Sermon Tone Analysis
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This morning, we are going to beging a new series in a little book that most of us probably rarely think about in our Bibles
It is a book that is very short…only one chapter long
It is a book that, when I told you to turn in your Bible’s to that book, you probably needed a little extra time than usual to find it
But don’t feel badly, I need extra time to find certain books as well
We are going to start today looking at this little book of Philemon
As we get into the message, and into this series, let me tell you a little bit about where this series idea originated
As you know, my family and I were away recently
We drove from Barrie to Oklahoma City and back
That is a long drive (about 2,100 km each way)
To drive that far each way takes quite a bit of time
Although there are several drivers in our family, I prefer to do the driving
Because we leave at 4:00 AM, there is quite a bit of sleeping that goes on by the people in the van…other than the driver…me
Because of that, I have quite a bit of time to myself
There are a lot of different things that I do with that time
I may just sit quietly while I drive and think about things
Either things in my family
Or things in the church
I may listen to some music
I may listen to my Bible reading for the day
With my Bible app, I can push a button and it will read to me my Bible reading for that day…rather than actually reading it…which can be dangerous while driving
I may listen to some sports podcasts that I have downloaded
Usually about the Toronto Blue Jays
Sometimes about the Toronto Raptors
Rarely about the Toronto Maple Leafs because I don’t want to be in too bad of a frame of mind while I am driving
But other times, I may listen to some other spiritually helpful podcasts that I have downloaded
There is one called Tiim Talks that my friend Al Stone does
I often will have downloaded some of those to listen to
Another podcast that I really like is one that Scott Pauley has called “Enjoying the journey”
It is a tremendous podcast
It is about 10 minutes each day
I don’t listen to it every day, but I will binge listen to it when I have time…like when I am driving
On this most recent trip, I downloaded Sctt Pauley’s entire podcast series on the book of Philemon
It was such a blessing to me
As the Lord was ministering to my heart as I was driving, I felt that God would have me to preach through the book of Philemon
So that is exactly what I am going to do
I think that there will be about 12-15 messages from this little book
A lot of what Scott Pauley said in his podcasts are things that I will mention throughout the series
I hope this little book will be a blessing to you as it was to me as I was driving over the last couple of weeks
Last Sunday afternoon, Pastor Jesse preached about restoring a fallen brother as we are commanded to do in Galatians 6...
At least, that is what the spiritual person is supposed to do
If we are not restoring those that have fallen, maybe we are not really as spiritual as we like to think that we are
And that concept of restoration really ties in very well to this little book of Philemon because we will see that restoration is very much one of the themes of this little book
There are other themes, but restoration is definitely one of the very obvious and visible themes of the book
Before we get into this little book, you might ask, why are we going to take time to go through a book of the Bible that is so small?
If it is so small, is there really that much in it for us?
To that, I would say, that there is an awful lot for us to glean from this book
I would also say that, even a short book like this is not in the Bible by accident
Can I remind you of what the Bible says in 2 Timothy 3:16?
2 Timothy 3:16 (KJV 1900)
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
All Scripture is inspired by God…including these 25 verses of Philemon
All Scripture is profitable for us…including these 333 words in the book of Philemon
And so we are going to take some time over the next few months to really get into this book
Quite often, when I preach through a book, I just preach through it from start to finish…kind of verse by verse
While there will be a little bit of that during our time in this book, it won’t be exclusively that
We will do a bit of a deep dive into some of the characters and some of the themes of this little book as well
I think it will be exciting as we go through this together
Knowing that we are going to be in this book for the next 3 months or so, I want to challenge each of you to do something...
I want to challenge you to read through this little book…25 verses…333 words…at least once a week in it’s entirety
It will help you to familiarize yourself with the book...
And it will help you to be even more prepared for the messages that we will be looking at each week
If you really want to get into the book, read it once a day…or 2-3 times a week...
But I do challenge each of us to read through this entire book at least once a week for as long as we are in this sermon series
Before we get into the meat of what I want for us to see today, I want for us to see one more of the overriding themes of this book
Paul gives the introductory remarks in verse 1-2 (which we will look at in more detail in this series), but then gets to the meat of the letter in verse 3
Notice how verse 3 starts… “Grace to you”
This letter starts with Grace
But then look at the very last verse of this book:
Philemon 25 (KJV 1900)
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
Amen.
So we see that this letter starts with grace and it ends with grace
Another of the overriding themes of this book is the grace of God
That grace is something that we should all be thanful for…and that we should all be mindful of
How focused are you on the grace of God?
I think that this little book is going to help us with that
I have entitled this sermon series “A note to a friend”
The reason for that will be pretty clear as we go through this book
This book is a very personal note written by Paul to his friend Philemon
We see other of Paul’s letters and some of them are letters to churches to give instruction or rebuke
Think of Galatians, Corinthians, etc.
Others are written to individuals but are very doctrinal in nature…instructing pastors...
Think of Timothy, Titus
But this book is a little different
It is just a note to a friend
As we begin this series, in this introductory message today, I want for us to see three things about this note…this little book of the Bible:
We will see the setting, the story, and the significance
1.
The Setting
We are not going to spend much time on this point at all, but as we get into this book, it is important for us to understand the setting
It has been said that, in order to understand any text, we must first understand the context
That is why, so often, as we look at a passage of Scripture, I try to take a moment to help us understand the context of what is being written
It helps us to understand the content if we understand the context
So what is the context of this letter?
We, we can see from the very first word of the very first verse that this is written by the Apostle Paul
This was written by Paul from Rome...
Either from a prison cell or while under house arrest...
He was never living in freedom while in Rome
Paul was in Rome after he had appealed his trial to Caesar
We saw that a couple of years ago when we were studying in the book of Acts
So this is written by Paul from Rome while he was a prisoner there
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