How God’s Grace Restores Broken Relationships | Philemon 8–16

How can a damaged relationship move toward healing when the hurt is real? Teaching from Philemon 8–16, Pastor Chris Teien explores Paul’s appeal on behalf of Onesimus, showing how God’s grace changes people and opens opportunities for forgiveness and renewed fellowship.

Paul appealed through love, invited a willing response, and described the difference Christ had made in Onesimus. Discover how to recognize genuine growth, communicate without manipulation, and pursue restoration with humility and care.

IN THIS MESSAGE

1. GRACE GIVES THE FREEDOM TO RESPOND, NOT THE PRESSURE TO COMPLY

Paul had the authority to tell Philemon what he ought to do, yet chose to appeal on the basis of love. His approach encouraged a willing response. Consider how you can communicate truth with patience and compassion, giving others room to respond thoughtfully. (Philemon 8–9; 2 Corinthians 5:17)

2. GRACE CHANGES USELESS INTO USEFUL

Paul contrasts Onesimus’ former unhelpfulness with his new usefulness to both Paul and Philemon. This describes his changed contribution, rather than his worth as a person. Through Christ, someone who has failed can grow in faithfulness and become a blessing to others. Look for genuine change while allowing trust to develop through consistent actions. (Philemon 10–11)

3. GRACE RESPECTS THE OTHER PERSON’S FREE WILL

Paul wanted Onesimus to remain with him but would not act without Philemon’s consent. He wanted Philemon’s kindness to be voluntary. Respect another person’s responsibility to choose, and encourage generosity and service that flow from sincere love. (Philemon 12–14; Galatians 5:13)

4. GRACE SEES GOD’S HAND IN THE BIGGER STORY

Paul suggests that the temporary separation may have opened the way for Philemon to receive Onesimus forever as a beloved brother. He offers this possibility humbly, without claiming to know every reason behind what happened. God can work through painful circumstances to bring repentance, spiritual growth, and changed relationships. (Philemon 15–16)

BE ENCOURAGED

You can take a gracious step toward healing while leaving another person’s response in their hands. Pray about one strained relationship, examine your own conduct, and consider whether you need to apologize, listen, or offer an invitation to talk. Speak honestly, recognize genuine growth, and allow time for trust to be rebuilt. Depend on Christ’s grace as you pursue peace.

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Helping you understand and apply God’s Word. Find more ways to listen and connect, plus links to sermon transcripts at Well.faith. Learn more at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.church. Questions or feedback? Email wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

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Chris T 0:16

If you missed it last week, we're in the book of Philemon, a small book. And my Bible right here, it's not even one page, it's very small, right after Titus is Philemon. And Philemon is a letter from the Apostle Paul to a godly guy that had church at his house. Must have been a rich guy, must have had a lot of resources, but he had found Jesus, possibly through Paul's ministry, and he was excited at serving Jesus. In the Roman culture in which he lived, he also had slaves. One thing I read said one-third of all the people in the Roman Empire were slaves. One thing said up to half of them were slaves. It was a cultural thing. It appears he was born into slavery. And the slaves at that time in the Roman Empire, some of them had great jobs as being teachers and civic leaders and things like that, but they were slaves. And that was their life and society. Onesimus was a slave of Philemon. He didn't like it, so he ran away. And maybe he stole some things too. And that wasn't acceptable in the Roman Empire. So you could be, when caught, you could be executed, you could be branded on your forehead with a mark to show that you had been a runaway slave. All sorts of bad things could happen. But while Onesimus was out there trying to blend in with the crowd, trying to hide away from everybody as a runaway slave, trying to get on with his life. Onesimus got saved and became a valuable helper to the Apostle Paul. So here we have a runaway slave who's become a Christ follower. And Paul, the Apostle Paul, knew that it would be right for Onesimus to go back to Philemon and ask for forgiveness. And so Paul, in this letter, it's very interesting. Most of the epistles that we have are letters to churches. This one is just written to a guy, just written to Philemon, where the Apostle Paul is saying, Hey, I agree with you that what Onesimus did was wrong. And you probably suffered financial loss because he stole it from you and all of these things. And you could be really harsh with him, but I want you to know that he has come to Jesus, that he literally not to escape from his troubles, but he has become a Christ follower. He has become your brother in Christ. He has become very valuable to me. And I encourage you and ask you to forgive him what has become a slave who was useless to everyone, has become useful to me and to you and to God's kingdom. And so that's basically what's going on in the book of Philemon. And it really is a theological masterpiece. We're in a series on grace. And so we'll talk about Philemon for a couple weeks, and then we will talk about John Mark and Gaius and Demetrius and Diotrophys and different stories of grace as we go through May and June. And each topic, each week can stand on its own. So you don't have to feel like if you missed out on last week, you won't know what's going on. I will make sure that you know what's going on. So on last week I talked about the beginning of Philemon. So it's Philemon 1 to 3 of the verses. And it says, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, dear friend and fellow worker. So here we have the Apostle Paul, who doesn't identify himself as apostle, an apostle or superstar for Christ, but he says, I'm a prisoner, I'm in chains because of Christ, because I'm following Christ, because I'm doing Christ's will. I'm being held a prisoner. He's appealing to Caesar. He's waiting for his opportunity to proclaim the gospel to the highest leader in the land. And so Paul is saying, Philemon, this is Paul. I'm sure you remember me, a prisoner of Christ Jesus and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our dear friend and fellow worker, and to Ephia, our sister, maybe a godly woman in the church, or his wife, an archipis, a fellow soldier, so maybe another worker in the church or a son, and to the church that meets in your home. So the book of Colossians might have been written, actually, to the church that was meeting in Philemon's home, or part of it anyway. These people that had a lot of resources often had big homes that they could have church in. And then Paul says, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. What a great way to open it up, and what a great thing to think about is that Philemon was a person of influence. Philemon was not only a leader of the church, but the church met in his house. And so people look to him as an example. People look to him as an authority. People look to him as how am I supposed to live a godly life? They look to him to see what grace in Christ Jesus is. And so somewhere along the way, Philemon must have come across Paul, or somehow he received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. And there seems to be, as you read the book of Philemon, this connection. They know each other. And so Paul has sent this letter with Philemon and the book of Colossians, or the epistle, the letter of the Colossians, with Philemon and Tychicus. And so here we have this letter that says, hey, this is really important. And I think that the relationship that we Paul is like, I think the relationship that you and I have, Philemon, merits me with asking this request. So let's grace and peace. First he says, grace, God's unearned favor, his undeserved kindness and peace, the state of reconciliation and wholeness and that we now have with God and with one another through Christ. So he puts grace before peace because peace flows out of grace. We don't achieve peace with God or others by working harder. We receive it as a gift from his grace. Next, verse 4. I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, by Leman, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. So he's giving thanks. He's truly being thankful. And in all of the circumstances in our life, we should be thankful. We should look for things to be thankful for in others when we're having a conversation, when we're addressing them, when we have requests of them. We should be thankful, people, we should be thankful in the Lord. And Paul is again pointing out that he has heard good things about Philemon, that people are talking about your faith, that I hear about your love for all his holy people. He's hearing it from other people. Other people are like, hey, that Philemon, he's really doing a great job, showing love and peace, and he's really a great guy. And so that is admirable. Do people say that about you? Are people hearing about your faith in Christ? Are people excited when they're around you because you encourage them, you inspire them, you help them to look up, not just to you doing the right thing, but to look up higher to Christ in your life? And they think, man, I want to serve God like that person does. What a great thing to aspire to. What a great thing to, what a great way to live your life. So I hear about your love for all of his holy people. Love, agape love, selfless, sacrificial, covenantal love, not shallow sentiment or convenience-based kindness, the kind of love that mirrors the love of Christ, costly, durable, and outward focused. And your faith in the Lord Jesus. The Greek word is an active verb to trust. It's not just mental agreement with doctrine, it's loyalty, dependence, and relational commitment to Jesus that shows up in real life. And that is so true that when we love God, then as Christ's love flows into us, it should flow out of us. So a vertical relationship with Jesus should turn into a horizontal relationship with other people. It should help us to have love for other people around us and to show care. That doesn't mean that you just permit them to do everything because you just love, love, love them, because God doesn't do that to you. It means that you care about them and you want the best for them, and you'll even step in and try to help guide them on the right path using scripture and care, because that's the depth of your faith and your love. And then verse six, 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 when we come to Christ, when we're in a relationship with Jesus Christ, we are in a partnership. So we are not meant to be Lone Ranger Christians out there all by ourselves. We are meant to be part of a local church, part of the body of Christ. We are meant to be together with other believers, serving with other believers, making a difference in the world together. A reason that we put it we'd want to put a playground out there is because we want parents to connect. So many times people will come to a church when there's people in their life stage. So my wife and I, we had our children young because we got married young. We got married at 19, and by 20 we had our first child, and so most of our friends, most of our church friends were older than we were because they waited longer to have kids. But that was the common bond was the kids. And so if we have playground equipment and things for young families, they can connect in that way. If we start a men's activity group, we should get men that connect with other men, and it should deepen their Christian faith, their Christian life, and be a good thing. It's a partnership. We're all in a partnership with what Christ is doing in our life and the people that we have in our lives, Christ followers, the local church. To be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ Jesus. So we share life together. We share resources, we share a local church building. Hopefully, as a member, as somebody that's committed to this church, you see a responsibility to help make this church keep moving forward. Maybe you have skills and gifts that you could use to make this church better. Maybe you look around and see things. There's so many things that go on behind the scenes. There's decorating that goes on, there's cleaning, there's music, there's all these things to care for the church, and then there's things that we could do to go a step further. If you have a green thumb and you just love grass, wouldn't God's house look a lot better if there wasn't mud in the entryway? But if as you walk in, but if somebody could get the grass to grow and make it nice, I'm sure the guy that cuts the grass would be okay with it. What if we could do more along the sign out there to landscape it a little more? So many different things. People have a gift for that, people have a gift for construction. So don't just run off and do things without asking the properties team. But if you have an idea, if you have a skill, if you have a resource, if you have equipment, and you could do something to make this place better for the kingdom of God, God would be honored. We would be delighted, and you might just make a big difference in the life of the church. All right. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord's people. Don't you love it when people say, Good job? I appreciate you. I love what you've done. I love what you're doing. I love the way you serve. Don't you love to hear that? What if it came from somebody that was like influential? What if somebody that had great like influence in the world said that to you? I mean, Philemon has been called out by the apostle Paul in Scripture for all the world to see for 2,000 years for eternity, I'm sure, that his love has given the Apostle Paul great joy and encouragement because he's refreshed the Lord, the hearts of the Lord's people. What a great compliment. And I mentioned last week that I don't think that the Apostle Paul is trying to butterfly Leman up before he gives the big ask about getting Onesimus off the hook. But the Apostle Paul, he is an agent of grace. He has experienced God's grace and he cares about grace. Number one, grace gives the freedom to respond, not the pressure to comply. So in this letter, we see that God's grace doesn't just change individuals' lives, it has the power to restore what's been broken between people. And so Paul is trying to help Onesimus get things right. And but he's not going to command it, he's not going to demand it. He's not going to say, Philemon, I'm in charge here, and you're going to do this. But instead, he's given the ask so that he can reply in a way that he wants. And God does that to you. He doesn't force you to follow him, he gives you the opportunity. And so many times we need to give the people the right opportunity to give the right response to do the right thing. So we don't command that you give, we encourage you to give. Because when you give, there is blessing. God sees, God rewards. God loves a cheerful giver. So we don't say that to come here you have to give, but you should give. And you should pray and you should care and you should share your faith. And every one of those shoulds comes with a reward, and we could show you in Scripture the reward. All right, verse 8. Therefore, Paul says, although in Christ I could be bold and order you, Philemon, 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. So he defines who he is. So Paul's like, hey, I care about you, and like I just mentioned, that I could tell you that you need to do this. But instead, I am going to give you an opportunity to do what's right. You know, 2 Corinthians 5.17, I think we saw that on the music slide. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come. When we come to Christ, things change. Things should change. We shouldn't write people off as lost causes. We should see the potential of grace in their lives and remember that God is in the business of rewriting stories. And sometimes that is a really long process. Sometimes people that have done wrong or have hurt you or whatever, they need to go through a process and restore relationships. And sometimes it can take a long time to build back trust. And sometimes that process can be difficult, but we should always leave the door open for there to be some communication, some context. Some never write anybody off forever. It doesn't mean that you have to become their best friend. It doesn't mean that sometimes, and we're going to see this towards the end when we look at the story of John Mark, that sometimes you're like, okay, I'm heading in this direction and you're not coming with me. That's what Paul did to John Mark for a season. And then in grace he returns. Grace changes useless into useful. Grace changes useless into useful. So a runaway slave that doesn't want to do his work, that doesn't want to be part of what's going on, like Onesimus, whose name actually means useful or profitable, kind of funny. But he wasn't useful when he wasn't helpful. And when he wasn't helpful, then it caused all sorts of trouble, especially when he ran away. So I, from what I understand, Philemon could have literally got in trouble with the government if he didn't take care of this slave in the appropriate way. And it would have been bad for the church that met in his house, and it might have been bad for Christianity that was trying to change people's hearts more than the Roman societal system. Verse 10 I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, Paul says, who became my son while I was in chains. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful to both of you and to me. Have you seen that happen in people's lives before? Have you seen people that in the past they weren't godly, they weren't helpful? And then God got a hold of their heart and somebody discipled them, and they grew up in the things of Christ, or they learned the things of Christ and they became more useful. And to your surprise, they were actually leading and guiding and directing. And people that you would have written off in the past are now working alongside of you, making a difference in the world. What a great thing. And I can only imagine that if Onesimus was hanging out with the Apostle Paul, maybe even serving the Apostle Paul, that he was learning great and wonderful things about the things of God, that he was learning great and wonderful things about how to live the Christ life, that he was getting a front row seat to one of the people that wrote much of the New Testament. What an exciting thing for him. I'm sure Onesimus' life was totally changed, where he had become useful. So how would he be useful? He was useful to Paul at that time, and he'd be useful even if he still continued to be a slave in Philemon's house, working in the church that met in his house. So maybe Philemon wasn't able to give him freedom. There was a way for slaves to get freedom back in that time when they they could become Roman citizens again, but I don't know what the process was. And I'm not sure that there's anything that actually proves that Philemon actually gave Onesimus his freedom. But one work not in the Bible that I might talk about next week shows that later in life he was like a bishop or overseer of a church. But this appeal that the Apostle Paul is reminding us that God can use people, God can transform people, God can change people to do great things. And number three, grace respects the other person's free will, respects the other person's free will. I'm sending him who is my very heart back to you. He's talking about the slave guy. I'm sending him who is my very heart back to you. I would have liked to keep him with me so that I could take your place in helping me while he could take your place in helping me while I'm in chains for the gospel, but I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced, but would be voluntary. So Philemon could say, hey, okay. If you want them, you can have them, and send them right back, or send them back when you're done with them, or whatever. But this grace, this grace that respects the other person's free will. And in Galatians 5 13, it says, You, my brothers and sisters, we're called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather serve one another humbly in love. Serve one another to restore broken trust, restore one another and give room for people to respond in their time, in their way. Sometimes situations don't get fixed right away. On the wall by the coffee machine, there's a brochure called Principles of Peacemaking, which has like a list of things to go through to reconcile conflict. But consent doesn't mean just agreement, but deliberate, informed choice. Voluntary means freely, willingly, and without compulsion. And to have the free will to do the right thing in the right way gets you a reward with the Lord. So it rhymes. I should use that. I just did. Number four, Grace sees God's hand in the bigger story. Grace sees God's hand in the bigger story. So God is working behind the scenes to make things happen, to make relationships come together, to help people to grow in amazing ways, to bring people across their path that will transform and change their lives. Verse 15. Paul writes, Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while is that you might have him back forever. No longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me and even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and a brother in the Lord. So the Apostle Paul is saying, Hey, you know, he did run away, and maybe he stole from you, and that was bad. But maybe God is using this for good. Maybe God is using this situation so that not only would he come back to you, but he come back to you as a brother in Christ. For all eternity, we are all going to be with eternity in Jesus because we are all together in the Lord. And so Paul is attesting that Onesimus has crossed over from death to life, attesting that Onesimus is a changed person, a different person, so much so that he wants to make this right. I'm sure Onesimus didn't go unwillingly. I'm sure that Onesimus said, Paul, I really like serving you, but I just feel there's some stuff in my life I need to take care of. Some sin in my life that I need to confess and deal with. Some opportunities for justice need to be here. So remember, grace restores what sin is broken by inviting hearts to respond freely and be made new through Christ.