What an amazing week of life at First Baptist Arlington. I heard one. Amen. I’m going to ask what an amazing week of life at First Baptist Arlington. Thank you.
We are continuing through our series Making a Difference. I think differences have been made this week where we’re walking through the fruit of the Spirit from. From Galatians, chapter 5, verses 22 and 23. And I am always so honored and joyful to get the opportunity to share God’s word with you. But before we get there, did y’ all realize there’s something going on next door this week?
Did anyone see that? Okay. How could you not notice at this point? But if you weren’t aware, and maybe you’ve been living under a rock or abstaining from all forms of media. Our city has been host to several World cup games.
And our church has spent the last week and more than a week working with the Kingdom of Jordan to host watch parties and a Visit Jordan experience and an event here in our sanctuary. And it has been just. I’m at a loss for words. I just keep calling it amazing. It has been one of the crazier weeks of my life, an incredible week.
And I am so curious what kingdom seeds are going to be sown from this church’s hospitality and its service. And I’m so proud of all of you. If we have any delegates here with us from the Jordanian Tourism Board, I want to extend the warmest welcome to you. They had a late night last night, so they may not make it until the 11 o’. Clock, but it has been an honor to be with them.
They have been a delight to work with. And I want to make mention of this mosaic over here. You’ve probably already seen it this morning. This mosaic is a gift to our church from the Kingdom of Jordan. And so, if you were not aware, Jordan is the archeologically verified baptism site of Christ.
And so they have presented us with this mosaic. And I think we’ve got a picture maybe that Dr. Wiles wanted us to show of him and the man who made this mosaic, that man’s name is Ziad. And so if you went to the Visit Jordan experience this week and you walked by that table where they had children making little mosaics, the man who was assisting kids making mosaics, my kids included, is actually the man who designed and made this mosaic for us. So if you can’t tell, it is supposed to be the Jordan river with the Lamb of God and the Spirit descending. What an amazing gift.
We’re gonna have to find such a good place for it.
And I just wanna nod. I’m not wearing a suit or a fancy shirt, but in honor of our Jordanian friends and everything that’s gone on this week, I am wearing a Jordanian jersey. If you didn’t watch, they lost last night, which was expected. They were playing Argentina. I know we’re more of an American football kind of country, but Argentina’s the best, and they have the best player in the world.
Messi and Jordan knew they were not going to win. But one of the things they said when they started talking to us about having an experience is we know we’re not going to win the World cup or even the match, but we hope to win your hearts. And I will say I think they’ve won many of our hearts, including mine.
We also have had quite a few people from our church serve and volunteer and host at the Visit Jordan Experience as well in our sanctuary. I want to just thank so many people. Our choir and orchestra received word on Tuesday that they would be asked to sing and play on Thursday night. That’s a quick turnaround, right? And we know how good they are.
They’re the best. So if you served or volunteered either here on Thursday night or at the Visit Jordan Experience on Thursday, Friday or Saturday, would you please stand?
Thank you all.
If you are not proud of your church, you should be. We have the best people, and we have no idea what gospel seeds, what kingdom seeds, what doors will open because of this church’s hospitality, both here in our community and in the Middle East. And so whatever you did, whether you just prayed for this as part of the intercessory prayer team, or you put wristbands on people as they walked in, or you’re some of our staff who frantically ran around this week trying to solve problems. Remember that you play a role in opening gospel doors around the world through your actions this week. And isn’t that amazing?
And so my prayer has been the words of Ephesians, chapter 3, verses 20 and 21. Now, to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that’s at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. That’s not the whole sermon. We have more.
I could keep going on that alone. But we’re here today to talk about kindness, so we’re gonna get there. But, man, the World cup has been a blast, y’. All. Anyone else having fun with it?
Watching games? Anyone enjoying it? I did not anticipate being a host city would be as fun as it has been. And if you are anything like me and you’re on social media, your algorithm is feeding you videos and pictures of internationals experiencing the United States for the very first time. I have loved seeing internationals experience things like Texas barbecue or the bewildering experience that is BUC EE’s.
It just makes me laugh and I love it. But I’ve also loved seeing the heartwarming stories that are coming out of this Cup. You know, the town of Lawrence, Kansas has been the host city for the Algerian team and they have just given them the warmest welcome. Or to bring it a little closer to home, I have been in awe of the Japanese fans cleaning Dallas Stadium every time they play a match. But have you seen that on the news?
After every match, the Japanese fans pull out their blue trash bags because their jerseys are blue and they walk around AT&T Stadium picking up trash. It’s amazing, just amazing. It’s been an incredible summer. Beyond, I think, anything I expected, I had no idea what to expect. These signs of goodwill and kindness have been such an encouragement to me.
But today, as we talk about kindness as a fruit of the spirit, I’m curious, is kindness just warm, fuzzy feelings and general niceness? Random acts of kindness seem to be the sort of thing that everyone is capable of, regardless of whether or not the spirit dwells in them. So what is the kind of kindness that only the spirit can grow in us? When the Bible talks about kindness in the New Testament, it uses a Greek word that carries with it the root of idea of usefulness. It’s a spiritual usefulness to the other.
In the New Testament, that’s kind of the baseline idea. Now. So much more meaning gets added to it than that. So God’s kind of kindness has to be of a completely different magnitude than just random acts of kindness. God’s kindness rearranges relationships and restores identities.
It is his sweeping redemptive work. And it is God’s grace, practically deployed to restore humanity to right relationship. And we can see how that plays out in a few places in the New Testament. But we’re just going to look at two to start with, so we’ll turn to Titus, chapter three, verses three through seven. At one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.
We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. That sounds like a world I know. But when the kindness and love of God, our Savior, appeared, he saved us not because of righteous things we had done. But because of his mercy, he saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
So God’s kind of kindness appears to us in our brokenness, rebellion and across the alienation that sin creates to restore us to God, renewing our lives and filling us with God’s very spirit, so that through God’s work we can be restored to the fullness of eternal life. God’s kindness changes our status before Him.
We can also see this idea at work in Romans, chapter 2, verse 4, where Paul writes that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance. Kindness has a particular goal, and that goal is the full restoration of broken relationships and the redemption of our identities as gods and image bearers. Kindness crosses the distance of fractured human relationships, and we can see this at work in Jesus’s own life and ministry. In Matthew 8, we read a story of Jesus healing a Roman centurion’s servant. And as is tradition in our church, please stand for the reading of the Gospel.
When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him asking for help. Lord, he said, my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly. Jesus said, shall I come and heal him? The centurion replied, lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me.
I tell this one, go, and he goes, and that one come, and he comes. And I say to my servant, do this, and he does it. And when Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, truly, I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Then Jesus said to this centurion, go, let it be done just as you believed it would. And a servant was healed at that moment. You may be seated.
Now, I don’t know how much you know about the ancient world, but Roman centurions were not the friends of the Jewish people. They were the instruments of an aggressive and hostile empire that had invaded and taken ruthless control over the land and its people. Still, Jesus recognizes faith in his people’s enemy and heals the centurion slave. And this is what kindness is and what kindness does. Kindness is both a wrecking ball to the world’s fallen pattern of relationships like power abuse and alienation, and as also a healing balm that leads to restored identities and transformed relationships in the way of Jesus.
Now we’re going to take a look at another part of the Bible to see the practical outworking of this kind of kindness and a real human drama. And so, as we pay attention to this human drama, I want you to listen for how kindness this practically deployed grace, a wrecking ball to the world’s broken pattern of relationships, transforms people and people’s relationships to one another in light of Jesus work. So today we’re in a letter called Philemon, which is located near the end of the New Testament. And the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to a man named Philemon, a woman named Aphea, a man named Archippus, and the church that met in Philemon’s home. This is a short, one page, little teeny, tiny book, but it is complex.
And I also want to acknowledge that it has a complicated history, particularly in America. This book was used and misinterpreted and wrongfully applied as a Biblical justification for the slave trade. And I want to just say unequivocally that that was an abuse of this letter and we’ll see why. And we can talk about more of that on our podcast, Tell me more this week, but we won’t get into all of it today. Now, this letter, it’s not just a letter.
It’s a story of the relationships that had gone wrong between a few people and the hope for reconciliation between them. It is drama in letter form. So it’s got a few main characters that I want you to pay attention to. We have Paul the Apostle, Nice mosaic art in honor of kind of a Jordanian mosaic style. This week he wrote this letter from prison in Ephesus, and he is the very man who brought Philemon to Christ.
And then we have Philemon. I actually had to generate an AI image of Philemon because I couldn’t find one. So this is AI this is not a real image. Philemon is a high status man who’s become a Christian and he’s a slave owner. One of the Colossian churches meets in his house.
And then we have Onesimus. This is not AI. Onesimus is one of Philemon’s slaves and he’s run away, met Paul, and has come to know Jesus. And now Paul is sending him back.
Now, there’s no Roman Empire postal system, no reps, if you will. So letters had to be hand delivered and then were often read out loud to their addressees by the deliverer. And there’s some good reason to believe that Onesimus may have been the very one, this runaway slave, to deliver Paul’s letter to Philemon, Apphia, Archippus and the church in Philemon’s house. Now, I just so happen to have that letter here with me today. And I’m going to read the whole thing to the whole church, just as Paul intended.
And so, as we read this, I want you to imagine that Philemon is sitting here in one of these pews, that we’re a church in the first century, Philemon is with us. And then, if you can, I want you to imagine that it is Onesimus reading and it is Paul’s words coming out of Onesimus mouth. So let’s read this letter together, shall we? Open the envelope. Nice dramatic flair.
Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus. And Timothy, our brother. To Philemon, our dear friend and fellow worker. Also to Apphia, our sister and Archippus, our fellow soldier. And to the work that to the church that meets in your home.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. 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. Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love.
It is none other than Paul, an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus, that I appeal to you for my son, Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful to both you and to me. I’m sending him, who is my very heart, back to you.
I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the Gospel. But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you would do would not seem forced, but would be voluntary. Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was 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, but even dearer to you both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord. So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back.
Not to mention that you owe me your very life. 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. Oh, and one more thing.
Prepare a guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
Well, a pastor I’ve listened to once would say, y’ all still with me?
There is so much for us to talk about in this tiny letter, this little book of the Bible that we often don’t read. But I want you to just continue for a moment to imagine that we’re sitting in a household church in Colossae, under the shadow of Rome, the empire’s culture and its conceptions of power and relationships. Onesimus was a slave. We have a picture of slavery in our minds from American history, and it had some commonalities with Roman slavery, but it’s not the same. Slavery in the Roman world wasn’t race based.
Anyone from any people group could find themselves enslaved for any number of reasons. They may have been conquered and captured, they may have sold themselves into slavery, or their family may have sold them into slavery to pay off debts. They may have been found as discarded infants, which sadly was a common practice, and raised as slaves. Or any child born to a slave was automatically a slave by default. And slaves were of the lowest status in Roman hierarchy, and status for Rome was everything.
Slavery was a legal status, not a job, not an occupation. And New Testament scholar Scott McKnight reminds us that slaves could actually hold any number of jobs, from farming to philosophizing, from the cruel labor of working in the mines to the refined attention on the master’s wife. From routine domestic chores to practicing medicine, from being a wet nurse or for a master’s private pleasure. Regardless of the occupation, though, slaves were not considered people in the Roman Empire. Greek philosophers like Aristotle, you’ve heard of him, he’s kind of famous.
He said he thought of slaves as tools. He said households need tools. Some are lifeless and others living, and the slave is an assistant in the class of instruments of action, or more simply, in the Roman world, slaves were equivalent to hammers or stand mixers or working livestock. They were not people. And in the rigid and enforced hierarchy of the Roman world, slaves were at the bottom of the social order in a household.
They may have managed domestic chores or worked within the household business, but they were still the bottom rung. They were non persons. And even once they had been freed, they were still considered slaves. And their status in life did not improve much. We don’t know what Onesimus Job was in Philemon’s household, but we do know that something drove him to run away.
Running from slavery was illegal and very risky. Running away from slavery was so dangerous because slave catchers roamed the Roman world looking for slaves who’d run away. And once found, those slaves could be branded, have iron collars permanently welded around their necks, or be put in prison. It was also illegal to harbor a runaway slave. So Paul’s harboring of Onesimus, even for a time, was illegal.
Of course, Paul was already in prison, so I don’t know that he was too worried about that. We know that Philemon, the master in this story, had become a Christian after meeting Paul and led a church. But we don’t know what kind of master he was. We don’t know how his discipleship in the way of Jesus had impacted his slave ownership. What we can know is that even though Philemon was a Christian, Onesimus still risked the severe penalties of running away to leave his master.
Something went wrong, though. We don’t know who wronged who. And Onesimus was scared enough to run away. One scholar remarked he ran because he knew and surely believed Philemon would bring a swift and painful punishment on him for what he had done. He would not have run had this not been the case.
We can also observe that Onesimus was courageous enough to risk it all on running and clever enough to get from Colossae to Ephesus without being detected. So we can imagine, based on what’s in this story, this letter, and we can learn about the lives of slaves and masters in ancient Roman society, that what happened went something like this. Perhaps Onesimus willfully committed a wrong, or maybe he made a costly business mistake. Or maybe Philemon had done something to cause enough fear in Onesimus to make him run away. So Onesimus, a non Christian living in a Christian’s household, flees his Christian master, and covertly makes his way to Ephesus, where somehow he finds his way to Paul.
Maybe Onesimus hopes that Paul will advocate for him, help hide him, or maybe help get him to another city. And while Onesimus is with Paul, Onesimus comes to know Jesus and follow him and even more becomes a useful helper to Paul. And this word useful here, remember, is closely tied to the Greek word for kindness. It’s a spiritual usefulness. Now Paul, being the honorable man he is, sits down with Timothy and they draft a letter to Philemon in the church.
I think sometimes we come to this letter and we think this is a private letter to Philemon that Philemon would have just read alone. No, Paul writes it to the whole church and the whole church is going to hear this. So Paul sits down and writes it and he sends the letter back with Onesimus. And Paul doesn’t send Onesimus back because he knows he needs to return Philemon’s property. No, Paul sends Onesimus back because now there are two brothers in Christ who have to be reconciled with one another.
And since God’s kind of kindness is both a wrecking ball to the world’s fallen relational patterns and is also a healing balm that leads to restored identities and transformed relationships in the way of Jesus, let’s watch for how Paul urges God’s kind of kindness to rearrange Philemon and Onesimus relationship, restore Onesimus identity as a person and show the way to relational restoration. Paul begins by encouraging Philemon, expressing his gratitude for Philemon’s partnership, his love, the way he refreshes the hearts of God’s people. And Paul also tells Philemon that they share every good thing in Christ and because they share every good thing in Christ, which includes Onesimus. Now Paul reminds Philemon that he could order Philemon what to do, he could boss him around. And he lets Philemon know, I could boss you around, I could, but I’m not going to, is what Paul says.
He wants to appeal on the basis of love. And I want to point out, because it’s not evident in our English Bibles, but it’s very evident in the Greek. Paul lays the puns on thick in verse 11. So Onesimus is a slave name, and it’s one that Philemon could have given to him, or it could have been one given to him in the slave Market, but it means useful. Onesimus name literally means useful.
And so Paul says that he was useless to Philemon, the useful slave became useless, but now he’s become useful for the gospel Onesimus was intended to be economically useful, beneficial for Philemon, but in some way had failed to live up to that utilitarian purpose. But for Paul, Onesimus had become of great use, spiritually beneficial in helping Paul with Gospel work while Paul was in prison, so much so that Paul would have liked for Onesimus to stay with him. But Paul realizes that this change of status and reconciliation is necessary now between Philemon and Onesimus. So he sends him back. And in verses 15 and 16, we reach the very high point of Philemon.
Paul makes his appeal, and he wants Philemon to make this choice freely and out of the love of God that Philemon has. So Paul writes, perhaps the reason that he was separated from you for a little while was so that you might have him back forever, not as a slave anymore, but better than a slave, as a brother. This is not a small ask, and I don’t know that we can fully grasp the magnitude of what Paul is saying here in this room today. But Paul is not just asking for Philemon to withhold punishment, to forgive, even though he is asking for that. He’s asking Philemon to live into God’s design for relationships with others, not Rome’s.
Paul is asking for Philemon to completely upend his relationship with Onesimus. That’s based in the Roman social order, no longer viewing him as a tool for profit and not even as just another human being within the Roman social order. No, Paul pleads for Philemon to receive Onesimus back as a brother in Christ, as an equal. This is so much bigger than the world’s kind of kindness. This kindness changes everything.
Slaves were occasionally freed in the Roman world, but that never put them on equal footing with their masters. Paul is asking for so much more than Onesimus freedom. He’s appealing for Philemon to treat him as family, as an equal, and as a dearly beloved brother in Christ.
And we don’t know the extent of what Philemon did after getting this letter, but we can make some educated guesses based on church history. First, this letter made it into the Bible. So the church in Colossae must have found it spiritually instructive enough to preserve it and share it. On that basis alone, it’s safe to assume that Philemon did what Paul asked and likely sent Onesimus back to Paul in Ephesus for the sake of Gospel work. But beyond that, early church history references a bishop, an overseer of the church in Ephesus named Onesimus.
And many believe that it’s the same Onesimus from this letter. So this Slave may have become the overseer of the Ephesian Church. Paul is showing that while the world may continue to perpetuate broken and fallen ways of people relating to one another, full of exploitation, abuse, exclusion or domination, the Church has a different way. And in God’s family our identities are restored and our relationships are reconciled. Because we are all sons and daughters of God through the work of Jesus Christ and we are all brothers and sisters in God’s family.
If Rome set up a society where some are at the top and some are at the bottom, the kingdom sets up a different social order because the ground is level at the foot of the cross. Even Paul recognizes this. In his own leadership, he refuses to command Philemon what to do and instead makes an appeal on the basis of love. Paul is setting up the people of God to live in a radically different way, so different than the vision the Roman Empire had for them. Paul’s vision for the family of God in the Church is to live out God’s kind of kindness, this kindness that changes status, reconciles relationship and restores identity.
And Paul knows that there’s a reality much higher than Rome’s at play. God’s vision for humanity is at work, and Paul wants the Church in Colossae to live it out. So even though slavery continued to exist in the Roman Empire and continues to exist around the world to this day, Paul is guiding the Church into living a different reality that we can read about in Galatians 3:26, 28, where he writes, so in Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith. For all of you who were baptized in Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There’s neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
What Paul writes about here in Galatians is what he asks Philemon in the Colossian Church to practice as a lived reality. So if Galatians 3 is the theology, Philemon is how Paul expects the Church to work it out.
So how are we being challenged to live this out today, some 2,000 years later, give or take more take. How are the people of First Baptist Arlington supposed to live this in 2026? Philemon’s household would have been the location of his business. And the Greek word for household is actually where we get our word for economy. That’s the root word for economy.
It’s actually the household. And while none of you own slaves, some of you do have employees. How are you to treat your employees in the light of the Gospel? What does God’s kindness through you look like for them? Do we treat our employees just as tools for our profit or the business’s bottom line?
Or do we recognize our identity in light of God? Do we treat them harshly to the point of fear? What would it look like to receive employees not just as tools for profit, but but as dear brothers and sisters in Christ? Or how do we reconceive leadership in light of God’s kindness, which puts all of us on equal footing before Christ? What would it look like to follow Paul’s example?
He could have commanded Philemon to welcome Onesimus, but instead he makes an appeal on the basis of love. Paul knew that his authority came from the crucified Christ and he needed his leadership to model that true authority. How can we live a different vision of authority and leadership rooted in the way of Jesus? Or are there places where we are discounting people from spiritual leadership because of how the world sees them? Onesimus was just property in Roman culture, which was but became invaluable to the spread of the Gospel.
As a person in Christ, who are the onesimuses among us that we’ve discounted because of how the world sees them? They may not sit in corporate suites or political offices. They may stay home with babies or work self checkout stations at the grocery store. What would it be like for us to view those people and their potential in light of Christ? And our world is also no less obsessed with status than Rome.
And whether it’s class, caste, race, nationality, nationality, immigration status, gender, income, position, job description or follower count, our world is enamored with status. How can we as God’s people live with a different orientation to status? How can we welcome people with low worldly status like Onesimus, as if we were welcoming Paul or even better yet, Christ? In the letter to Philemon, we move beyond just theologizing about kindness in the abstract and we see how God expects the church to live it out as a practiced reality. Ultimately, God’s kind of kindness is this wrecking ball that just destroys the world’s relational patterns and leads to restoration and transformed relationships and identities.
This is not something we can create out of ourselves or mere human effort. This is the kind of kindness that only the Spirit can grow in you. It is a fruit, a true fruit, of the Spirit’s work in our lives together, transforming us and renovating us in Christlikeness. Deprogramming the world’s patterns in us and transformation by the renewal of our minds. May the Holy Spirit grow in us.
This fruit of the Spirit of kindness that transforms the church and the world through Christlike ways of relating to one another. Let’s pray.
Holy God, thank you for all the ways you have been at work through your people this week around the world. And we know that from the rising of the sun in the east to the setting of the sun in the west, your global family is gathering today to worship. And as your global family gathers, we pray that you will grow in all of us this fruit of the spirit of kindness, that you will transform our broken relationships, that you will help us see everyone around us through the eyes of Christ.
Help us love sacrificially, live generously, and welcome others as though we were welcoming you. In your name, we pray. Amen.
