this happened now? Why has this happened to me? What is this supposed to do?”—all those other things. So learn here. Live with your perhapses. “For perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a while.”

From a human perspective, we would probably say that if Onesimus had a shot at becoming a Christian, surely the perfect place was in the home of Philemon, who had become a Christian and who had, apparently, a Christian wife and a boy who was too young to march with the infantry. And Onesimus is there in such a loving spot. I mean, we’d be inclined to say, “Well, this we should just pray: Pray for Onesimus. He’s a slave in the house of Philemon, and these are good Christian people, and it’s a wonderful opportunity for them to witness to him, and perhaps he’ll become a Christian there.” Well, that’s all perhaps and perhaps. But guess what? That wasn’t to be. And he ran away. And then we would say, when we had the prayer meeting, “Oh, what a shame! Onesimus ran away! And we prayed. And remember last Tuesday? We prayed specifically for Onesimus.” Yes. Are you stopping now, because it didn’t work out the way you thought was perfect? How about it goes this way? Who? Who knows what’s going to happen to him when he goes running off down the street, taking all that stuff with him?

Well, he didn’t know either. He ran away from his master and was swallowed up in the arms of the Master. He ran away and found himself caught up in the providence of God, in the experience of a transformed life.

This, of course, is just quite amazing, isn’t it? That the ways of God are past finding out. That…

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.[9]

I have a great quote from Calvin somewhere. I don’t know if I can find it. It’s such a good quote, and I can’t see it. Ah, I’ve just found it! There we have it. Thinking along these lines, about things going against us, he says, “If we are angry over offenses committed by men, our anger should be soothed when we see that things done in malice have been made to serve a different end by the purposes of God.”[10]

You think of Joseph’s brothers: same stuff. You think of Onesimus here. This is a big one for Philemon! He couldn’t read Calvin’s Institutes, so he wasn’t helped by this. But Calvin got it from the Bible anyway. “Your response, Philemon, should be served by recognizing that God knows exactly what he’s doing.”

I’m fascinated, as I say, to find out how these things worked. I mean, how did Onesimus come into contact with Paul? I don’t know. Did he work in the jail? Was he a server? Did he bring him his meals? Did he take out the garbage? Was he a cleaner? I don’t know. We’ll have to wait to heaven to find out that. But we might be encouraged by God’s providential overruling of all the things that seem, from a human perspective, to be apparently inconsequential, when they’re not—that God, in his providence, without interfering with the free will of Onesimus, used the charge of the runaway slave to bring that fellow to faith in Jesus, not the way that we would have imagined it or planned it.

We might be encouraged by God’s providential overruling of all the things that seem, from a human perspective, to be apparently inconsequential, when they’re not.

And when you think about your life—which we do from time to time—we realize that, again, the hymn writer helps us:

When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I’m lost
In wonder, love, and praise. …

Unnumbered comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestowed
Before my infant heart conceived
From whom those comforts flowed.

You think about Onesimus singing this, and Paul:

When in the slippery paths of youth
With heedless steps I ran,
[Your hand] unseen conveyed me safe
And [brought] me up to man.[11]

That’s the story for all of us, with little tweaks and twists and different parts. But it is that: that God, in his loving-kindness, sweeps into the unfolding drama of redemption all these different parts—so much so that even the hours of this day and the privileges of these days are planned from eternity, with a view to eternity. It’s great.

But I shall stop.

Let’s pray:

God, you’re so great and wonderful, high and mighty, so vast in your wisdom, so kind. And we thank you that you know every one of us tonight. You made us. We all got a different DNA, all got a different story. And Lord, we thank you that in the mystery of your eternal counsel, you’ve seen fit to bring us together for these couple of days. And we do want sincerely to hear your voice from your Word so that we might come in childlike trust to believe you, to accept you, to rest unreservedly in what you’ve done on behalf of sinners. And so we thank you for the time, and we commit the night to you, and we commit our loved ones to you. In Christ’s name. Amen.

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[1] C. H. Spurgeon, “The Minister’s Ordinary Conversation,” in Lectures to My Students (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2008), 198.

[2] See John 10:11.

[3] Philemon 10 (Phillips).

[4] 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV).

[5] Charitie Lees Bancroft, “Before the Throne of God Above” (1863).

[6] Peter Cetera, “If You Leave Me Now” (1976).

[7] 2 Corinthians 9:7 (ESV).

[8] Esther 4:14 (paraphrased).

[9] William Cowper, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” (1774).

[10] John Calvin, The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians and the Epistles to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, trans. T. A. Smail, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 398.

[11] Joseph Addison, “When All Thy Mercies, O My God” (1712).