King & Kingdom (Psalm 146:1-10)

Costly Love (Philemon 17-25)

PODCAST COSTLY LOVE June 7, 2026 | Brandon Cooper Brandon Cooper discusses the theme of costly love in Philemon 17-25, emphasizing that love always costs something, especially in a broken world. He cites examples from literature and movies in which characters sacrifice for love, drawing parallels to the Christian call to forgive and love others. Cooper highlights Paul’s request to Philemon to welcome Onesimus, a runaway slave who has become a Christian, and to charge any debts to Paul’s account. He stresses the importance of forgiveness, generosity, and hospitality, urging believers to go above and beyond in love, as Christ has done for them. TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+ The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. Well, good morning, church. You want to go ahead, grab your Bibles, you can open up to Philemon. We will wrap up this short book this morning. We’ll be in Philemon 17 to 25 Philemon 17 to 25 As you’re turning there, there’s a familiar but really powerful trope in movies, literature, and the like, where someone is willing to bear a substantial cost. If I can quote from Philemon, to bear that substantial cost on the basis of love, because they’re being motivated by love of different sorts. So, just some examples, you’ll know some of them, at least. I hope mr. Darcy, for example, lays out an enormous sum of money in order to protect the family of the woman he loves from social ruin, so he is driven by romantic love in that case, or switching continents, Jean Valjean risks his freedom to save Marius because he wants what’s best for his adopted daughter, so he’s driven by familial love. One of my favorite characters from literature, Atticus Finch, he endures rejection, social stigma, isolation in order to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who’s accused falsely of attacking a woman, and so he puts his whole family at very real risk in the process as well. He’s driven by a higher love, almost, because it is a love of justice, a love of humanity as humanity, maybe most powerfully, of course, Sydney Carton gives his life, changes places with Charles Darnay, counts the total cost in order to spare his friend, and for the sake of the woman that he loves as well. The point in all of these, we could multiply examples easily, is that love costs, love always costs, and it costs a lot, especially in a broken world filled with broken people, and that’s all those stories I just shared. Two of them, at least, are based on unjust systems, some driven by sexual sin, others by racism. All of this costs, and costs greatly. Someone has to pay the costs, and Paul’s point to Philemon and to us in this letter is that, as Christians, we can pay that cost. We can pay it because Christ paid it for us already, paid the cost for us already, because He took the hit for us should make us willing to take the hit for others, even those who don’t deserve it, because I got news for you, you and I didn’t deserve it either. And he still took the hit for us, plus in dying for us, and then raising us to new life in him, God supplies us with the infinite riches of grace, so that we can go on paying the cost, because you can’t, you know, there’s always an infinite supply, it never runs out, that’s what allows us to keep spending for the sake of others, that’s what we’re going to see in our passage today, we look at three costs that we’re called to pay, and then as we go, of course, we’ll see how the gospel will motivate and sustain us to count those costs, so first cost is the cost of forgiving, the cost of forgiving from verses 17 to 19. I’ll read it for us now. 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 self. I love this section because we get the gospel in miniature in it, but what is Paul saying to Philemon about Onesimus? If you weren’t here last couple weeks, you don’t know the story. Paul, the apostle, is sending Onesimus, who’s a runaway slave back to his former master, Philemon. Onesimus has become a Christian. Philemon is a Christian, and so this is a tense moment right here. So, what Paul says in this moment is, look, when it comes to Onesimus, you take the hit, Philemon, you take the hit, you count the cost of love. Now, if you were here last week, this is a nice moment, because we finally get the appeal. You’ll remember last week that Paul was saying things like, I appeal to you on the basis of love. I appeal to you for the sake of Onesimus, who’s my son in the faith. At this point, and so he keeps saying, I appeal to you, and at a certain point, Philemon is undoubtedly going okay, but what’s the appeal like? What are you asking me to do here? Paul finally answers the question. Welcome him, welcome Onesimus, as you would welcome me. Sounds easy enough, not a huge appeal until we remember the context, because Onesimus is a one. Run away, slave. He is also a thief, it seems. From here, if he owes you anything, I mean, he cost labor, of course, probably stole the fare at the very least, but might have stolen more. So, Philemon is well within his legal rights to execute Onesimus when he comes back, and instead Paul says, ‘Welcome him as you would welcome me, because you see, Philemon, Onesimus is now family, so Paul’s saying God sees no difference between me and Onesimus. What about you, Philemon? Do you see a difference between us, or will you offer the same welcome? Then he says, if Onesimus has done any wrong, if he owes you anything, a good bit of tact here, because he frames it as a hypothetical, if perchance this should happen to be, it’s not a hypothetical, Onesimus very definitely wronged Philemon, again stole from him all the rest, and yet whatever he’s done, Paul says, “Charge it to me. So Paul’s saying, “I’m willing to take the hit, I’m willing to pay what is owed. Now, it’s not unusual for Paul to mention that he’s writing in his own hand. He does it at the end of most of his letters. We saw that in Galatians recently, for example. Usually, that’s just to kind of authenticate the letter to go right, you know, a scribe wrote this, but here I am. Here’s my signature, more or less, but this one is a little bit different. When he says I’m writing this in my own hand, he’s writing it as a promissory note. He’s writing this as an IOU, you know, like here you go, like I’ll write it out, I, Paul, I’ll pay it back. So it’s an IOU, signed, sealed, delivered, would hold up in court if Philemon wanted to sue him. This is every bit as, as real as a parent co-signing on a kid’s first loan that could prove costly, will prove costly to Paul. Paul, who, not famous for being rich, by the way, lived off the generosity of others for the most part, otherwise was a laborer, a leather worker, but of course, if we’re talking debts, Paul points out Philemon should probably remember that he owes Paul his very life. Now, in what sense does Philemon owe Paul his life? Did Paul save him at some point? They’re blood brothers. Now, nothing like that. No, no, no. He is certainly talking about Philemon’s salvation, because Paul invested in Philemon, preached the gospel to him. Philemon now has eternal life. So, how are we quibbling about a few dollars that might be owed in light of the infinite riches of grace that Philemon now possesses. So, Paul clearly expects Philemon to take the hit himself. He’s saying, yeah, okay, whatever is owed, I’ll pay it, but really, you’re not going to do that. I know you wouldn’t do that. You’re going to take the hit yourself, and Philemon is in a position of privilege. After all, this is not a hard cost for him to bear. He can afford it, and he’s got a big enough house that the church is meeting in his home. He’s wealthy enough that he has slaves. Remember, we talked a lot about this last week. I can’t get into it all of it again, but we’re talking about economic slavery, like indentured servitude, but he’s able to have a large force of employees, in other words, and so Paul’s expecting of Philemon what the New Testament expects of the rich on every page, which is that the rich would disadvantage themselves for the sake of the poor, and see that throughout scripture. In fact, I mean, just as a couple of examples, this would be the atmosphere in which Philemon would have been taught about wealth, Ezekiel chapter 18. We have this little thought experiment the prophet leads us through, and he says, “Suppose there is a righteous man who does what is just and right, and then he paints a picture of the righteous man, couple of different areas, one of them is money, he says. Looks like this. He doesn’t impress anyone, but returns what he took and pledged for a loan. He does not commit robbery, but gives his food to the hungry and provides clothing for the naked, which is interesting, because it’s kind of saying, look, a righteous man, it’s not just about what you don’t do, you’re not a thief, you’re not robbing people, you’re not embezzling money or cheating on your taxes. It’s also what you do, and so, of course, you’re giving generously and even sacrificially as you have means and opportunity. Or Proverbs 327 says, Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act, and so those to whom it’s due, the poor, but it’s interesting, the word due is actually related to the word for owners, like this is theirs, in other words, if God gives you an abundance of wealth that isn’t yours. In some sense, according to the Bible, it belongs to the disadvantaged, and we are privileged to act as stewards of that wealth in God’s name to get it to those to whom it belongs. I love the way Basil the Great said it, one of the Church Fathers from centuries ago, he says, the bread which you keep belongs to the hungry, the coats in your closet to the naked, the gold you have hidden to the needy. Therefore, as often as you were able to help others and refused, so often did you do them wrong. And Basil practiced what he preached. He actually came from a very rich and aristocratic family himself, he, his brother, another of the Cappadocian fathers served the church, served the poor. His sister, Macrina the younger, formed a community of women. It was a community of equals. He had people coming from the upper stratus of Roman society, and then the very poor all gathered together as equals. And so Paul’s kind of saying, right, this is this is what we do, you got money, this is what this looks like, and already this is convicting enough, but it’s easier when we’re talking about helping the innocent poor, but here again, we’re talking about a thief who stole from you, well, what then doesn’t that get a little bit more complicated? Like, what could motivate us to count the cost, not only of generosity, but of forgiveness as well? The answer, of course, is the gospel. The gospel alone is powerful enough to sustain that sort of self-sacrifice. And in Onesimus’ story, we get the gospel in miniature. As I said, we’re Onesimus. We’re Onesimus. I mean, think about it. We have a Master, capital M, God the Father, and we ran away from him, starting in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve left. We’ve all been running away from our master ever since then to welcome us back into his home cost our master greatly, cost him the blood of his son Jesus, who took the penalty for our running away. He took the hit himself. In other words, so what we owe God, He charged instead to Christ’s account, and Jesus assumed personal responsibility for the debt we owed, and He paid it in full. As you know, if you’ve been in church for any length of time, when He cried out from the cross, ‘It is finished, and those are the words that they would stamp on I O U’s in Greco-Roman society to say it’s been paid, this debt is erased now. As a result of that, we can now stand before our master runaways and thieves that we are, without fear of judgment. Instead, knowing that we will receive welcome, welcomed by God our Father, as if we were His very son, because when Jesus died for us, it’s like He said to His dad, ‘Welcome, Brandon, as you would welcome me. And, of course, God the Father was oh so willing to do so. That’s why He sent His son. So that’s our story, Onesimus’ story, it It’s important to see that’s Philemon’s story too, of course. I mean, just as Onesimus stands before his master, lowercase m, in this moment, so Philemon one day will stand before his master, the seat of judgment, and so, if he keeps his eyes fixed on his master, who took the hit for us, who counted the cost, he’s going to find himself willing to do so also. And so would we. It would be impossible to be unwilling to do so. That would be the parable of the unmerciful servant that we talked about last week, all over again. He’s just had his $10 billion debt erased, and now he’s going, ‘Whoa, you owe me 10,000 though. Like, no, we couldn’t possibly do that. Instead, we would forgive as Christ forgave us. And how important this is for us to hear and remember, because we find it hard to forgive. Forgiveness is hard, it hurts, it costs. Like Philemon, I am confident that some of you have suffered very real wrong and want that debt paid. You will not forgive until you’ve seen just how much you’ve been forgiven or how much you need to be forgiven. Maybe you’re still uncertain about this whole Christianity thing. You’re still checking it out, and all of that. This is the moment to kind of go, wait, I’m not going to be willing to forgive unless I see how much I’ve wronged my master, how much I’ve wronged God. God, but that changes us when we see it. The world today, I mean, look at social media or something like that. The world today feeds our anger and stokes the fires of our bitterness, but the message of the gospel frees us from all of that and frees us to forgive. Is there someone in your life that you need to forgive. Let the gospel, according to Philemon, motivate you to do so. And if you don’t yet believe, just take a good long look at how you’ve wronged your master and how you’ve wronged others, the forgiveness that is available, and the wonder of that love. See if that won’t change your heart to be able to forgive others too, so that’s the first cost, the cost of forgiving. The second cost we need to count is the cost of refreshing, the cost of refreshing verses 20 and 21 I’ll read for us now. 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. So Paul hopes to have some benefit from Philemon, because they’re brothers in Christ. You see that family language showing up there again. I do wish, brother, we’ve seen that from the beginning. So this is all about how we treat one another as the family of God. They’re brothers in Christ, which means the gospel is working in Philemon’s heart and life, and so he should be able to refresh Paul in this moment. Now, not the first time we’ve come across this word, refresh. We saw it back in week one, way back in verse seven, where Philemon’s love gives Paul great joy, because he’s refreshed the church, he’s refreshed the family of God. So Paul’s just saying, look what you’ve been doing, just keep on doing it, do it again here in this spot. Now, what benefit is Paul asking for here? He doesn’t say it, I mean, how exactly is he going to refresh Paul? Well, of course, he said it last section to welcome Onesimus back as a brother in Christ, which we saw last week, forgiving the debt that now has been charged to Paul’s account doesn’t matter, gonna race it anyway. I think there is a little pun here. I will say I didn’t see this in the commentary, so I could be, I could be wrong here. Good news is, if I’m wrong, I don’t think it’s heresy, at least. But he says, here, you know, refresh my heart. And last week we saw back in verse 12, he says, I am sending Onesimus, who is my very heart back to you, so is he actually saying refresh me by refreshing Onesimus, probably because that’s what it would look like, but what I love is that Paul is so confident of Philemon’s obedience. Now this is not a general obedience, he’s not saying Philemon, I know you’re a pretty stand-up guy and a Christian, so this isn’t just general, like I’m confident of your obedience, I know you’re not going to get drunk, I know you’re going to say your prayers every day. No, he’s talking about the specific obedience of this moment, you could almost say confident of your compliance with my requests here in this moment. Paul’s so confident that Philemon is going to do what he asks. He’s trusting, as I mentioned before, he’s trusting the spirit of God in him, working in him to change him. He’s trusting that the gospel is powerful enough to change his heart. It’s the same confidence, of course, we can have for our brothers and sisters in Christ. All of us are changing a lot slower than we would like, and a lot slower than the people around us would like, but we are being changed, and we can be confident of that change that God is working in us and those around us. When we’re confident of that, when we’re confident that the spirit is working, it makes it easier for us to show forgiveness, to count the cost of love. When you know that God’s going to use that love to transform them even more. And isn’t this why parents go on sacrificing for kids? You talk about costly love, the love of a parent or child is very costly, but it’s because we’re trusting the Lord is hearing all our prayers across the years, that He’s going to bless the time we spend in the Word together as a family, the discipline that we offer our children, formative, corrective, whatever sort, so we’re confident of obedience, confident on change. Paul’s confident of Philemon’s obedience. And then I love that last bit, though, because it’s so challenging. Paul says he’s so confident in the spirit working in Philemon that he’ll know that he’s going to do even more than he’s being asked. Like Philemon is not just going to do the bare minimum, he’s going to go above. Above and beyond, now again, Paul does not spell it out for us, but it is crystal clear what he is talking about. He is asking Philemon to release Onesimus, talking about manumission, emancipation, whatever you want to say, is what we just sang. Thank you, Julie, for giving us, making sure everyone knows where the name of our series comes from, the hymn, O Holy Night, right, chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease. And Paul’s going, let’s see it, let’s see it right here, right now. Give us a taste of it. So he’s going to release Onesimus, maybe to return to Paul, which Paul had talked about earlier in the letter. Be so useful to have him here to continue serving in Colossi, whatever it may be. Paul knows that if Philemon really understood the gospel, it will produce a generous spirit in him that he will count the cost of loving well. You remember back in verse six when he thanks God for the Philemon’s partnership in the gospel, prays that it would continue to be effective, and we talk about that word partnership, that partnership that springs from faith is a generosity toward the people of God, including the undeserving people of God, that’s what he’s expecting to see here, that that would keep on going. Should it be any different with us, though? Means, shouldn’t we go above and beyond what is expected of us, what’s asked of us, once we understand the gospel? Jesus seems to suggest as much in his sermon on the mount, he asks some penetrating questions. He says, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors, notorious sinners? In other words, doing that, and if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Jesus, Paul, I think they’re saying it’s easy to be generous towards certain people. It’s easy to be generous toward people we like, people like us, people who can benefit us when we get something in return as a result of loving them. You expand your network a little bit in your career, or like I can remember as a kid, at one point I was extraordinarily generous toward a younger neighbor, I let him use some of my toys because I wanted to use some of his older brother’s toys, that’s not generosity, right, that’s selfishness, and that’s what Jesus is saying, like that part’s easy. It’s easy to love people when you’re doing it for selfish reasons. Shouldn’t we expect more from ourselves in light of what Jesus has done for us? Like, what about when it’s pure sacrifice? What about when there’s no earthly return on our investment, just the heavenly, which seems pretty good, admittedly. Let me just give you an example of like what this would look like. I talked money last week, I’m gonna talk money again this week, not because we’re about to do a campaign or something like that, just because that’s what’s being talked about here in Philemon. So let’s kind of stick with the text, like there’s an actual cost being paid, so our obedience, I think we get established pretty clearly from scripture, is a 10% offering we bring to the Lord. What is what is owed to him? 10% but we could say confident of your obedience. I know that you will do even more. I could say that of a great many of you, not all of you, of course. Some of you working up to the obedience, the bare minimum, the 10% still okay. But I look around this room, I know that there are extravagant givers in this congregation, and so, yeah, you get that. We’re like, I’m confident of your obedience. I mean, all that God gave us, we would give even more than is expected of us. You start to look at your funds differently. We go, you know what, I could live on x dollars per year, even a pretty comfortable life, that’s a vacation, that’s, you know, what all, and I make 2x dollars a year, so that means I got all this extra surplus that I can invest in the kingdom of God in different ways, and again, we’ve seen that here, we gave extravagantly just a few years back when we did the city new renovation project, but even here, and I’m not knocking this at all, like I’m so glad we did this. I think it was necessary and will benefit generations to come, but we got some benefit from that giving, didn’t we? Like, I like hanging out in our lobby, it’s nicer than it used to be. The bathrooms are nicer than they used to. We got an elevator. This is, this is good stuff. Like, what happens though, when we’re asked to give extravagantly and we don’t experience the benefit of it? And you know that’s a live issue, right? We’ll be praying about it next week at our prayer reading and stuff. Like, what happens when we start to give extravagantly to a church plant? So that we’re not renovating the space that we’re in, but if we’re building or renovating space that we will never enter, well, of course, of course, we would be confident of our obedience, even then, because that’s gospel refreshing at that point. Again, Jesus, I don’t think he got any personal benefit from his unjust arrest and trial and torture and death. Now he got benefit, sure, for the joy set before him, but it was this. This was the joy set before him. The people of God saved for the glory of his name. Jesus only got spiritual benefit from his sacrifice, and that’s what we would long to receive as well, and so we would count the cost of refreshing others in his name. Third cost, then, is the cost of welcoming. We read the rest of the letter, four hours, verses 22 to 25 And one thing more, prepare our 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. So do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. One thing more, Paul hopes to be released, as indeed he was, and he then plans to return to Colossi when he is released, probably because of the issues that have arisen there, which you could read the book of Colossians to hear all about. He’s gonna need a place to stay by Lehman’s got means. Could you prepare a guest room for me now? There is a lot going on in that one verse 22 Certainly, there’s some added motivation to obey here, like Paul is going to show up shortly. Will Onesimus be back in chains? Will Philemon show him Onesimus’ burial site, because he put him to death? Hopefully not. Paul’s saying I’m gonna be checking in on you. This is like parents saying it’d be home in 10, hope things are clean. That same kind of motivation here, but he’s also asking Philemon to continue counting the cost of refreshing and welcoming others, like forget Onesimus, it’s going to cost Philemon to love and welcome Paul, because hospitality is costly. It certainly is. It costs time, it costs energy, it costs a room in his house. I was going to turn that into a study now. I got Paul staying here instead. It costs actually love. I think Philemon is almost like a commentary on Hebrews 13 eight to 11, which talks about the hospitality that we’re called to show one another as Christians. Ready to Hebrews says, “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. So there’s that family idea again. Do not forget to show hospitality, but even to strangers, he says, for by so doing, some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it, and then continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering, which is a lot of the plight that we were talking about last week, of just entering into what others are going through, like even Onesimus, like what that would mean for him to be in chains. Now, Hebrews takes it beyond what we even hear in Philemon. It’s that same Matthew five idea, like don’t just do this for your own people, and don’t just do this for people who are going to help you. Do it for everyone, your brothers and sisters. Do it even for strangers, because you’re going to treat all people as valuable, because they’re made in the image of God, so they have intrinsic value, and that stuff that you would do for your own family, do that for everyone, and do that especially for the family of God. Can we treat family differently? Know this, like, I’ll just give you an example. So, it’s probably eight years or so ago, my dad had heart surgery. It was, you know, significant, like routine, but heart surgery is heart surgery, it’s a big deal. And so, my mom wanted me to be there. I think she wanted her son to be there. I think she wanted a pastor to be there too, just in case. So, when we got one of those in the family, I went, and it was it. She lost her dad, he went in for heart surgery, and he didn’t come out, and so I think this was on her mind, like, of course, like, of course, I would do that for my mom, she’s family, plus it’s my dad, who’s having heart surgery, he’s fine by the way, he’s still around, so but like that, then means okay, that’s what we should do for others, like when people in this room go in for surgery, we go. Okay, can I be there for you? How can I pray for you? Can I bring you meals afterwards? Like that’s what this looks like. The stuff you do for your own family, do it for everyone. When you were estranged, when you were a runaway, God brought you near and made you family. And that sets the pattern for all of us, and how we treat one another, which sounds good, sounds easy, even, but the challenge is welcoming everyone in the family of God. Again, it’s easy to welcome people like us, easy to welcome people we like, it can get harder. Otherwise, this was actually a problem in Colossi. Elsewhere in Paul’s churches, too. You know, God’s trying to bring all together, all people together in one church, and they’re kind of going, I don’t know, are we sure we want to hang out all together here? And so Paul says this in Colossians 311 here in the Church of God, there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all. When you notice he mentions a lot of different backgrounds, there we get religious backgrounds, we get ethnic backgrounds, we get socioeconomic backgrounds, all mentioned. All these people are together under one roof, Philemon’s roof. As it turns out, it’s even interesting where this shows up in Colossians. I won’t open it there for you, but Paul has just talked about our new life in Christ. He’s saying, put on the new self, like live like the new creation that you are. Okay, we’re all the same in Christ Jesus. And then the very next verse, a lot of us have memorized in journey groups, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and love, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, love toward everybody, toward the Scythians, even the barbarians, the Jews, the slave, whatever group it is, right, that you struggle with, even toward them. It’s not easy, though. I mean, Onesimus, as I mentioned before, is a Phrygian slave. Philemon is Kalash and aristocracy. Like, how are those people going to get along? So, if we’re going to have a family conversation, I mean, for us here as City View, like, we’re going to have to talk about the diversity of the body. Some of us get a little uncomfortable when that word ‘diversity’ comes up. Like, is this DEI for the church? Well, DEI is a cultural term. Can I tell you, and I think you got this, if you’re here for the politics series. I do not care one whit what culture thinks about this. I care a great deal what God’s word has to say about this, though. And God’s word talks about diversity, like you see God’s heart for all people in the Gospel, Jesus died to save a multi everything people, the same group that just got mentioned there in Colossians 311 Revelation five nine, Jesus Christ is praised, the Lamb who was slain, worthy to be worshiped, because with his blood he purchased persons from every tribe, language, nation, people, you can actually see that even at the end of the letter, verse 23 and 24 this is the part you just kind of skip over, you go, I can’t say those names, so whatever, no, they’re important, you got Epaphras, he’s Colossian, he’s from the hometown, right, you got Mark, he’s a North African Jew, you got Aristarchus, he’s a Macedonian Jew, Macedonia, like northern Greece. Luke, he’s from Antioch, he’s got a pagan background, though. You can just see this is a diverse group right there, and then here they’re all together in the church, but that ups the ante, ups the cost of welcoming others in Christ’s name, we’re not just talking about, well, you know, you have to get a little extra in the fridge, and again, the spare room, and all those, although that costs, again, let’s not neglect that, but we’re talking about getting out of our comfort zone as well, and if you’ve hung around with people from different cultures, you know, there is some discomfort in going outside of it. The food tastes different, usually that means the homes smell different, and like the culture is different. There may be language barriers, like all these things are present, come at things from different angles, and so sometimes that means you smack into each other on the way, and yet, that’s the cost we count, because Jesus died for all. Now, obviously, this happens in community. I mean, I get that. We talk a lot about that. We just talked about community groups and explore our this morning. Even so, like, yeah, we’re opening our homes to each other, even if we got different backgrounds of all sorts going on, but also we open our home to those outside the community. We got opportunities to do this here, and we’ve got some partner ministries like Safe Families. We are welcoming children into your home for a short period of time while their parents are getting different things sorted, of course. If International Friendships Ministry. International students, I’ve eaten some food I wasn’t going to eat otherwise. Just recently, in fact, because of if we’ve got the opportunity with the Gaias team, which cares for our missionaries. I need a bike for one of our friends of missionaries. I’m getting a text about it tomorrow. Like, this is the kind of stuff we get to do. What a great way to be able to serve to open a home in that way, and can I also say, what a great way to serve as a family, too. And here, I mean, even like your nuclear family. One of the things I love about a hospitality ministry is your kids watch you do that ministry in a way that they might not see some of the other stuff. It will cost. It will cost. It’s inconvenient. You can ask us our story. We had some inconveniences welcoming a child into our home for a six week stint. We’re at six and a half years now. Like I said, it’s a story, all that. Obviously, it’s a cost. We were so grateful to be able to count, but still it will cost. But it costs God so much so more to welcome you into his house, and so won’t you gladly count that cost as well. That’s it. So, just pulling all these costs together, just to give you your big idea, you could probably get there on your own, but it’s this: pay more, pay more, because Christ paid it all for you. So, like, do even more than is expected, pay more, because Christ paid it all for you. Count the cost of forgiving, refreshing, welcoming God’s people and beyond. I would challenge you. This would be the kind of thing you will, of course, talk about in your community groups specifically, but like, what’s one step that you can take, even this week, so that you are a doer of God’s word to Philemon, and not just a hearer of it? Is there a gift of time, or energy, or resources that you can make? Do you need to initiate a reconciliation process with somebody. Is there an invitation you can make into your home? Will you count it? It is difficult to overstate just how powerfully transformative costly love is. We actually see it in the rest of the story, the story that’s not here recorded in Philemon. We learn it from church history. I do have to say that means I’m stepping into a different level of authority here. This is some conjecture, absolutely, but we’ve got pretty good witness here, like what happens in this story. Because Ignatius, one of the earliest church fathers, he dies, he’s persecuted, he’s martyred in 107 he mentions in one of his letters Onesimus, the bishop of Ephesus. I mean, here is a guy who went from slave to brother to bishop, almost certainly, by the way. Why Philemon is in the canon, like why we have this personal letter in the New Testament, the sovereignty of God is the main answer, but the like human cause answer is because what a precious letter this was to Onesimus. There’s actually good evidence that the Canaan was put together, the New Testament canon was first put together in Ephesus, so like Onesimus was going, ‘Whoa, guys, let’s keep this one here next to Romans and Ephesians and Colossians, and all the others, because this one is important, by the way. Also, shows that Philemon listened. Philemon obeyed, which you love to see too. But Onesimus, this bishop of Ephesus, he was renowned. I’m quoting Ignatius here, for his love that surpasses words. Sure, because that’s the love he received, and so he just kept showing it to others. He went from a useless runaway slave to Ignatius, saying, “I pray that you all may be like him. And Onesimus himself paid the greatest cost when he was martyred for his faith. That’s the power of grace, and it’s there in verse 25 I know we think this is just like writing sincerely at the end of our email. It’s not when Paul says, ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. He’s saying this is what you need if you’re going to do what’s being asked of you. That’s the power of grace, God’s grace, of course, but also the grace that is expressed through his people, and how it changes us. If I can flip back to Les Mis again, I started there, I’ll end there. This is like the bishop early on in Les Mis who bought Valjean’s soul. Valjean is released from prison. He decides to steal the bishop’s silver after the bishop welcomes him into his home, steals the silver, and also knocks the bishop out in the process, and then he gets caught, he gets brought back in, you know, he’s like Valjean, says you gave it to him, and the bishop says, yes, yeah, I gave him the silver, only you forgot to take the silver candle. Sticks too, it gives those also, that’s costly love, at least in like the movie versions of it. He like grabs Val Jean, who’s, you know, eight feet taller than he is, and goes, Do you understand? I just bought your soul for God, because that’s the power of transforming love, right? He paid the cost, and it changed his heart, and it did change Val Jean’s heart, it changed Philemon’s heart, it changed Onesimus’ heart. Like a look down the road, what difference could your costly love make in someone’s story? You see that, and you just think, oh, it would be so easy to pay that, pay more, because Christ paid it all for you. Let’s pray. Father, we remember even now the cost of your great love for us. We remember that you sent your son to take the hit in our place to pay the debt we owed in our place. You charged it to his account, so that then when we stumbled back home to you, only by grace, only because you called us, only because you drew us, you would welcome us as you welcomed Jesus. Love like that ought to transform us, Lord. We know that, and so we pray you would be transforming us even now, make us the sorts of people who so willingly spend all that we have for the sake of others and for the sake of Your great name. Amen.

Reconciling Love (Philemon 8-16)

PODCAST RECONCILING LOVE May 31, 2026 | Brandon Cooper Brandon Cooper’s sermon on Philemon emphasizes the importance of love and reconciliation over legalistic obedience. He uses a thought experiment about a troublesome neighbor to illustrate Philemon’s situation, where Paul appeals to Philemon to welcome Onesimus back as a brother in Christ, not just a slave. Cooper highlights Paul’s strategy of appealing to Philemon’s relationship with him and Onesimus, and the transformative power of love. He also draws parallels to Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, stressing the need for voluntary, loving obedience. The sermon concludes with a call to see fellow believers as siblings and to practice reconciliation as Christ has reconciled us. TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+ The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. Good morning, church. I think you all know where we are today. Anyway, we will be in Philemon. All right, well done, just like the kids. So, if you want to go ahead, open up to Philemon, we’ll be starting in verse eight this morning. Now I have it on good authority that Jake said he is going to have the sermon on while they’re out driving, and they got to get all the way to Nebraska today. I’d love to keep them entertained, so you guys don’t mind if I go like six or seven hours, do you? As you turn into Philemon eight, let’s do a little thought experiment here. You’ve got neighbors across the street from you that are just the worst, like you just can’t stand them. They are not good people, they are not nice people, like they’ve got kids that play with your kids. Kids, you know what these neighbors are like. They’re the ones where, when they come outside, you go inside, because you’re worried, like, you know, they’re gonna bully you, they’re gonna call you in, and give you labels you don’t want to receive. You know, last summer you got a new scooter, and they used it the first day, they broke it, and didn’t seem to care in the slightest, didn’t offer to fix it or replace it, or anything like that, you know. Parents, you’re having a hard time with them as well, like they’re foul mouthed and just deeply offensive all of the time. Finally, they move. I mean, thank goodness, good riddance, right? Although he had borrowed your weed whacker and took it with him when he went, so okay, he stole some of your stuff too, but still, like, you give the weed whacker if it means they’re out of your lives, and it has been the most peaceful year you’ve had in the neighborhood in a while. And then you’re out of town this summer for a little bit, and you show up after a couple weeks off, and you walk in, you sit down in your usual pew, you’re coming in late, you feel bad about that, but you come in late, you sit in the pew, first song’s already playing, you look in front of you, one pew in front of you is that family singing, arms raised in jubilant praise. What are you doing? How are you feeling in that moment? Some tension probably going on inside of you, I would guess shock is probably the primary emotion that these people were not worshiping Jesus the last time I saw them, you know, excitement, I guess that the Lord’s doing something in their lives, but maybe little anger, little bitterness, kind of a tap on the shoulder of like, good to see you here, so maybe now’s the time to make restitution for the things you stole, so you’d have that tension inside of you. Do I want retribution or reconciliation? As you know, because Kyle’s given us the story already, that’s not far off the situation in which Philemon finds himself, and Paul’s writing this short letter to help him think through his response. What are you going to do? And it’s helpful, because, of course, it forces us to think through our response as well, like how the gospel should motivate our willing reconciliation, those who have wronged us in the church going to help us think through that by giving us really three choices that we have to make as we go, so let’s take these choices one at a time. The first one is whether our obedience will be legalistic or loving, from verses eight to 11. Let me read it for us. 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 as 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 both to you and to me. So Kyle kind of drew this out already. It’s just an astonishing moment that Paul would be sending runaway Onesimus back to Philemon. You got to think of the fear that Onesimus would have felt as he’s walking in, Philemon has every right to kill him as a runaway slave and as a thief, we’ll see that in next week’s part of the letter, and so you know he’s walking in nervous, I would think Paul’s probably nervous sending him back, and so with all that trepidation in his heart, how does he address the issue? He says, I could be bold, I could just order you to do what you ought to do. That word “ought” is important, isn’t it? It reminds us that there is a right and a wrong here. So, Philemon doesn’t just have a choice, do I go this way or this way. Do I sin? Do I do wrong, or do I do what God would have me do? So he can order Philemon to do the right thing, but he doesn’t. Instead, he appeals to him on the basis of love, really on the basis of relationship. Philemon, as we saw last week, is his dear friend and fellow worker. Now, interestingly, Paul identifies himself with Onesimus. Here, he says he’s an old man. Actually, a very good chance I won’t get into why, because it will bore you, trust me, but more likely that that word means ambassador. Here, so he’s an ambassador for Christ, the one proclaiming Christ’s message, and as a result, he is a prisoner, which is how he described himself all the way back in verse one. I mentioned last week he doesn’t ever call himself a prisoner. This is the one place that he does it, because he’s identifying himself with Onesimus. There’s this point of contact between the two of them that should probably affect how Philemon feels toward Onesimus. It’s almost like Paul is saying, if you feel for me when I’m in chains, why is that? Is it only because it’s me, or is it because of the chains themselves? Like, are you upset by injustice wherever you see it, but of course, even if it is just a preexisting relationship, like if this is only because Paul and Philemon are buddies, even still that should transfer to Onesimus, because Paul calls him his son, says Onesimus became my son while I was in captivity, while I was a prisoner, meaning he came to Christ through the ministry of Paul. In that moment, that’s how Paul uses the language of son throughout his letters, and so the point that Paul’s making is you should act toward him the way you would act toward me, because we’re family, Onesimus has become part of the family at this point. If you mistreat my kids, we’re not gonna be good anymore. Like, that’s just a real thing. You mean to Callum, I would be mean to you. Like, that’s it. I’m not redeemed enough to do otherwise at this point, and that’s how most of it works, right? I think most of us would feel that way. Like, I can take personal offense, mess with my kids, you’re seeing Mama Bear, you’re not going to like her, you know, like that kind of thing. That’s very real. On the flip side, when you see people investing in your children, loving them well, it just means so much, doesn’t it? It’s almost better than if they were loving on you in that way. So that’s what Paul’s saying, like he’s my son in the faith. To how you treat him is going to really impact our relationship. I love this, because you see what Paul’s doing. It means before he even gets to the appeal. Did you notice that he hasn’t actually asked for anything here in this paragraph? He says, I appeal to you on the basis of love. You’re like, great, what’s the appeal? He hasn’t even said it yet. So, before he even gets to the appeal, he lays the groundwork for its reception. Incredibly persuasive letter that he writes here, like just a masterpiece of persuasive writing, but he’s helping Philemon to flip the switch in his head from self-centered to Christ-centered, and if you’re Christ-centered, you will be others centered as well, and that’s the force of that key word love that he uses. We are by nature bent inwards on ourselves, but love is to be focused outward, directed outward. So, love is what happens when you stop thinking about you and start thinking about others. That’s what Paul is encouraging. This is a challenge for all of us, though. Again, we’re, we’re bent inward, that’s our, that’s our normal posture, is to be bent inward, so we need the same appeal constantly in our lives. It is so easy to ignore or diminish the plight of others and only consider what’s going on in your own life. There’s another masterpiece of persuasive writing. It’s such an important work. In fact, that we study it in English classes. Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. He was imprisoned in Birmingham for demonstrating during the Civil Rights Movement, and eight clergy published this editorial. These were Christians and Jews, but you know, religious leaders published this editorial, saying he shouldn’t have been here, he should have been stirring up all this trouble, like just wait for the process to work itself out. And here’s how King responded, and to help them bend, unbend, right, and actually think of others, he says this. Longer quote, but goes quickly. He says, perhaps it is easy for those who’ve never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait, but when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim, when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters, when you see the vast majority of your 20 million negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society, when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she’s told that fun town is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people. When you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile, because no motel will accept you. Then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. You see what he’s saying. It’s the same movement that Philemon, that Paul was encouraging Philemon to make, like get outside your bubble, think of others for a moment. In essence, King is saying, I appeal to you on the basis of love, because if our heart orientation is loving, we will enter into the plight of those around us and respond the way family would respond, and that’s why family and heart language kind of predominates in this section. I don’t know if you noticed, but Paul doesn’t say Onesimus’ name until a third of the letter is gone, and even then he says it after a bunch of descriptions, right? He says, verse 10, I appeal to you for my son, and in the original language it actually says, I appeal to you for my son, who became my son while I was in chains, Onesimus. It’s like all the way at the end. He really wants the sun piece to come out, like this is family. When we talk about this last week, something changes when you become family, or at least it ought to change when you become family, especially when you become Christian family, because when you become Christian family, it means that you’re a new creation in Christ. There’s transformation. It’s the transformation that Paul even describes. Formerly, he was useless to you. One estimate we know based on his story that he would be a Phrygian slave. Phrygian slaves were notorious for being really, really lazy, so he was useless. His name, Onesimus, means useful, the common name for slaves back then. So he’s supposed to be useful, and instead he’s useless, but now you got him back, and he is actually useful again. Why? Because he’s been transformed. He is now a fellow worker, because he is a Christian, like Philemon and Archippus, that we met last week, because he’s different. You can treat him differently than you did before. What I want us to see is this is how God transforms us. That’s why I asked the question, is my obedience, is your obedience legalistic or loving? Laws don’t work because they don’t change us. I think that’s why Paul says I could just tell you to do it, but that wouldn’t really do what I need to be done, like Philemon might pardon Onesimus, but still have a heart filled with resentment towards him, and so what would that really have accomplished? So that’s why Paul doesn’t want just legalistic, just do what you ought. He wants it to be motivated by love. Laws can’t change us. We know this. You’ve been coming for a while. We did Exodus in the fall. We saw what laws do for the people of God. God gave the law to show us that we fall short, that we cannot earn it, we cannot do it on our own, which is the whole reason Christ came, so that He could do it for us, keep that law perfectly when we could not, and then take the curse of the law on Himself, bearing its punishment in our place when we come to Him by grace through faith. When you see that, when you know that that’s what he’s done for us, like that love changes us, as we talked a lot about in Exodus, and even in Galatians as well. Love like that, ironically, empowers us to keep the law that we couldn’t keep before, because it’s no longer an ought but a want, it’s no longer self. Ish, but loving, so Paul appeals on the basis of love, and in the same way we should be moved by love to do what we ought, not because we ought, but because we want to do it. Takes us to that second question. Then very similar, Venn diagram overlaps a lot in these two paragraphs, for sure. Is my love my act of love forced or free? Verses 12 to 14. Here it is. I am 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 do would not seem forced, but would be voluntary. Paul wants to keep Onesimus with him. He is a fellow laborer, like Philemon was, and especially helpful laborer, while Paul is in chains, and clearly this is an especially close relationship. Paul is drawn to Onesimus immediately. That’s why he says he’s my very heart. I don’t know if you’ve had people like that in your life. I remember it was one of my students in Columbia, in particular. We went back down, they took a youth group on a mission trip back down to Columbia, and he was there and he helped us out. He was a translator, he was the one who knew stuff, and I just remember thinking the whole time, like, I’m so glad he’s here. This was 2014 I was not at a point in my professional life where I needed a personal assistant, but if I had needed a personal assistant, like, this is the guy I’m hiring, for sure. That’s how Paul feels toward Onesimus. He’s just the one where you’re like, I wish he was the guy who could stay with me. Philemon can’t be there in Rome, most likely is where Paul’s imprisoned. Maybe it’s Ephesus, doesn’t really matter. Philemon can’t be there, he’s in Colossi, he’s got a big house, probably a business, all that stuff. So the church is meeting there in his home, that’s good. But since Philemon can’t be there with Paul Onesimus, can this would be such an easy switch. Just let him stay with me. We’re all on the same team. We all want to see the gospel spread. I mean, here you have the ambassador in chains, and so you’ve got the deputy director all set to step in and do Paul’s work in his place. Paul’s saying all this because he’s still trying to get Philemon to see from another perspective, but he’s unwilling to be selfish himself. So, even though he’s saying this is exactly what I want, I could definitely command it. I’m not going to, I won’t insist, he says, because he wants Philemon to come to his own conclusion, and I love this, because it means Paul trusts the power of the gospel to transform Philemon’s heart. He trusts the spirit of God at work in Philemon. Do you ever find it difficult to trust the power of the gospel to transform someone’s heart or to trust the spirit of God to work in somebody’s life? You all just looking at me like totally blank faces here. Somebody nod. Thank you. Okay, because I feel that a lot of the time, where I would like to control the situation manipulates, probably a better word, you know, like make it happen. It is so difficult to trust, but it’s so important at the same time, because it would have a very different feel if it were forced instead of voluntary, you know. This again, let’s take some, some family examples, since it’s Family Worship Sunday, and we’re in a family sort of book here. I mean, imagine that you know Grandma gets a thank you note from a grandchild, opens it up, so excited to see, and it says, “Dear Grandma, Mom said I had to write this. Some of y’all are like, yep, I read that letter, it’s cute, but maybe not exactly what you were hoping it would be, very different from I’m just so excited to thank you of my own accord. Or here’s another one. How sweet is one of my favorite moments in child rearing is that moment when kids, right around, I don’t know, year one or so, start giving you kisses voluntarily, or saying “I love you” without prompting, you get the prompting, you know, “Daddy’s leaving for work, give him a kiss goodbye. Okay, that’s fine. I love that too. But it’s very different when they just like come up and kiss you, because they’re like, “I know this is an expression of love, and I want you to know that I love you. What makes that so sweet? It’s the sincerity, because you know love motivates the action, and so you feel loved as a result, instead of just accepting the act of compulsion. You can certainly see how this matters for. Christian life as a whole. I mean, if you’re just keeping rules so God doesn’t smite you, you can earn His approval. That’s going to have a really different feel, won’t it? I mean, imagine the way AI is going. We could probably work this out in the next year or two, but you, you scan that QR code, and you put your information in, and it just a mad automatically, like grabs your bank info, and from then on, for as long as you’re here at CityView, it automatically deducts 10% of your paycheck. Now, can I tell you, if it were to do that, we would be a healthier church financially. I don’t know that there’s a church in this country that wouldn’t be healthier financially if it was a compulsory 10% deduction, because the average gift in the American Evangelical Church is not 10% we’ll just put it that way. We would be healthier financially, but we would be impoverished spiritually. I would much rather we do it this way, because that would feel like a burden, might be some resentment coming out. Maybe you don’t even notice it’s like your tax withholdings. I didn’t even know that that part was gone. There’s no opportunity for extravagance, but mostly it’s just it wouldn’t be an act of love. This is a real thing, by the way. There are all sorts of state churches in Europe, in particular, where the tithe is a part of your taxes. How’s the state church doing in Europe not so good, not so good. I would much rather do it this way. So that’s what we’re talking about here, is my obedience. Are these acts of love, or at least they’re supposed to be love, forced or free? Do acts of service, do acts of sacrifice spring from love, or do they spring from fear, people pleasing, just compliance? Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. If you love me, keep my commandments. If you love me, you’re going to want to obey, because we want to please the one who loved us first. Now, since this is Family Worship Sunday, let me just talk to families for a moment. Parents, there’s some really challenging application to this section. You are right as a parent to insist on certain things. Can I just tell you that? Can I just give you permission right now? Like, as long as they’re living under your roof, you are absolutely right to insist they attend church with you, or go to this or that, or the other thing, too, to be a part of family worship, of course, but that’s not the goal, right? The the aim is voluntary spiritual discipline. Like, look ahead, will your son, will your daughter go to church when they go away to college? Why or why not? Now, parents, we can’t change hearts. You cannot save your children. You cannot raise your children so well that God is obligated to save them, of course not. I understand that, but you do want to model and communicate love, not legalism love for God that is expressed in free obedience, and I do mean model and communicate, like you talk about it. I just mentioned tithing is an example. I mean, do we only give because the Bible tells us to? No, of course not. And we give because we’re going.. I can’t believe how much the Lord has given me. And so, of course, I’m going to bring this, but Who am I, and Who is my family that we should be given all of this? So you have those conversations all sorts of areas, but kids, let me talk to you as well, because this is a good question for you too. On the flip side, like, would you read your Bible if your parents didn’t make you, and hopefully they do. If you’re young, we homeschool a large group of children, and it’s just the first thing on their checklist each day is their devotional time. It’s great, and we’ve got no problem with that. But if it weren’t on the checklist, would you still do it? That’s the question. Why or why not? As you’re answering that question, lean into the gospel, like, see how much he loved you, that he was willing to send his son to die for you. Love like that should make us want to love him, and obedience is like the ultimate thank you note. Sincere, we would hope. A love like that should make us want to love him, to love God. Sure, but what about loving the person who wronged you, that neighbor that’s sitting in front of you, who still has your weed whacker? Let’s get there in this last section. The last question, do I see the person who wronged me as a sinner or a sibling, verses 15 and 16. 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, here’s where we get to the heart of the matter, and these are the most important verses in the book. This is that question: Do you want retribution or reconciliation? What will motivate Philemon’s free loving obedience. The answer is, how he gets Philemon back. Sorry, how he gets Onesimus back. No longer as a slave, which would be useful, brings profit to Philemon. No longer as a slave, but as something much, much better, a dear brother, because he’s been adopted by God the Father, and so they’re now siblings in Christ. I love that story, of course, and Kyle gave it to us, but in God’s providence, runaway Onesimus meets, of all people, Paul, and here’s the gospel from him, because he meets Paul, he meets God, and is saved by God. This is like Joseph’s story, where he’s, you know, sold into slavery by his brothers, and then tossed into prison unjustly, where God uses sin to bring salvation, that’s what’s happening here too, and God’s not just using sin to bring salvation to Onesimus, but sanctification to Philemon as well. I think it’s so good to know that all our ways are in God’s good hands, we can trust Him with our lives and with the lives of those we love. That’s why we pray. Notice that Paul tells Philemon that Onesimus has worth to Philemon as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord, literally reads he’s got worth in the flesh and in the Lord, and I kind of like that, in the flesh and in the Lord, like in the flesh he’s got worth as labor, but in the Lord as a fellow laborer in Christ. Onesimus has double value, he’s got value in the flesh because he is made in the image of God, and so he has worth and dignity and equality with Philemon, but he’s got value in the Lord, because now he is a brother in Christ as well. And, of course, this takes us to the question we’re all asking as we’re reading Philemon, especially this side of the transatlantic slave trade. What does the Bible say about slavery? We just do a little excursus here. There are plenty who think the Bible doesn’t hit slavery hard enough. When Paul sends Philemon to Philemon, he’s sending it with the letter Colossians, both to Colossians at the same time, and Colossians has words in it like, slaves obey your masters in the Lord, so you understand why some people think Bible doesn’t hit slavery hard enough. There are some reasons for this. Slavery was very different in first century Roman Empire than it was in 19th century America. Major difference, it was economic reality as opposed to a racial reality. For the most part, did not include the kidnapping that the transatlantic slave trade involved, so it was more economic and often voluntary. Basically, they didn’t have bankruptcy court, so you declare yourself bankrupt, you go, I owe you, you know, $100,000 I’m gonna work for you until the debt is paid, like that’s what it would look like, for the most part, another big difference, of course, is that I don’t know if you knew this, but Rome under Caesar was not a democracy. Caesar did not care what you thought about his policies, and when you raised issues like slavery, guys like Spartacus did this. For example, do you remember how Spartacus ended? Actually, the same way Jesus’s story ended, just without the resurrection afterwards. So, yeah, they just crushed that. So it is true, Paul does not hit slavery head on here. He does condemn the transatlantic slave trade in no uncertain terms in his letter to Timothy, because he talks about people stealing as being a sin. Well, he’s like right there. It is condemned, but he doesn’t just say you shouldn’t have slaves because they would treat him the way they treated Spartacus, then Rome, but what he does is he undermines the foundation of slavery, so that it could not but collapse afterwards. So the letter to Philemon is like the chipmunks who are digging burrows under your front stoop, and eventually it goes, because there’s nothing underneath it. That’s what Paul does here in Philemon. It’s going to collapse. Slavery is going to collapse if you work out the implications of this letter. Also, just help you out with your history here. It did collapse as a result of this letter, and earlier than you think, took Christianity about three centuries to be the influence in the Roman Empire, and so it was right there in the fourth century that slavery was outlawed. It was outlawed for 1000 years in the Christian West until the age of navigation, until the explorers went out, and all of a sudden they discovered another continent with people who looked different, and something flipped, and people lost their Christian roots at that point. Even then, the Pope, who was Pope at the time that, like, all this stuff was happening when the transatlantic slave trade began, condemned it in the strongest possible terms, but it flourished for a moment, and then it collapsed again, and Who ended the transatlantic slave trade? The Evangelical Church in Britain, because of Philemon. So, like, if we think it through, slavery is going to collapse, you know that. What was the abolitionist slogan in the 19th century America, am I not a man and a brother? Boy, where are they getting that from? Probably that whole part about he’s better than a slave, he’s a brother, he’s got worth as a man and as a brother in the Lord, it’s quoting Philemon, like you can’t treat family like this, especially not the blood-bought people of God. This is why we have songs that we sing sadly only at Christmas time. They have words in it like chains shall he break and Like, for the slave is our brother, and in his name, in Christ’s name, all oppression shall cease. Like, imagine this: the church meets in Philemon’s house. The letter is probably being read publicly, like Colossians, at that point. Other slaves in Philemon’s house are hearing this letter, other slaves from other houses are hearing this letter, seeing Onesimus come back. Do you think they had questions? I would think so. This is why many white southerners didn’t want the Bible taught to their slaves. I just watched a movie, just this past week, in fact, where it was dealing with the theme of slavery, and was talking about how Christianity was forced on the slaves. I was like, are you completely ignorant of history? The answer is yes. Hollywood is completely ignorant of history. We know that, but still it was shocking to me, probably because I’m in Philemon. They would not teach the Bible to their slaves, because they knew if the slaves heard the word of God, they would understand that Christianity made them their masters equals before God, exactly right. But again, it’s not just about equals equality, it’s about family. You respond differently when family is treated differently, when family is treated poorly. We already saw this. Like, I know this was true. When we went to the mission field in Colombia, like, my parents read the news. Matt and Joanne, sitting right here, read the news about Colombia differently. You hear an earthquake in Colombia, or some drug violence in Colombia, by the way, a lot of it’s going on right now, even, and you go, whatever, that’s part of the world I haven’t really heard of. When your kid lives down there, that news hits differently, and if I’m reading the word of God correctly, then the spiritual family ties are stronger, even than blood family ties, which means that’s how we should be reading news anytime our brothers and sisters involved, there’s unrest in Bolivia right now, and I’m thinking my brother and my sister live there, not my literal brother and sister, my family of God brother and sister, Greg and Faith Hurst are down there, some of the people I’ve met when I’ve worked alongside them, Osvaldo and Ali, and people like that, and it hits differently, so how do we care for our brothers and sisters? How do we respond when we hear of or see injustice or suffering? Well, we respond the way we would respond if it were happening to our siblings, because it is happening to our siblings by. Way, I didn’t mean for this to come right after the politics series, but shouldn’t that inform our politics right there? Like, I want policies that do what I think need to be done. If this were my brother or my sister that were going through that, but let’s push slavery to the side for a moment and just look at the question of personal offense, even again, Onesimus is a runaway slave and a thief. Onesimus wronged Philemon, so how will he respond to Onesipus? How will we respond when others wrong us, especially in the family of God? Do you want retribution or reconciliation? Think Jesus really helps us answer this question. He tells the parable of the unmerciful servant as a guy who owes 10,000 talents, which, for perspective’s sake, 10,000 talents is about the amount of money they would have in the Roman treasury, so there’s a lot of money, billion dollars, let’s say. Okay, so he owes his master a billion dollars. Master says, “You got to pay me back, I’m throwing you in jail. The guy says, “There’s no way I can pay this back. He falls on his knees, pleads, you know, begging for mercy, and the master forgives him. And what’s incredible is he didn’t just say, “Fine, like I’ll give you 10 more years to pay, but the juice is flowing. No, he cancels the debt. That guy leaves, pardoned, right? His debt is released. There’s a guy who owes him 100 denarii. Denarius is a day’s wages for a typical day laborer. So, what are we talking 20,000 bucks, something like that? Okay, not nothing, but not a billion dollars, that’s for sure. So he says, “You got to pay me back the money. The guy falls on his knees, “I can’t pay it back, please have mercy. And he says, “No way. Beats him up and throws him in prison. Some of the other servants see that, and they mention this to the master, and the master says this, Matthew 18. The master called the servant in, “You wicked servant, he said, “I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? In anger, his master handed him over to the jailors to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you, unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. How you feeling about the unforgiveness in your heart right now? Little nervous, but to have been forgiven so much and yet to remain unforgiving, that can only mean that you hadn’t actually received grace. You see, the trouble with seeing your brother or sister as a wrongdoer who deserves punishment, you’re a wrongdoer who deserves punishment. Do you want retribution or reconciliation? Well, which do you want from God? Great, let that shape your response. With Philemon and Onesimus, we don’t have a saint and a sinner, we have two sinners who have been made siblings because the sinless Savior died for them, because his father freely and lovingly adopted sinners into his family. Like in society, Philemon and Onesimus couldn’t be farther apart, but in the church the ground is level at the foot of the cross. So, let’s go back to our thought experiment at the beginning. How would you respond if you saw that neighbor in this room? Well, how should you respond if you saw that neighbor in this room? And do they line up? I should hope so, and that is very much our big idea. Then today, as we close, we can freely, lovingly reconcile with others, because God freely lovingly reconciled us to Himself in Christ, even now, as we wrap up, ask yourself those three questions: Am I motivated by love or legalism, and if the latter, let God’s love thaw your cold heart, is my oh obedience free or forced, and if it’s the latter, if you only do it when you have to do it, let Christ’s willing free sacrifice change you. Do I see p. Who’ve wronged me in the church as siblings or as sinners. If it’s the latter, let the gospel humble you. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation. We are God’s ambassadors, just like Paul calls himself in verse nine, imploring others to be reconciled to God, but surely we should practice what we proclaim. The church is the place for sinners to be made siblings, where love motivates forgiveness and welcome and reconciliation. We can freely, lovingly reconcile with others, because God in Christ freely and lovingly reconciled his people to himself. Let’s pray to him now. Father, we are reminded again of the depths of our sin and the welcome we deserved when we returned to you, runaway children that we are, that we should have been swept aside by your judgment. That’s not how you received us, Lord. Instead, you reconciled us to yourself at great cost, the blood of your son, a cost you are willing to pay because of your free and forgiving love. God, may that love change us and make us truly loving the depths of who we are. May we look around this room and around the world, see our brothers and sisters in Christ, see our fellow man, and may we be motivated to love as You’ve loved us. We ask for Christ’s sake. Amen.

Encouraging Love (Philemon 1-7)

PODCAST ENCOURAGING LOVE May 24, 2026 | Brandon Cooper Brandon Cooper’s sermon on Philemon 1-7 emphasized the importance of faith, love, and generosity within the Christian community. He highlighted the familial bond in Christ, using personal anecdotes and examples like Arsenal fans and family businesses. Cooper stressed that true love and forgiveness should be rooted in the gospel, citing the forgiveness shown by Charleston church members to a white supremacist. He urged the congregation to express their faith through sacrificial love and generosity, both financially and through time and energy, to support one another and the church family. TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+ The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. Good morning, church. Go ahead, grab your Bibles, open up to Philemon. Philemon kind of near the end, it’s just one page, so check the table contents if you’re struggling with it. It’s before Hebrews, if that helps. I don’t know. We’ll be in Philemon one to seven this morning. We’ll be in Philemon as a whole these next three weeks, but as you’re turning there, it’s Philemon. One, I came home from work on Tuesday, and work is a generous term at that point. You’ll know why for a moment to find my wife decked out in an arsenal kit. Yes, I knew we’d get cheers from certain members of the congregation. Dave, I’m disappointed that wasn’t louder from the balcony, but that’s okay. Because Arsenal won another championship on a Tuesday, first time in 22 years. We’re all very excited, but it was still fun to see Amy in her Arsenal shirt, because Amy is – she’s an Arsenal fan by marriage. She was not an Arsenal fan when we got married. She married into it, but you understand how this works. Once you become a part of a family, the relationship changes, and some of those sports teams, things that happen, those are the smallest, silliest examples of very real and very important changes, kind of the unconditional love and help that comes from being a part of a family. A new wife, for example, might assume her husband’s debt, you know, he’s got student loan debt or something. Come out, like, your debt’s my debt now, because we just got, we got shared finances, or maybe a son-in-law joins the family business, because that’s just kind of what we do, and of course this goes beyond just literal family to a lot of organizations that have those family feels. Sometimes companies, certainly you could think of things like the military as well, you know, no one left behind, we take care of our family. Well, what does that look like in the church though? Because when we come to God in Christ, we are, as Jake just reminded us in his prayer, adopted as his sons and daughters. We are part of God’s family now, and that means we’re a part of each other’s family. If you have God as your father, you got lots of siblings, and some of them need help. Some of them might not have been your favorite person beforehand. You got issues with your new siblings, of course. That happens in real life too. Some of you probably are like, “Yep, he was not the guy I would have chosen as my brother-in-law, but here he is, like this is how it’s just going to go from now on, and that is how it works in the church. So, like, what do we do then? How does the gospel shape the way we treat God’s family? That’s the question that the book of Philemon addresses. Looking at a very difficult situation that we’re not going to get into at all today, you’ll have to come back next week. The suspense is killing you, I know, but that’s where we’ll get the difficult situation. But here in the opening, Paul, as he usually does, he sets the stage for what’s coming. We’re going to see all of the main ideas, everything that’s going to be needed for his appeal from the start, in the greeting, in the thanksgiving and in his prayer. Let’s look at this together. We’ll start with the greeting, verses 123, May read it for us now. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our dear friend and fellow worker, also to Aphthea, our sister, and our hippest, our fellow soldier into the church that meets in your home, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Just pause there. This is a highly unusual beginning to this letter. If you’ve read Paul’s other letters, you know he almost always refers to himself as one of two things: he is either an apostle of Christ Jesus, or a servant of Christ Jesus. So, the fact that he calls himself a prisoner of Christ Jesus is a little bit startling already, but of course he is. He is in chains. He is a prisoner of Christ, and that phrase, you know, prisoner of Christ, it’s so delightfully ambiguous. In what sense is he a prisoner of Christ? Well, he is Christ’s prisoner in that he belongs to Jesus. So, the of Christ as a possessive sense, but he’s also a prisoner of Christ in that he is a prisoner for Christ’s sake, so it expresses purpose, and he is also a prisoner because of Christ, so it expresses cause, but whatever exactly Paul is getting at here, we know that the fact that he is a prisoner of Christ should elicit sympathy from Philemon, and that’s the main point. It is a terrible thing for a brother in Christ to be in chains. Greetings to be in prison instead of out serving the Lord freely. Thankfully, Paul is not alone. Timothy is with him. This is his protege, his disciple. And so Timothy sends greetings too. Did you notice that Paul refers to Timothy as our brother again, highlighting that family connection, so Paul and Timothy send greetings to Philemon, the dear friend of Paul, gets at the closeness of the bond between them, because Paul almost certainly led him to Christ, and so, yes, there’s a special relationship there, of course, he is not only a dear friend, but also a fellow worker, because he’s part of God’s household, and if you’re in God’s household, then that means you are called to work in God’s household to build up His people. That is true of all of us. We should be able to say of every Christian, as my fellow worker, as my fellow worker, right there. Now, we don’t know why Paul’s writing yet, but we do already see how he’s going to approach this difficult subject that he’s got to bring up, the delicate issue. He’s not leaning into his apostolic authority as he does with heresy so often. We saw this in Galatians, if you’re with us for that series, I’m an apostle. I wasn’t even called by people, I was called by God Himself. You better listen to what I’m saying. That’s not what He does here. He could use his authority, but he doesn’t. Instead, he leans into the relationship that he has with Philemon, the closeness of the bond, and then his present circumstances and sympathy they should bring, Paul greets not just Philemon, but Aphia, who is probably Philemon’s wife, calls her our sister, still highlighting that family connection, and then Archippus as well, perhaps their son, but don’t really know, but a fellow soldier as well, and then he also greets the church that meets in Philemon’s home. There were no dedicated church buildings for several centuries after Christ, and so wealthy families – Philemon would certainly fall into that category. Wealthy families would host the church in their homes, they would have rooms large enough to hold 4060, 80 people or so, and that was what the early church looked like. So this is a huge part of Philemon and his family’s work for the Lord, serving the church by hosting it. If you’ve ever hosted a large gathering of people, you know that that is in fact work, and so they’re giving time, energy, et cetera, generously to all of them, then Paul wishes grace, which is what brings us into God’s family, and peace, which is what we experience as God’s family, only comes from God the Father, and from His son Jesus Christ, the Son that was cast out, the true son, cast out, so that we could be welcomed in as true sons and daughters in his place. Nothing too shocking, so far. I mean, he’s just saying hi, but already we’re getting a sense of how the gospel should start to shape us. Let’s look at it in a little more depth, as we turn to the second section, the Thanksgiving and prayer. So, a second section called Sharing, verses four to six. I’ll read for you now. 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. So every time he remembers Philemon in his prayers, he feels gratitude well up in his heart. He’s grateful. He thanks God for him, that’s probably not what we do with everybody. We pray for there are some people that we pray for in part because we feel ingratitude about their presence in our lives, but it is always nice when you’ve got that person, where as you start praying, do you have anyone like this in your life, where you start praying for them, and it almost like catches in your throat, just that sense of I’m so grateful he’s in my life in this way at this time, that’s what Paul has here. Philemon, by the way, if that’s you, notice Paul tells Philemon that he feels that way would be my encouragement to you as well. Great time to shoot a text and say I’m grateful for you, and I remember that every time I pray for you, but what makes Paul grateful for Philemon? Two words, both there in verse five: faith and love. That’s why he’s grateful to Philemon, because he’s heard about Philemon’s faith in Jesus and his love for all the saints. Whole church, it’s important that he brings these two together, because you can’t have love without faith. Because we can be honest here, there are a lot of people that are tough to love. There are a lot of people that are tough to love, even in the church. So, how do we go on loving them? How do we choose to love them? Well, quite simply, we remember the gospel. It is by faith that we love. We have been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, not because of our works. God did not save us because we were so awesome, but because He is so merciful and compassionate. As Julie read for us earlier, the harsh reality that Christianity teaches us is that we are tough to love, and especially tough. If I can say this without stumbling into heresy, we’re especially tough for God to love, considering that we are all in, you know, open rebellion against Him when we come into this world. Yet He loved us still and loved us so much that He sent His son to die for us. God demonstrated his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, Romans five eight. When we remember that, that changes how we feel about others. We love as God loves us, because God loves us. Did someone, maybe somebody in the church wrong you, shared a bit of gossip or slander, made your life difficult in some way? Okay, in Christ you can forgive and be reconciled because you have been forgiven and been reconciled to God, and this is not just for the small things, the peccadillos. I’ll give you an example of what this looks like on a much larger scale. In 2015 many of you will remember that white supremacist Dylann Roof entered a Bible study at a black church in Charleston. He was welcomed by the congregation into this Bible study, sat with them for a length of time, and then drew his gun and murdered nine of those church members. It is tough to love the man who murdered your family. How’s that for understatement? And yet that’s exactly what they did. Again, some of you will remember that at the sentencing hearing, church member after church member, family member after family member stood up and explicitly forgave him, and even voiced their opposition to the death penalty in his case, because they had forgiven him. One sister of one of his victims said, “I acknowledge I’m very angry, but one thing my sister always enjoined in our family reminded us is that we’re the family that love built. There’s no room for hating, so we have to forgive. That’s the idea, exactly. I mean, the church is most truly the family that love built. We are the family that God, who is love, built that matters. That’s what Paul sees in Philemon, that’s why he thanks God for him. Now, no doubt, he’s also getting him ready a little bit for what’s coming later in the letter, because he’s saying, “I’ve seen this love in you, I’m gonna keep seeing this love in you. Right, it’s a little bit like when a parent says, you know, going away for a time or whatever, and they, you know, sit down with a kid and say I’m just so thankful that I know I can trust you while we’re gone. I think that’s what Paul’s doing here as well, although it is true what he’s saying, but this gratitude then for the love that springs from Philemon’s faith. This gratitude then prompts Paul’s prayer. Remember, Paul says, basically, I thank God when I’m interceding for you. Well, so here’s the intercession: I thank God when I’m pleading for you. Here is my plea. And then he gives us this dense and difficult phrase: 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. We’re going to need to understand the words and grammar that are used here. The first one that is a little bit difficult is the word partnership. This is a word that could just mean fellowship. You actually hear this word a lot, even in this church. One of the benedictions we often use is, may the grace. Of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. It’s the same word. So, is this just fellowship? Is this just your presence in each other’s lives? No, it is more than that. It is partnership here, like what’s needed to get the job done together. This is what Paul thanks the church in Philippi for, as well. Philippians one five, he thanks them for their partnership in the gospel, and we know from reading the rest of Philippians that that partnership includes their financial support, their generosity. I’m sure that’s part of what Paul is saying to Philemon, here too, again, we’ve already seen his generosity, and that he’s willing to host the church in his home. The point is that love costs, love always costs, and so Paul is praying that Philemon would go on bearing the cost. Well, why would he? Well, because the partnership is one of faith, so it reads literally. I pray that your partnership of faith – we’ve already seen that that of something can be confusing. What exactly is it getting at here? And I think almost certainly here, what it means is that it’s the partnership that springs from faith, the partnership that comes from faith. In other words, it is a gospel-motivated partnership. The partnership that comes when you remember what you believe, when you remember that Christ was willing to lay down his life for us, that does something in our hearts, so that we are willing to lay down our lives for others. So Paul is hopeful, then, that all that will be effective, powerful in deepening Philemon’s understanding. And here, understanding is another rich word, it’s not just up here, understanding like his appreciation of, yes, but his experience of the treasures we share as a result of our common life in Christ, like I’m hoping you would savor this, you would just go deeper and deeper, getting your appreciation and experience of every spiritual blessing in Christ that we all share as His family. I mean, our adoption would be top of that list, of course. The fact that we get to be family because He welcomed us into His family. Or how about the peace that surpasses understanding in every situation, what about joy that is unthreatened by circumstances on and on down the list. If you’ve been attending City View for any length of time, you probably have heard me mention that most summers, not this one sadly, but most summers, I get to sit with my family, not just my family, but then my parents, my siblings as well, on the porch of our cabin up in Lake Placid, New York, and at some point, always during our days there, we’ll be sitting on the porch going, can you even believe we get to be here, because it’s our favorite place, and we didn’t earn it, if that makes sense. I didn’t buy it, that’s for sure. I can’t afford to go there. My great grandfather, who bought it, and it’s just been passed down as our inheritance in the family. That’s what Christian fellowship should be. And we should be sitting around the porch in the temple of God, going, can you even believe we get to be here. Can you even believe what God has done for us? But the point is that should then change what we do too. He forgave us, so we should forgive one another. He laid down his life rush. We should be willing to lay down our lives to serve one another, you think of his patient forbearance with us when we go on messing up and rebelling against him. Well, that should make us patiently forbearing towards others who sin against us. Or his loving initiative in coming to get us, well, that should drive our loving initiative in going after our brothers and sisters in Christ, and really all that takes us then to this last section, the last verse as well, verse seven. Rejoicing here, Paul writes this: Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people. So here it’s not Thanksgiving or prayer any longer, but it is direct address. Paul’s prayer is done, and it’s like he looks at Philemon and says, I know my prayer has been answered. I know my prayer has been answered, because I’ve already seen you doing it. I am rejoicing because. I have seen your love in action already, as you have refreshed the church, the people of God. The word refreshed is an interesting one, really means you’ve given rest to the church of God. We actually get our word pause from one of the related words here, so it’s that sense of pause that comes, the rest that comes when you get to pause, when you get to pause. What I mean, take an example. Some of you probably have lived this, those moments of anxious striving, where you’re not sure how you’re going to take care of the bill that just came in, and it really is like there’s movement there. You’re going to, you’re.. I don’t know what we’re going to do about this, and then the pause comes, the rest comes, because the gift comes. Somebody in the church is aware of what you’re going through, and cash shows up in an envelope, you don’t even know where it came from, and that person has given you rest from your anxious striving. That’s what it means to be refreshed. I’ve seen this, but I’ve seen this in my own life many times. I’ve seen this in the life of the church as well. Philemon has used what God has given him to help his family. Did you actually notice family in there again? This is unusual for Paul, but he says there in the second half of verse seven, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people. Your brother, your brother, we’re family. Remember that Philemon has used what God has given him to help his family. No doubt he’ll go on doing it. That’s why Paul feels encouraged, comforted, even he’s got peace knowing that there in Colossi, where Philemon is hosting this church. Somebody’s got this, somebody’s taking care of the people he loves. This is how parents feel when the kids go away to college and they get hooked into a church that cares on them. I know this because we got a lot of college students here in our church, and every now and again I get to meet the parents when they come in for a graduation or something like that, and without fail they will say, I’m just so thankful my kid’s taken care of, like you guys are feeding them literally and figuratively as well. I hear it over and over again, heard it a lot yesterday at Daniel and Addie’s wedding, he was talking to their parents as well. That’s what Paul’s saying. Somebody’s got my family, and so I feel comforted, encouraged, because Philemon has demonstrated love in concrete ways to the Colossian church, whom Paul loves. Paul knows he’ll keep on doing it, and that’s going to be really important for the rest of the letter, because we haven’t gotten to the big issue yet, but it’s there, and Philemon, no doubt, knows what the issue is, as he’s listening to this first part, like there’s this elephant in the room just sitting over there, will the gospel shape the way Philemon treats his Christian family, even those who have wronged him. Depressing question, but since we’re stopping here today, the more important question for us is, will the gospel shape the way we treat our family, God’s people, the church, maybe even those who have wronged us. Get our big idea in answering that question, kind of pulling together these key words that we’ve looked at already: faith, love, and partnership, which, as I said, really includes the idea of generosity. Your big idea for the week: let your faith in Jesus produce a love for his people expressed in generosity in the church, for the church, toward the church. The gospel, in other words, should shape how we treat one another, what we believe. Our faith changes our hearts, changes our love, which then changes our actions. The gospel should motivate sacrificial love and generous living. Now, when I say generosity here, I don’t just mean money, yes, that too, that might be part of it, but I’m talking about generosity in the broadest sense. What does it mean to live a generous life? Like, are you willing to spend time and energy on people, or what about spiritual generosity? Are you willing to pardon debts, sins against you? That always involves a cost. We want to be a part of a church where our generosity, springing from faith, gospel understanding manifests in concrete acts of love, knowing the blessings we share in Christ. Christ, we want to share those blessings with others, refreshing them. So, I just want to take a few minutes here, then to work through what that would look like for a few different groups here in the congregation. First, let me speak to us as individuals, those of us who are following Jesus. This is a time for self-examination, looking at the evidence of your life, looking at those concrete acts that we’re talking about. Do you see costly love springing from faith? Now, what are some of the evidences we might look at? Well, on the negative side, stuff that will make us go, we’re not there yet. Of course, we may notice things like the fact that we’re holding grudges against people in the congregation. I’ve never really let that go. We’re bitter or resentful, unforgiving, or this may look not like that, but just apathy. We’re unmoved, unconcerned with those around us, even isolated, so that it’s not really family. This is just the people who are near me in the pew when I pop in and pop out on Sunday mornings, when I can make it, or maybe it’s just simple selfishness, just going to kind of do what I want to do, regardless of the people around me. That would be the negative side, that’s the stuff we’re trying to turn away from. What does the positive side look like? What is the stuff that we’re turning towards as we follow Jesus? Well, active forgiveness, of course, loving the ones that you don’t like, so that over time you’ll find you actually grow to like them, even, and leaning into community selflessly. Maybe that looks like making time to visit someone in the hospital or wherever, someone that you find tedious because you remember that God’s people ministered to you when you were in a tough situation, and you want to pay it forward, and of course you remember what God has done for you, and you’ve been changed by that, so that would be for us as individuals, but what about us as a family? Because this certainly feels like a family sermon, doesn’t it? This is one that should speak to all of us. Let’s talk nuclear family first, then we’ll talk church family. So, nuclear family parents, I would encourage you to let your kids see the cost of refreshing others and actually invite them into it, so they can bear the cost too. They start to see what this looks like. I’ll just give you a very simple example. It’s one that we have in our family a lot. We talk about a lot. I’m gone a lot of nights to minister to all of you. My being gone for my family is a way that my family can serve all of you, like that’s part of the cost they bear, and of course others of you know that as well. Some of you are, you know, you’re leading a journey group or something like that, and you’re thinking, all right, kids, like we’re giving up mom once a week so that she can build into other women in journey group, like that’s that’s how we love the church kids, though. This isn’t just something for your parents to take on, but you as well. As you see opportunities to refresh others, bring those opportunities to your parents. I mean, you might hear a prayer request in Kid City or City Stew that your parents aren’t aware of, and say, ‘Hey, could we help out here? Better still, even kids. How can you refresh? Don’t make your parents do it. How can you refresh those families? How can you count the cost? Can you go mow someone’s lawn instead of, you know, calling up the care team and getting them to find somebody to do it? That’s us as a nuclear family. What about the church family? What does this look like for us as a church family? I mean, Jesus said they will know that we are His disciples by our love for each other, and so let’s redouble our grace-fueled efforts in this area, can I say, I think that this is true of our community. Like, I think this is an area where we excel by God’s grace. I hear it often from people. It’s a lot of the reason people stick in this church, even. But that’s just reason for us to keep going with it. We could always be doing more, and not only that, I think more of us could be doing it, like that is true of the core of our church, but some of you, some of you in the room right now, probably even know, like, I’m not part of the core of the church, so other people do that for other people, and this is your invitation. To go, all right. I’m gonna start doing more of it, so there’s always more we can be doing. More of us can be doing it. I said before, we are, we’re a wealthy congregation. We can acknowledge that it is very easy to write checks, that is not really counting the cost for most of us. It’s good, that’s a good thing. Let’s be generous there, but it is harder for American suburbanites to spend time and energy, and so let’s spend that as well. Really lean into family, the sense of being family. So, again, some encouragements to some of you. One of you, this just looks like attendance. This means you need to show up more often, or show up, get offline, and show up in person, because you are certainly not acting like family if you are online only, or if you’re online more often than you should be. So, some of this, I’m obviously preaching the choir, you’re all here right now, but some of this is just simple attendance, but then it’s more than that, like not just showing up, but actually involving yourself, have you ever had the experience where, like, a prayer chain request or a meal train request, a birth announcement has gone by, and you go, I don’t have the faintest idea who those people are. Well, they’re your family. Let me help you out there, just so you know. So, get to know them. How are you going to get to know them? You have to meet more people here. So, some of you, this looks like it’s another step. So, show up more often. Maybe you’re showing up for Explore Hour. It’s a great time to meet more people, because it’s a smaller group. You don’t meet people in this room, but you would meet people there. For some of you, maybe it’s another step deeper than that. We got Journey Group interest meeting coming up next Sunday. We got the Community Group interest meeting coming up the week after that. You’re going to show up for those, see how I can get plugged in. I’m just going to start leaning into family, meet more people. We lean into family, and then we act like family. And so this is the hardest one, because this is where we start to get almost intangible, but you know, you open your homes to one another, that’s what family do. I’d say it like this: when you’re family, you don’t ask to open the fridge, you just open the fridge and you take what you want. Well, that’s what we should look like. It should have the mi casa su casa kind of feel, shouldn’t it? We do life together in part because we’re all part of his casa. We do life together, and here’s the beautiful thing about doing life together, which, by the way, takes a lot of time and energy, doesn’t it? That’s the only reason. How many of you want to do life together? How many of you aren’t doing life together the way you want to do it, because you don’t have time, and yeah, the rest of you are lying also. So, when you do life together, though, this happens naturally. You don’t have to match manufacture loving deeds. If you love somebody, they just go, they just come out. I actually saw this recently, so if you were at recall, you know that I messed up. That’s not unusual, but I messed up because I was sharing about a family that was refreshed by our congregation, and I mentioned the Benevolence Fund, thinking that’s how they had been refreshed. That’s how it often works. Benevolence funds, wonderful thing. I get to write the checks, all that kind of stuff. It’s great, except their need hadn’t even made it to the benevolence fund, because their community group, and they’re both in journey groups, their two journey groups had already taken care of that need. I would love, I would love if we didn’t have to have a benevolence fund. I don’t mind it, like it’s a good thing, but if it was just like with money’s just sitting there, because every need keeps getting taken care of before I can get to it, because you don’t need to manufacture loving deeds when you love somebody. So, I think there’s some room for us to grow as a church, even though I think we do well at this. Let me address one last group of people, and that’s those who are still questioning, still seeking. So, you’re here in the room because you’re checking Jesus out, but you are not following Jesus yet. Can I ask you to think about this, or really encourage you to ask yourself, what is going to sustain costly love like this in your life. The reality is I think we all want to be like this, in part because our values in the West have been shaped completely by Jesus Christ, but what’s going to sustain that, the sort of selfless, generous living. It is not easy to forgive when you have been badly wronged by somebody. Fact, I would go so far as to say, in the flesh, it is impossible to forgive when you’ve been badly wronged by somebody. It’s tough to sacrifice financially when you’re not sure how you’re covering next month’s rent. It, so what’s going to sustain that? It all starts with faith, with believing in the good news of Jesus’s death and resurrection, and what that could mean for you, you who are in rebellion like the rest of us against our good and gracious Father, and yet He made a way for you to be welcomed back into his family, because the punishment that we deserve, his son took on himself, so that the reward that the son deserved, we can take for ourselves by faith in him, and then we get all of those spiritual blessings in Christ, so trusting the God of the gospel can change, sustain, empower you to live with love like that. I mean, just take the money example, it is hard to sacrifice financially, really is, unless you remember that God is your provider, and the God who did not keep His own son for Himself, but gave Him up for us all. How will we not also, along with Him, freely and graciously give us all things faith in Jesus should and absolutely will, if it is genuine faith. Faith in Jesus will produce a love for his people expressed in rich generosity toward the church and beyond, of course. The church may do so in us as individuals and as a gathered people for his glory. Let’s pray. Father, we pause to remember the wonder of the gospel, that those of us who have put our faith in Jesus and his work on our behalf have now been welcomed as your dearly beloved children, that is the wonder of wonders, Lord, and we will celebrate that truth for all of eternity. God, may that truth transform our hearts, though, so that we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ truly as family with all the generous acts of sacrificial love that that would require and produce, Lord, be softening our hearts, increase our faith, and so multiply our love. May we be known as a generously loving church. May that speak to the community around us, even to those in the room now who are still asking questions about you and Lord, may you be drawing them to yourself with the wonder of that love. Even now we pray for Christ’s sake. Amen.

Faith & Failure (Matthew 4:8-10)

PODCAST FAITH & FAILURE May 17, 2026 | Brandon Cooper Brandon Cooper discusses the temptation Jesus faced Matthew 4:8-10, in which Satan offers him the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship. Cooper emphasizes that political temptation is a form of idolatry, making politics the means of redemption, and opening politics to the demonic. He argues that true Christian engagement should focus on living faithfully for Jesus, embodying Christ-like character, and serving locally before engaging politically. Cooper highlights the importance of self-examination, confession, and repentance, urging the church to live transformed lives and engage culture and politics with Christ as the central focus. TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+ The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. Well, good morning, church. You can go ahead, grab your Bibles, open up to Matthew chapter four. We’ll be in verses eight to 10 this morning. Matthew chapter four, as you’re turning there. First of all, we did it. We’re almost through the politics series. No one has attempted to kill me yet or run me out of town or anything like that, so I’m very excited about that, and let’s see if we can keep it going today. Because today all I’m going to do is accuse you of being in league with the devil. So let’s make a deal, though. Speaking of that, let’s make a deal. I, although I don’t have the power to do this, will pretend for a moment, that I do, I will give you perfect society. Figure out what that means for yourself, but you know, no more theft, whether that’s, you know, shoplifting or corporate graft, no more violence on the streets, in people’s homes, whatever, no more sexual sin, pornography, promiscuity, whatever. No more vitriol as a culture. No more treating people badly just because they think different than you or look different than you, or whatever. Picture a society where, although some have much and some have little, no one has too much and no one has too little, because the rich care for the poor, not in a paternalistic way, but actually lifting them up and empowering them, where humanity is in better balance with nature, instead of like raping the earth for its resources, is actually using the creation that God has given us to steward without excess. There is worldwide peace, every country is committed to whatever you want to call it. We have a balanced use of technology, like leveraging it for good in areas like medicine and stuff, but at the same time not being controlled and manipulated and addicted to it. Communities are strong, families are strengthened, everybody on the planet is Midwest nice, and I’m talking like Chicago Midwest nice under this Ohio nonsense, right? Come on now, and because I know you’re all concerned about this, every Sunday the churches are full, every pew packed to hear the preacher talk about morals, but not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Are you taking that deal, and you’re sitting here going, well, I know. First of all, yeah, that sounds really good, but second of all, I know Brandon wants me to say no, so I’m going to say no, but why not? Because that perfect society that I just described will contain people who are still perishing eternally. There’s no remedy for what matters most. We are left under condemnation. Now that’s not my thought experiment. It was Donald Gray Barnhouse who first proposed that a long time ago, although he was just drawing from the passage we’re looking at this morning, because I’ll tell you what, Satan would take that deal in a heartbeat. He would take that deal in a heartbeat. We know that, because he offers that deal to Jesus. A little bit of context, since we’re picking up, you know, mid-story here. This is just after Jesus’s baptism, before he launches his public ministry. Right after his baptism, the Spirit whisks him away to the wilderness, where he fasts and prays for 40 days and 40 nights, and then Satan comes to tempt him three times. We’re going to look at the third one, the first two, you know, he’s hungry. Satan says, “Why don’t you turn these stones into bread? You know, and then once you throw yourself off the temple, God said he’ll catch you when you do that, and so the question is, are you going to trust God for your provision and protection, or are you going to test God and Jesus? I’m happy to say, passes the first two tests quickly, easily by quoting scripture, but the last temptation is the toughest, where Satan effectively says, skip the cross and I’ll give you the kingdom without the suffering, but also give you the kingdom without the gospel. It is the temptation we face too. You can understand why we’re doing that in this passage in this series. Temptation we face to seek political power and cultural transformation apart from God. How do we resist that temptation? That’s the question we’re going to seek to ask as we look at this passage. Let me read for us Matthew four eight to 10, and then we’ll dig, and we’re going to look at this in two halves: the temptation itself, and then what it looks like to trust as Jesus did. Matthew four eight to 10, again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me. Jesus said to him, Away from me, Satan, for it is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only. So we get one last. Attempt here, one last temptation, because again Jesus has resisted the first two. One last temptation strikes right at the heart of the matter. You notice that Satan takes Jesus to a high peak, a high mountain, and that word high is not the normal one, that just means tall. It’s got that sense of like lofty or proud, it’s an uppity mountain, in other words, and so from there Satan shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, which in some sense belong to Satan since the fall, and Satan looks at Jesus and says, if you will bend your knee to me, you can have everything you see, but at what cost? Because what’s being offered there, then, is to really remove the symptoms without removing the underlying disease, like take away all the bad that results from our sinful hearts, but you still leave us in sin, so Satan’s exchange won’t deal with a sin issue, of course not, and that’s the whole reason Jesus came. I mean, he’s given his name Jesus because it means God will save his people from their sins. The temptation is to get glory without the cross, that’s the temptation Jesus faces throughout his life, and his public ministry, in particular. You see it throughout Matthew, even in Matthew 16, Peter stumbles into truth because the Spirit of God is at work in him, and he says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And then Jesus says, “You’re right, and let me just tell you a little bit about what the Christ came to do. I’m going to suffer and be beaten and whipped, maybe tortured. I’m going to be killed, and then I’ll rise again. And Peter says, “Whoa, let’s not talk like that, Jesus. All right, like I.. we’re about to establish a political kingdom here, and I would love to be your Secretary of State. Let’s talk about that. And how does Jesus respond to Peter? Get behind me, Satan, because he’s saying I’ve heard this before, right here in Matthew four. It’s the same temptation in Gethsemane when Jesus is wrestling in prayer before the Father. Why is he wrestling? Because the temptation is still there, Father, if it’s possible, take this cup from me, I would love not to go through this next part. It sounds awful, but he resists again, yet not what I will, but what you will be done instead. And so this is the temptation that I mentioned already in the introduction. It’s a temptation where Satan says, “Tell you what, Jesus, I’ll let you be in charge, you can make your perfect little world, that’s fine, just without salvation. So it’s a temptation to try to accomplish the mission without the cross, which is of course going to be an abortive effort. Be like trying to increase your savings by spending more, like how are you going to possibly accomplish the mission of saving people into the kingdom of God. If no one is ever actually saved, I bring this up because, of course, we have a mission too. In fact, our last series was called Own the Mission. So we have a mission too. We are supposed to labor for the Kingdom of God. How will we accomplish it? Will we follow Jesus and take up our cross, or will we skip it to get straight to the power? Now, Tim Perry, in the book I mentioned in the first week, when politics becomes heresy, points out three truths that we learn about political temptation in these short verses. The first truth is that political temptation is a temptation to idolatry. It’s a temptation to worship something or someone other than God. That is what Satan offers Jesus. Here is not just subtraction, the kingdom without the cross, it is an unholy addition also. It is the kingdom with false worship. You do have to bow down and worship Satan. This is what we looked at in week one, of course. Will you trust in princes, or the prince of darkness, for that matter, or will you trust in the prince of peace? Now, idolatry is when we make a good thing a good thing. When we invest something, some person or object or pursuit with meaning and significance, and a hope that it cannot bear, it can’t sustain. So, you can’t remove the symptoms without healing the disease, but that’s what this offer is again. So, political temptation is a temptation to idolatry. First, truth, second truth, political temptation makes politics the means of redemption, so it’s not just a different God, but a different salvation at this point as well. Political temptation. And makes politics the means of redemption, so that a secondary good becomes a primary evil. It’s almost always what happens in sin. A lot of good things, money is good, right, sex is good, but they can become evil when they’re raised up to that. Yeah, but this is going to save me, this is going to give me what I really want, sort of level, so the secondary good of politics becomes a primary evil again. How here the temptation is to skip the cross, the part where Jesus sheds his powerful blood as a spotless sacrifice for the sake of humanity, that we might be saved, and instead he goes right to ruling over the eternally perishing, like we want Jesus to have the kingdoms of the world. That day is coming, we sang it, He will reign as king forevermore. That’s going to be a good day, absolutely, but we can’t get the order wrong, like he’s got to die first to bring salvation, and then bring the kingdom, and so that’s the issue. The temptation that we face is trying to build the kingdom without bringing people into the kingdom. It’s the temptation we talk about in week one, the Pelagian heresy. You remember William Blake, in the Jerusalem poem, like we can build Jerusalem here, so it’s trying to build the kingdom without bringing people into the kingdom, without preaching Christ. To do that, we can secure the success of the mission by means of politics. There are a lot of us who would not say this, probably, but really, kind of live like we believe that we can redeem humanity by winning this next election, and so that confuses ends and means, as if we come to Jesus just to get the perfect life. Well, that’s often how the gospel is preached, isn’t it? False gospel, not just in politics, in all sorts of areas, right? You got marriage problems, Jesus can help you with that. So I’m coming to Jesus to get a better marriage, not to get Jesus. So, but if that’s, if that’s the goal, if we’re coming through Jesus just to get that perfect society that I describe, well, if you can get there some other way, then who cares. We’re going to the same destination. You got a flight this week, you need to get to O’Hare. You can take Manheim, you can take the Tri-State. Either way, you ended up at O’Hare. Is that how this works? Like, can we get where we want to go through Jesus or take a different way? Well, certainly not, because the end, the destination where we’re actually heading is Jesus. Jesus is the end, like the only reason the kingdom is there is because Jesus is king. That’s what makes it the kingdom. Heaven is heaven, because he’s there. The perfection of the New Jerusalem, the new heavens, and the new earth that we see at the end of Revelation results from his presence and work. So, make no mistake, Satan will be very, very happy to let you build a paper kingdom that looks like the new Jerusalem without Jesus, John Piper points out that churches lose their culture transforming power when they make cultural transformation their primary focus. That’s the confusing means and ends again. The goal isn’t cultural transformation, the goal is Jesus, and cultural transformation will then happen, but of course we lose our culture transforming power when we make cultural transformation our end, because we, we strip away all of our power. The only power that we have as the church is the gospel of Christ Jesus and His Spirit, who indwells us? What does Paul say in Romans one? Not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God to the salvation of all who believe. So, you take the devil’s bargain, you strip away all that power. You’re like Samson, after he’s got his head shaved, you go, I look the same, I feel the same, but no, there’s no power left at this point, and it’s going to go really badly for you. Political temptation is a temptation to idolatry. Political temptation makes politics the means of redemption. And then, third, political temptation opens politics to the demonic. Political temptation opens politics to the demonic, of course it does. Here is Satan saying, “Have you tried politics? Yeah, so he’s in it, of course he is. I mean, answer this question for me honestly, is the church in America in the 20-first century shaping. Culture or being shaped by the culture war, we’re being squeezed into the world’s mold, satanic mold. It’s not that the cause is wrong, but that necessarily sometimes it is, of course, but that even we’ve got the right cause, we’re pursuing it in the wrong spirit with the wrong character, because we’re pursuing it idolatrously and as a means of redemption. This is why so many, even today, hear a phrase like family values, which I think many of us would promote in this room. Hear the phrase family values and think, and I’m not making this up, by the way. This is based on a Gallup poll. He hear family values, and they think political ploy, way to win votes, phony issue, because we probably have made it that in the way that we pursued it. So, rather than imitate Christ, we imitate the world and its present Prince Satan, and how many times have you heard people say, in essence, Christian charity can’t handle the seriousness of this moment. We need to fight, and so we need to adopt the world’s means. That’s the devil’s bargain again. Do you remember Saul, King Saul, shortly before his kingdom falls? He’s killed and it’s handed over to David, and he is about to lose a battle. So, it’s a desperate moment. Desperate people do desperate things. So, what does Saul do? He consults a witch to bring Samuel up from the dead, Samuel’s spirit, so that he can get some information. Look, we probably haven’t consulted a witch, I hope not, but the situation is so desperate, so dire. We got to bend the rules, maybe. Again, I don’t consult a medium, but we got to be mean or deceptive, or whatever it could be. Cable news and social media keep us paranoid and always enraged, which means we’re easy to manipulate. And then people in desperate situations, as I said, behave desperately. The rules don’t apply. That’s what we see all around us when the rules don’t imply we’re following Satan here, that inevitably involves dehumanizing opponents, demonizing opponents. We would even say, and that’s a good word for it, because it’s demonic, right? It is Satan who despises the image of God in humanity and seeks to destroy it, and we’re like, I can help you with that, Satan. We’re doing the devil’s work. Think back, I mean, do this honestly right now. Take a hard look at your heart. Think back to the words you’ve used to describe those with whom you disagree. Maybe it was publicly, maybe it was on social media, maybe it was privately, maybe it was internally, just went through your mind, idiots, freaks, bigots, or worse, words I can’t say here in this room. Now think back through those words again in light of Matthew 522 when Jesus said, “Anyone who says you fool will be in danger of the fire of hell, because hell’s fires are burning in your heart when you speak that way. Here’s what Paul said in Ephesians four. It’s a familiar passage you’ll have heard it before, but again, think of it now narrowly in terms of your political engagement. Paul writes this: In your anger, do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold, because when we’re unrighteously angry, Satan moves in. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths. How much unwholesome talk is allowed to come out of our mouths? Zero. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. The Spirit, who is supposed to control your behavior, but we hand that control over to Satan instead. Get rid again. Think of this politically, get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling, and slander, along with every form of malice. Wouldn’t you say our politics today is characterized by malice, brawling, slander? To be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. In other words, we, if we’ve been shaped by the gospel, are to treat people the way God treated us, kindness and compassion to the utterly undeserving. That’s not our approach today. Ephesians is not winning out, Alinsky is winning out. I mentioned King Saul earlier. Here’s Paul is talking in Ephesians four. Paul’s his Latin name, his Hebrew name is Saul. Let me give you one more Saul, though. Saul Alinsky famously wrote a book, kind of given the playbook for the radical left at the time, in the 60s, 70s. It has, at this point, been adopted by the radical everybody, and he talks about what you need to do is you pick a target, whatever issue you want to win, you got to pick that target, but then you got to personalize the target, you don’t attack an issue, you attack a person, you polarize it, and he says you need to cut off that person from their support network, isolate them from sympathy. He says, I’m quoting here, you go after people, not institutions, because people hurt faster, and I quote again, this is cruel. He acknowledges that this is cruel, but very effective, personalized criticism and ridicule works. Both parties are listening to that advice. The sad reality is Alinsky’s methods have won the day, and so there is no room for compassion, charity, love, kindness, because we are doing the devil’s work and the devil’s way. I keep saying we’re in league with Satan. I believe we actually are in league with Satan. I don’t mean that as hyperbole. I read something just this week after I wrote the sermon. You can tell because it’s on a different page here. This is from Richard Beck’s book, Reviving Old Scratch, that name for the devil, old scratch. He points out the fact that Satan in the Hebrew just means the adversary, and so Satan is anything that’s adversarial to the truth, to goodness, and all of that. And so he gives a list of things. He says hate is the Satan of love, exclusion is the Satan of inclusion. Oppression is the Satan of justice. Tearing down is the Satan of building up. Competition is the Satan of cooperation. Revenge is the Satan of mercy. Harm is the Satan of care. Hostility is the Satan of reconciliation. Which side of those polar opposites do you think most of our politics are on right now, love or hate, inclusion or exclusion? When we have a president who ran on a platform of retribution, which is the Satan of mercy. Again, we can multiply examples. We are doing the devil’s work in the devil’s way, and so how do we justify it? Because we fall into morality by comparison. I may be bad, but I’m better than they are, which is a form of self-justification, a sense of I earned this because I am okay on the curve, and that is satanic, because it’s the Satan of the gospel, grace. You fall into morality by comparison, you engage in what’s known as motive asymmetry, where everything you and your side do, you know, even if it’s bad stuff, you can kind of excuse it, because you know where it’s coming from. There’s a good motive, at least. And then everything the other side does, well, everything they always do is motivated by bad things, motive asymmetry. The other problem with morality, by comparison, is that it neglects the commonness of humanity, there is an equality of all in two key ways in Scripture. First of all, we are all created in the image of God, so we all have equal worth and dignity, every human being. Second, we have an equality of sin. We are all equally condemned because of our sin before the throne of a holy God, so that morality of comparison doesn’t really work out so well. I’d actually challenge you. I’m getting this from one of the books I read, I don’t remember which one. You should assume your capacity for injustice, for evil like that would be part of this is going right everything that Brandon just said instead of going well I mean yeah I know people like that that’s not me though we should be going that’s probably me that’s probably somewhere in my heart to assume our capacity for in justice and the thing is wrongs aren’t justified even if. The opponent is even more wrong. I know this well. You know how I know this well. It’s not watching cable news. It’s because I have a four and five year old boy. Sorry, five and six year old man, they keep getting older. Five and six year old almost every day I have this conversation with them. He hit me, yeah. Well, because he bit me, and so you’re like, so mine was justified because of what he did, and you’re like, no, both of you were wrong. And again, that’s our parties in a nutshell. We’ve got the morality of a five and a six year old boy. It’s really discouraging. You discouraged yet? Feeling a little bit satanic yet, like no one likes to see they’ve been doing Satan’s work and Satan’s way, but there is hope. Let’s turn there now. We’re ready for some hope. Let’s talk about trust. What does it look like to trust Jesus, who came to save us from our sins? So, to see the way out, we need to understand what really happened in this passage. This is not just a story about Jesus resisting temptation. It is a story of Jesus resisting temptation in our place, and as our representative, ultimately as our substitute. Where we failed, Jesus proved faithful. There are two moments that are being undone here in this story. The first, you probably recognize, this is not the first time that that ancient serpent, the devil, tried to tempt a representative of humanity with food. Remember the other time the Garden of Eden, which is different. Jesus is in the desert, and he hasn’t eaten for 40 days. Adam and Eve are in paradise, surrounded by delicious food. But have you had this one? And they go, “Well, okay, that does look better, actually, and they fail, but Jesus succeeds in their place. The other one you might not see as obviously, but it’s here too. Is this is not the first time that the people of God, the Israel of God, have been in the wilderness tested by the devil. There’s a reason why all three times Jesus quotes scripture, he quotes from Deuteronomy, because that’s the record of Israel’s failure in the wilderness after the Exodus, which we looked at not that long ago. He keeps quoting Deuteronomy because they grumbled, ‘We’re going to starve out here, we need bread, God provides manna. They tested God over and over again, of course, they succumb to idolatry, most notably with the golden calf. That’s what’s really happening in this moment. Like, just a little bit of context here in Matthew, what’s happened in Matthew chapter two, Jesus leaves Egypt, where he’d fled for asylum as a political refugee, he leaves Egypt, and then in Matthew three he passes through the waters, the waters of baptism in his case, but Paul tells us in First Corinthians 10 that that’s what the Red Sea was for Israel, their own waters of baptism, so we’re just following Israel, right, we went from Egypt through the water to the wilderness to be tested by the devil, but where humanity failed in Adam, where God’s people failed in Israel. The second Adam, and the true Israel, succeeds. He is faithful to the end. So this is not a moralistic story about how to resist temptation. Just got to quote scripture, so you better be memorizing it. Sure, by all means, it’s not less than that, but it’s more than that. This is a story. This is a new chapter in the story of redemption. At last, one has come who has overcome temptation and defeated the devil. One little word should fail him. And because Jesus forged that path as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, we can follow his footsteps and resist the devil too, so that we don’t follow in the first Adam’s and Israel’s footsteps. I don’t know if we grasp how important the work of defeating the devil is to the ministry of Jesus Christ. Probably because we’re all weirded out by exorcism. Exorcism was not a small add-on to Jesus’s ministry. It was front and center. It’s the first thing he does. He says, ‘Repent, the kingdom of God is here. I gotta heal some people. I gotta kick the hell out of earth. And when Jesus.. we just looked at this in the Oil in the Mission series, Kyle preached on this. When Jesus sends the 12 out and the 70. Two out, what does he tell them to do? Kingdom of God is here, so you better repent. I’m gonna heal some people, I’m gonna kick the hell out of earth. We’re gonna exorcize demons, like this is what we’ve been called to do, to defeat the devil in Jesus’ name. Certainly not to get in league with him. I’m gonna give you the big idea, nice and early here, and then we’re gonna talk through some specific application as we go. The big idea is this: the faithful one took our failure so that we might live faithfully for him. The faithful one took our failure so that we might live faithfully for him. The fact that he took his, our failure doesn’t mean we go, well, I guess we need to keep on failing here. That’s no big deal. No, we start to live faithfully as a result. We are changed as a result of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What I mean by this is that when Jesus said, ‘Take up your cross and follow me, I’m pretty sure that he meant we should, you know, follow him, like, do what he did, imitate Jesus. The point Russell Moore makes in his book, Onward, which we’ve done here before, as a church, as an Explore Hour class. It’s the subtitle that just nails exactly what I’m talking about. The subtitle is engaging culture without losing the gospel because we’re living faithfully for the Jesus of the gospel. First Peter 212 is a passage we talk about a lot here. Peter says to a group of persecuted Christians living in exile at this time, live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us. This is what we are supposed to do in this world, to live the sorts of lies where people go, I’m pretty sure I hate Christianity, but I really like you, help me out. What’s going on there? And we get to talk about Jesus. Then now look at that passage again, and tell me, is there an asterisk anywhere in that passage that says, except when it comes to politics, then you don’t need to worry about living a good life. I don’t see one. So this is how we should engage politically. I think a lot of what this means is that we should then learn to be before we do politically, so learn to be Christ-like before we do politics to ensure that we have Christ-like character and priorities, and this takes real effort, you know. Martin Luther King, when he would train people for civil rights movement, and especially the protests that happened, he taught the practice of self-purification before they would engage in any demonstration, because he needed to make sure that the people who are going to protest in the name of Jesus actually lived like Jesus, and so they’d ask the question, like, are you ready to engage politically and really to suffer politically without retaliation, because you cannot march in the name of the God who said, vengeance is mine, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, repay insult with blessing, and then riot violently against your political enemies. We need to learn to be so that then our being shapes our doing, because otherwise the talk and the walk, they don’t match up, and that’s a problem. Paul asked the questions in Romans 221 “You who preach against stealing, do you steal? Are you a hypocrite? That’s all he’s asking. And Jonathan Leman kind of riffs on this, I’m drawing from him, not necessarily quoting, but drawing from me, because he kind of says, “Look, I got some questions of my own, when we talk about Christians in politics, you who advocate for immigration reform, do you open your home to foreigners? Like, is the diversity of the coming kingdom present in the people that are welcome in your home? You, who preach family values, do you honor your parents and love your spouse sacrificially. You, who speak against abortion, do you support single mothers? Do you foster, adopt, show up at the safe families run? If nothing else, are you raising your own kids well? Do you defend life as vigorously after birth as you do prior to it? You, who lament structural injustices, do you work to dismantle them locally? Again, we can just multiply examples from there. We actually want to stop. Because I like that you do work to dismantle them locally is a good question, because the word locally is so important. Can I break your hearts for a moment now that I’ve accused you being satanic? Are we good with that? Can’t get worse, can it? I’m looking around the room here, and I’m thinking none of us is going to change the world. I could be wrong, maybe one of you grows up to be president, that’s fine. Okay, but most likely we’re not gonna be able to change the world, really. But every one of us here could change someone’s world. We can make a difference in the corner of the world that God has entrusted to our care. What would that look like for you? Jonathan Lehmann, again, he just shares a story of one of his church members named Chelsea, who’s teaching as a public high school, a teacher where the dropout rate was 46% when she started, like one of those schools, you know, the kind I’m talking about. So, what does she do there? I mean, does she agitate for school reform? Probably, absolutely, but that’s not where it starts. She hosts Bible studies after school in her classroom and provides snacks, because a lot of the kids are hungry. In fact, she buys meals regularly for hungry students, had like Chipotle gift cards ready to go all the time. She would drive around and pick up kids to bring them to church on Sundays would keep peanut butter and jelly supplies in her classroom in a cabinet, so that any kid could go in who didn’t have lunch that day. Regularly bought groceries, toiletries, uniforms, had a little kit in the classroom as well, supplies so that kids could fix ripped clothes or broken glasses, so they didn’t have to suffer the indignity of that, to my mind, that’s God-honoring political engagement. Someone who learned to be and then do and then vote in that order, like we can’t just verbalize our convictions, we need to embody those convictions in our daily lives. Get off social media, turn off cable news, go to church, learn your Bible and how it speaks to the principles that undergird politics and and then engage locally, serve actively, and then yeah, vote. Even then, I would say vote locally first and foremost, like that’s the difference you’re gonna be able to make there. Vote nationally too, like we need every word of the big idea. We’re going to do this. The faithful one took our failure, and he took it, took the guilt, took the condemnation away from us, so that we might live faithfully. Knowing what he’s done for us transforms us, changes us, should certainly lead, like knowing that he had to take our failure, that’s how bad we were, should lead us to self-examination, confession, and repentance. Every one of us in this room, there may be the kids who are like, I don’t know anything he’s talking about right now. Every one of us should be going. Jesus, I wasn’t. I wasn’t before. I wasn’t doing it, but from now on I’m going to follow you here. We should be saying that as individuals, but as a church too. Justin Gaboni points out that I don’t think anyone could say with any degree of integrity that Christians have been a shining example in today’s chaos. I just don’t think we would say that. I don’t know that we’re salt and light preaching and embodying a better way politically, so that people are drawn to us, because of how we practice politics, Colin Hanson asked the important question, How does the church stand out by offering fear and loathing in a world that’s already full of it, and yet that’s what we tried to do, so here today, like let’s commit as one local church, one local congregation to live faithfully together in community as we engage culture and politics. I can quote Lehman just one more time. He says, “If there is hope for the nation, it’s through the witness and work of churches. Our congregations have the opportunity to live transformed lives as a transformed culture through a transformed politics in their own fellowships, right now, all for God’s glory and our neighbor’s good. How focusing not on the public square but on what the church has been called to do, making disciples. Preaching the word of God, preaching the word, that’s actually the key. It’s the key to understanding Matthew four, isn’t it? That’s exactly what we see here in the story of temptation. The only way we’re going to resist political temptation is union with Christ, who succeeded where we failed, and reliance on the word, what we see Jesus do by quoting scripture, and really those are two ways of saying the same thing, because Tim Perry points out the word, capital W, the word made flesh, the word is in the words of the Bible. There is good news, Jesus succeeded where we failed, where we succumb to temptation, he bore it to the uttermost to be that perfect, spotless substitute slain in our place. Where we trust in princes, he trusted unfailingly in his Father all the way to Calvary. When we make treaties with worldly powers, he conquers them by his blood, so the solution to our political problem is trusting him and following him and living for him. I’ll just say it again, what we said last week. In repentance and rest is our salvation, in quietness and trust is our strength. Let’s pray, you Lord, we want to be like Jesus. That is, I hope, why we show up on Sunday mornings to gather as your people, to be conformed to the image of your Son, to see His character formed in us, and so God, would you do that even now by your word that we heard here this morning? Would you keep us from being conformed to the world and squeezed into its mold, and instead be transformed by the renewing of our minds, by the renewing of our hearts as we are shaped by grace, by the gospel, by the love of the one who came to live the life we should have lived, took our failure, died the death we deserve to die, and then raises us to new life in Him, and it says for His name’s sake, that we pray. Amen.Amen.

Trust & Treaties (Isaiah 30:1-18)

PODCAST TRUST & TREATIES May 10, 2026 | Brandon Cooper Brandon Cooper discusses the biblical text of Isaiah 30:1-18, emphasizing the dangers of binary political choices and the importance of trusting in God rather than worldly powers. He draws parallels between ancient Judah’s reliance on Egypt over God and modern Christians’ tendency to trust political parties over divine guidance. Cooper highlights the need for Christians to fear God first, engage in critical analysis, and maintain prophetic independence. He urges believers to pray for those in authority, trust in God’s power, and rest in His grace, ultimately advocating for a faith-driven approach to politics. TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+ The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. Well, good morning church. Go ahead, grab your Bibles, open up to Isaiah 30. Isaiah 30, we’ll be in verses 1-18 in what is probably not the favorite text for Mother’s Day or the favorite subject for Mother’s Day, either. So apologies for that in advance, but it’s good to have you all here as we continue in our series, what it means to practice politics, to engage in politics being shaped by Scripture and not by culture. As we’re turning to Isaiah 30, I like weddings. I really do like weddings. Obviously I get to officiate them occasionally, and all that they proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, big fan of weddings. I’m not a fan of wedding receptions, knowing I got a few to go to coming up here in a few weeks anyway, not not my favorite thing. You know me, I’m too introverted to be around that many people, and then I’m too curmudgeonly to have music that loud and dancing that long. One other reason I’m not always a fan of weddings is they pick the menu for me, and usually you just kind of put it down in front of me. Sometimes I get two options. You get two options, right? Do you want the beef or the chicken or something like that? And I don’t like that two option thing. They’re like, You want beef or chicken? And I’m thinking to myself, what I really want is salmon. No luck, right? They never bring it to me. And then definitely no substitutions either. We’re going, could I get spinach instead of asparagus? And the waiters just kind of look at you like you’re in the wrong place. So you can tell I like a tapas restaurant. You know? I can just pick and choose whatever I want bring it all together. But no, that’s not wedding receptions. Unfortunately, this is also how it feels in America today. You got two options. You want the Republican meal or the democratic meal? That’s it. No substitutions, either. Could I get this part? But I really would love to switch out climate policy. Is that a possibility? No, absolutely not. And then the more that we choose sides, the more that we’re like, Well, this is the plate that’s been served me. This is what I got to eat. I guess the more that we are squeezed into that party’s mold, the importance of party loyalty, that’s what we’re going to look at today, and the danger of this kind of binary choice thinking for us as Christians. And to get there, we’re going to draw from Israel’s history, really Judah’s history, the southern kingdom, after the nation of Israel divided. What’s happening here, just you’re clear on the context of this prophecy, is that Assyria is the current world superpower. This is the same Assyria that is going to actually wipe out the northern kingdom and take them in to exile, never to return that same Assyria is threatening the southern kingdom Judah, which is a tiny country, weak country, and so they’re understandably panicked, like, what can we do to stave off this threat? Or maybe the better question, to whom will they turn? It’s a question that we face today, because we are also facing real problems, not the threat of invasion, but there are very real issues. To whom will we turn? So we’re looking at three questions that we got to answer and that this text will help us answer as we figure that out. So our first question, what should we trust? What should we trust? Let me look at Isaiah, 30 verses, one to seven. I’ll read it for us. Woe to the obstinate children, declares the Lord. To those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by My Spirit, keeping sin upon sin, who go down to Egypt without consulting me, who look for help, to Pharaoh’s protection, to Egypt’s shade, for refuge, but Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame. Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace, though they have officials and so on, and their envoys have arrived in Hans, everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them, who bring neither help nor advantage but only shame and disgrace. A prophecy concerning the animals of the Negev through a land of hardship and distress, of lions and lionesses, of adders and darting snakes, the envoys carry their riches on donkeys backs, their treasures on the humps of camels, to their unprofitable nation, to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless. Therefore I call her Rahab the do nothing. Assyria is threatening Judah, as I said, and so the nation looks to Egypt for help. What’s going on here is they’re sending tribute to Egypt to purchase an alliance and military. Very support Egypt, one of the other superpowers, and so maybe the two of us together, at least, can fight off Assyria. Now at the human level, this makes a lot of sense. This is a shrewd move, and the weaker nation needs protection. And often weaker nations get pulled into the orbit of the superpowers. Think of the Cold War, when almost every nation on the planet was like, Well, I’m gonna go with the US, or I’m gonna go with the USSR. And that’s kind of what’s happening here as well. So humanly speaking, it makes a lot of sense, but from God’s perspective, it’s utter folly. It is, as he points out, not his alliance, and to enter into it is to heap sin upon sin. So what’s the big deal? Because it’s not that alliances are intrinsically wrong. Israel and Judah make alliances at various points in their history. They’re not always called out for it. The issue, you see it there in verse two, is that they didn’t consult God. They didn’t look to God first, and instead, they looked to Egypt. We see it in verse one, also where it says they carry out plans that aren’t the Lord’s. So Isaiah is asking the question. The Lord’s asking the question like, why would you look to Egypt when you could look to God instead? And if you’re at all familiar with Israel’s history. You know, this is a really good question, like we just did, Exodus, Who you rooting for? Who you think’s got this god or Egypt? The choice is obvious. I mean, Judah is going back to their slave masters to ensure their freedom. The irony would be hilarious if it weren’t so depressing. And why not just ask God to do what he’s done before, deliver his people in power? But no, they don’t, and then we don’t always either, do we? There’s this temptation that we face to magnify our present crisis and minimize God’s past deliverance so that we start to believe our circumstances and doubt His word. Like I know you’ve done it before, Lord, but this time, it’s too much for you, like this time, I’m going to have to take care of myself. We’re going to need to we’re going to need to call in some outside help here. The Lord isn’t enough. Have you ever felt that? Have you ever felt that, politically, with the present crisis in our world, pick which crisis you’re thinking of thinking, well, we’re going to need to do something about this. I don’t think the Lord is enough. You actually see the folly of this belief in the word that’s used for Alliance, the word literally means covering, and that’s how they’re treating Egypt. They see Egypt like a warm blanket that’s going to make them feel safe against the Assyrian storm. You remember when you were a kid and you were scared that there was a monster in your room? What’s the key to surviving a monster attack? You got to pull the blanket over your head. Right? They can’t see you. They can’t eat you. Now there was not a monster in your room. If there had been a monster in your room. How much security Do you think that blanket was offering you very, very little, exactly. And that’s the problem with Egypt here as well. The folly of it, in fact, later on in this chapter, even later than we’ll get to in this passage, the same word is used for an idol, because that’s what it is. An idol is a warm blanket. I think it’s going to protect me, even though it is, in fact, useless. This is why the Lord points out what we already know, what happens when we don’t trust him. It never works, so that they’re going to reap shame and disgrace, not victory and protection. The Lord loves us too much to let us wander away from him and put our hope in worldly powers for help. He won’t, if he if he loves us, if he’s gracious and merciful towards us, he won’t let us keep going down that path forever. It’s like when you’re teaching your kid to drive and they’re starting to veer and you kind of go, how long do I let this go? And then you jerk the wheel back, like, that’s what the Lord will do with his people. Jerk the wheel back, kind of go, nope, we can’t go that way. And usually that involves chastisement, punishment, as the Lord is, you know, the prophecy itself is part of how he’s jerking the wheel back to kind of say, let’s, let’s get back in line here. And Isaiah does so humorously, like he pokes fun at the absurdity of trusting Egypt, starting there in verse six, where you get this a prophecy concerning the animals of the Negev. It’s this very solemn opening, isn’t it, and you read throughout the rest of Isaiah. Get a lot of a prophecy concerning the fall of Babylon. It’s serious stuff. Well, what are we getting here? We’re getting an Oracle about the beasts. What beasts of the Negev, the pack animals who are bringing the tribute to Egypt from Israel. That’s what this prophecy is about. Now you can imagine the officials who are still there in Jerusalem, the one who sent these envoys out to deliver the tribute. And they’re pacing nervously back in the palace in Jerusalem. You know, they got life 360 going on their phone, going, are they almost there? Are they almost there? Is Egypt going to accept our tribute or not? They’re chain smoking because they’re stressed and all of that. And then Isaiah is over here going, Won’t somebody think of the poor pack animals though they’re carrying all this gold and stuff through the desert, these poor beasts. It’s a funny way of making a serious point. I mean, again, Israel is like literally reversing their salvation because they are going from the promised land back to Egypt, refusing their Savior in the process. And for what? What are they going to get? What are all these pack animals bringing back with them they get? Verse seven, Rahab. Rahab often used of Egypt. The word itself means arrogant, like the proud one. So Egypt’s one making big boasts. I can solve all your problems, but actually it’s useless, hence the do nothing. So that’s the big question for us. Then the question that was there for Judah as well. What should we trust. What should we trust? We should trust the Lord’s power. The Lord’s power not the arrogant, empty boasts of armchair big mouths in Alec Mathiers delightful phrase for Egypt there, but we trust the Lord’s power. The world has very real problems, but God is big enough and strong enough to handle them, and so we seek Him first, we look to him first. That’s what Peter says first. Peter 217, he’s given a list of instructions, and he says, Fear God, honor the Emperor, and that order is all important. Fear God first. Then let’s talk about the Emperor. The order is absolutely crucial, because we know, if you’ve read the book of Proverbs, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You want to get wise, you start by fearing the Lord. We need wisdom for political engagement. It’s the most important thing we can do is fear God so that it reorients our hearts, and in the process, will diminish the other fears that so often drive the political process. In so many ways, politics is driven by fear. Our political views are driven by fear. Maybe it’s a fear of a foreign power, maybe it’s a fear of poverty, maybe it’s a fear of the other. We got to put those fears in right context, subordinate to the fear of the Lord, plus another reason we need to fear the Lord first is because the fear of man will keep us from calling out sin otherwise, which is scary. I mean, who wants to criticize Trump on Twitter today? It doesn’t be a pile on that’s gonna be a pile on. Probably not the best place to engage in politics anyway. You’ve heard me say that 1000 times, but you get the point. It would take courage to criticize leaders. We need courage to speak God’s truth to whatever powers are in the world, or else we’ll pander to it. It takes courage to be John the Baptist, who famously called out King Herod for his sin and paid for it with his life after years in prison. It takes courage, but as Jonathan Lehman reminds us, me, we may well need to offend the mighty on behalf of the Almighty, because we have been given a prophetic role so the church’s task. We’ve been given the role of proclamation. We speak truth. We’re ambassadors speaking the King’s message, which means we should be the loudest voices, the kindest voices, the most loving voices, absolutely, but the loudest voices critiquing corruption, immorality and folly within our own parties. If you belong to a party or if you voted for somebody, you should be the one most loudly critiquing them to say, I voted for you. I didn’t vote for this. And you need to know that. So the question we got to ask ourselves, have you formed an unholy alliance with a political party? Have you consulted the Lord in the matter? And one of the ways to test this, because that’s a hard question to ask, no, I don’t think I have. I think the Lord is first in my heart. That’s tough to see. One of the tests is, have you made peace with your party’s sins? So you’re looking at them like Egypt, which was throughout Israel’s history, not only Israel’s enemy, but God’s enemy as well. But you kind of got this lesser of two evils mentality going on, as the famous saying goes, lesser of two evils is still evil, right? Got to have that in our heads, of course. So if you made peace with your party’s sins so that you’re now defending the indefensible and excusing the inexcusable, that’s how you would know you’ve made an unholy alliance. Can I just give you an example? Let’s step on toes here. What I do? It’s easy to point to the party in power, because they’re the ones giving us the examples. Right now, if we’re years ago, I could have done the other party also. Okay, just hear that. But like we who voted for the Republican Party who elected Trump? If that’s you, should be the ones not excusing things like calling for genocide on Easter Sunday of all days, and then later posting a blasphemous image of himself as Jesus, like I just want to give you permission to say you should call that out, even if you vote Republican, especially if you vote Republican again. I could do that with the other party too. I could probably do that with the little parties, libertarians, green, you name it. We could. We could pick because we’re all sinners, okay, but that’s what I mean here. But if you’ve made peace of that, if you’re making excuses, well, he’s a Red Cross worker. No, he wasn’t. We’re not stupid. We don’t need to pretend to be stupid here. Okay, don’t make excuses. Fulfill your prophetic role. Fear God. Give the Emperor the honor he deserves. You don’t have to choose beef or chicken. You can absolutely make substitutions, and you can criticize the chef when he makes it wrong. This is supposed to be filet. This is shoe leather, you know, like, that’s okay. We can say that. Why? Because we trust in the Lord’s power ultimately, and not in any alliance that we make in the short term for limited goals. The word that came to mind here was allegiance. A lot of us would pledge allegiance to the flag like you, the only allegiance you pledge unconditionally is to God. Second question we gotta answer, what should we listen to? What should we listen to? May keep reading verses eight to 14 go now. Write it on a tablet for them. Inscribe it on a scroll that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness. For these are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction. They say to the seers, see no more visions, and to the prophets, give us no more visions of what is right. Tell us pleasant things, Prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path and stop confronting us with a holy one of Israel. Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says, Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall cracked and bulging that collapses suddenly. In an instant, it will break in pieces like pottery shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces, not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern. Isaiah writes God’s word to Judah down. He does so twice. He writes it publicly on the tablet. The idea there would be almost like a billboard, like so everybody can see what God’s Word says. He writes it down privately on the scroll. That’s the one that he’s going to seal up and stick in a safe. Both of them are a witness against Judah, like you heard it, you saw it. It was up on a billboard, and I got the proof here in my safe What’s ironic is that he writes down that they don’t care what he writes down. They reject God’s word and are unwilling to listen to his instruction. In fact, they’re not just ignoring his instruction, which would be bad. They’re actively opposing it. Which is worse, stop sending us visions. Tell your prophets to stop talking, please like just shut up already. I mean, did you see that phrase? Stop confronting us. Us with the Holy One of Israel? Could there be sadder words spoken? I don’t care what God thinks. It’s not pagans who are saying that it’s God’s people who are saying that this is the word to the church, not to the world, and that’s the reminder then that that could be true of us. We might actually be saying that in our hearts. You come to church thinking, I just want you to reaffirm my preconceived notions. And if you’re not going to do that, would you just shut up already? You’ll see it today. It’s common to see somebody post on social media, some political pundit or other, if your pastor doesn’t talk about fill in the blank this Sunday, find a different church, like, just shut up. If you’re not with us, you need to find a church that’s with us politically. I’ll even take it a step further. I quoted somebody last week. I won’t tell you which one I quoted somebody last week. They’re on a do not quote list, so a prominent political organization, if I were to say the name of it, every single one of you would know which organization it is. You’ll have heard of it has a list of pastors you’re not supposed to quote. Now I quoted one of them, and so that’s your cue to find a different church. Doesn’t that feel so dangerous, because at that point, you’re not in submission to the church, to the Word of God, to the people God has appointed to instruct you in the Word of God. You’re in submission to a political party that is a slippery slope leading straight to hell. Can I just say here I’m so glad that’s not you guys like I just want to affirm you here. I believe wholeheartedly that this is a congregation that cares what God thinks, that wants to hear the word of the Lord. I don’t think you’d be here otherwise. Honestly, my spiritual gift is bluntness. I am happy to confront you with the Holy One of Israel, and you’re all here for it, and that’s good. I’ve never had somebody say, How come you didn’t bring this up politically spoken in anger, at least maybe once or twice, out of grief. But why are they so opposed? Why are they so opposed to God’s word? It’s because they found God’s word simultaneously unhelpful and demanding, and that’s a rough combination. It’s one thing for it to be unhelpful if it doesn’t cost me anything, but if it’s unhelpful and it costs me a lot, well, then why would I listen to it like I can’t see how a far off, invisible God could help me here and now with this immediate need. So I’m unwilling to count the cost again. I don’t know why you would find this unhelpful, because the Exodus, like you know, he’s got the boat, you know, he can help here. How about the conquest, the fact that they’re in the promised land at all. Do you remember David and Goliath? You remember Gideon? Any of these stories, but still they had forgotten, as we so often forget as well. And so there’s that temptation for us today also. We’ve got immediate problems. We need to take action. We can’t debate Romans guys. We need we need to fix the problems. Enough talk well, trusting Egypt in the last section we saw brought not victory, but shame and disgrace, the opposite effect of what they’d been hoping for. It’s the same thing here, instead of this secure wall, which they would need against the threat of invasion, they get what we see, starting in verse 12. Verse 13, the sin will become for you like a high wall cracked and bulging. So it’s like a wall that’s been struck once with a wrecking ball and part of it’s already knocked out. You can just kind of see every day you go and you look at it, and it looks like it’s tipping a little bit more and a little bit more, and it’s teetering, and ultimately toppling, which means that Assyria can just walk right in. They don’t even need to build siege works or anything like that. You remember how God beat Jericho? All he did was knock the walls down, and that was it. Battle’s over. Well, here they’re knocking their own walls down so Syria can walk right in. It seems better to listen then better to listen to listen to what? What should we listen to? You could have filled this blank in on your own. I’m sure it’s right there in the text, we should listen to the Lord’s instruction, to the Lord’s instruction. And can I say there is just immediate application for us here? Leader, politically speaking, where do you get your political views? Be honest. Where do you get your political views? Is it the party platform? Is it cable TV, a particular podcaster or blogger that you like political parties and partisan pundits should not set your political agenda. Jonathan Lehman said it like this, I like it. He said political parties, they make good servants and bad masters, or even better. He said they’re useful instruments, but awful identities. That’s right. So let me ask you this. Then where should you get your political views, not cable news. I can promise that. Where should you get political perspective? The counterintuitive answer, I think, is that you should get your political perspective from the church, not which policies to support. You know that, you know I’m not giving you that, but we should get our political perspective by listening to his instruction, getting the principles that will then shape our policy positions. And the church. I do mean the church, not just the preacher in the church, but the church in conversations with each other, even especially your brothers and sisters in Christ who don’t agree with you on different issues. That would be so helpful. Do you remember the proverb that says in a lawsuit, the first to speak seems right, until someone comes forward and cross examines you. Ever done that like a true crime show or something? You like, get the first bit of the evidence and you’re like, Oh, he’s guilty, and then they do the second set of evidence, and you’re like, oh, okay, more complicated than I thought. That’s what conversation should do for us when brothers and sister in Christ, we should go, Look, I obviously this is the only way intelligent Bible believing people think on this issue. Oh, oh, okay. There’s nuance. There’s nuance to this view. In Colossians two eight, Paul tells us see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world, rather than on Christ. And you’ve read that before, if you’ve read through your Bible, and when you read that, you thought about New Age spirituality, but tell me how that doesn’t apply to political platforms. We absolutely could be taken captive by them, and they depend on human tradition and elemental spiritual forces, rather than on Christ. And again, we get squeezed. You want beef or chicken? We’re taught that it is. We are taught every day, in 100 different ways, that it is a zero sum winner take all contest, so you have to back your party every time. Can’t critique corruption because she could lose her seat in the next election, then the stakes are too high. Got to trust Egypt. Gotta trust Egypt far better. The perspective of Frederick Douglass, abolitionist and devout Christian, who said, I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong, that’s a man who’s standing on the Word of God, immovable, unshakable. Let’s take it a step further, though, even if we are listening to his instruction, it means that we will be able to instruct others, which is important because we’ve been given a proclaiming role. Again, we are ambassadors. I think this is important for us, because there are some in this room who are going to take a lot of this series as rebuke in the sense of, like, Okay, I probably need to talk less about politics, that kind of stuff. You know who you are. It’s fine. A lot of the rest of us, I would count myself in this group, we’ve washed our hands of politics, hate politics. Don’t want to think about politics. Don’t want to talk about politics. And so a sermon series like this could maybe teach us to disengage even more. I’m just trusting Jesus even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come like tomorrow, be fine, and then I don’t have to worry about this anymore. And so, no, I think we actually do need to engage that will look different for different people. Of course, that’s a jagged line issue how we engage, but certainly it means we speak truth. We know we’re called to engage in that way we instruct others. So Justin gaboni in his wonderful book, Don’t let nobody turn you around. Says this, If we’re always choosing a side, it means we’re never leading. The church should be leading like No wonder we’re stuck in this morass, because we’re not leading. We’re letting political parties and partisan pundits set the agenda and then just passively co signing whatever they put before us, and so doing, we’re putting the cult in culture war. We quote Gaboni At length here. He says, If cultural influencers can get us to base our opinions on ideological identity rather than critical analysis, analysis and conviction, then they control our public witness, which they are absolutely by the way, once we start proudly wearing the label critical thinking is no longer necessary, they’ll do all the thinking for us, and we’ll simply rubber stamp their conclusions. But the church must be convicted and thoughtful enough to have prophetic independence. That’s the point I’m trying to make prophetic independence. Like, if you agree with a party on three issues out of four, then by all means, vote for that party, but never stop calling out the fourth issue, especially if it’s a straight line issue, like if you vote democratic. Three issues out of four are fine. Never stop calling out the progressive view on sexuality, which is unbiblical if you vote Republican. Three issues out of four, All right, great. Never stop calling out the cruelty, especially shown toward the foreigner in this country at this point. That’s what it looks like to listen to the Lord’s instruction and then instruct others in light of it. Third question, what should we hope in rest of the passage? Verses 15 to 18? This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says, in repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, No, we will flee on horses. Therefore you will flee. You said, we will ride off on swift horses. Therefore your pursuers will be swift. 1000 will flee at the threat of one, at the threat of five. You will all flee away till you are left like a Flagstaff on a mountain top, like a banner on a hill. Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you. Therefore he will rise up to show you compassion for the Lord. Is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him. God knows what Judah faces, and he offers the perfect solution, repentance, rest, quietness and trust, counter intuitive, but the Lord works in counterintuitive ways. You remember what he said to Israel when they were stuck between the Red Sea and the approaching Egyptian army, just stand there. That’s what he said, literally, just stand there. The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. That’s what he’s saying here again, if you want salvation and strength, you will find it in resting, repentant faith. You will find it entrusting to God who saves, not treaties, put your trust anywhere else, and you will always be anxious and undelivered, like if you trust in money, you will always be worrying about the market, and you will never be truly secure if you trust in politicians. You will be what we see in our culture. You will be consumed by anger and terrified of the coming midterms, whatever is coming up next, and still stuck in a broken world at the end of it. Well, Jude is having none of it. They don’t want this repentance, rest, nonsense. They want solutions now. There will be no waiting quietly, so they’re going to trust in swift horses instead of the sovereign, Holy One of Israel. So in God’s mercy. And make no mistake, it is mercy. It’s the jerk in the wheel back in God’s mercy, Assyria will have swifter horses. God will expose the weakness of Judah’s idols, so that they turn back to him. 1000 will flee. The sight of one, Assyrian the sight of five, the whole nation will run away, so that in the end, only a flag pole remains to show passers by that a nation used to be there. Well, does that attitude sound familiar? Because it does, to me, is we are tempted to trust in politics to produce culture, cultural transformation. And so you back a horse, a swift horse. You think, then you discover there are other horses in the race. Some of them are swifter, and your horse pulled up lame anyway, when the opposition dump comes out, all the “oppo” research the skeletons in the closet, or they make a misstep politically, ruining their chance. Or they’re duplicitous or incompetent or whatever it is, the people we support politically cannot guarantee political victory. It may well lead us into political defeat overall, or even on certain issues. I mean, how many of us have backed somebody because we’re like, well, at least on this issue, I know we’re in the same spot, and then that’s the issue they compromise on to get their signature achievement across the finish line. And you go far better than to trust wholeheartedly and single mindedly in the God who is there, the God who saves and to wait on Him. Spurgeon tells us what that waiting faith looks like. He says, the faith that rests on God alone is alone true. The confidence that relies only partly on the Lord is vain. Confidence, if to wait on God is worship. To wait on the creature is idolatry. To wait is true faith, but to look elsewhere, then would be audacious unbelief. Your faith will be rewarded. That’s the good news. The Lord will accomplish his purposes. Again, we’ve read Revelation together as a congregation. We know how the story ends. Can I tell you what the New Jerusalem is like? There’s no abortion there, there’s no racism there, there’s no poverty there, there’s no injustice there, there’s no pollution there. What do you want? Politically, it’s there. God will make it happen. In fact, it’s even true in this story. If we were to keep reading the rest of the chapter, you get down to verse 31 it says, this the voice of the Lord. That’s it. Nothing else, by the way, just the voice of the Lord will shatter Assyria. God wins in the end. So trust him with your platform, and I’ll give you yet one more reason to trust him. It’s there in verse 18. It is the key to the passage. It’s the hinge verse that moves us from the rebuke in the section we looked at this morning, and then the promise that comes in the rest of the chapter, yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you. The word yet isn’t quite right there. I understand why the NIV translated it that way. It’s not a wrong translation. If you’re looking at the ESV, for example, it begins with a different word. It’s the exact same word that you see in the second part of that verse, it’s the word, therefore, think how that changes this text, you’re unwilling to trust me, the Lord says, Therefore I’m willing to be gracious to you. Because you’re unwilling to trust therefore I’m willing to be gracious to you, because you won’t wait on me, therefore I’ll wait for you, right? Like we won’t wait on Him, we want swift horses instead. So he waits. That’s the word that’s used when it says He longs for it. The word is wait. He continually longs for it and is unfailingly patient with us. What grace? What grace after the rebuke we just read? By the way, that waiting piece, it means, how many times do we cry out, how long O Lord, not always, but sometimes the Lord’s response to how long O Lord might just be whenever you’re ready, like I’m here, shoes, coat, keys in hand, you just tell me when you’re ready to go. I’m waiting on you. But what grace? And we know how true this is. You’ve got any doubt that the Lord longs to be gracious to us. Know this, in the fullness of time, God sent His Son to accomplish our salvation, to deliver us, not from Assyria or Babylon or Persia or Rome or whatever, but to deliver us from the worst power sin that is inside all of us. The God who defeated sin and death at the cross of Jesus, Christ is a god you can trust Blessed are all who wait for Him in repentance and rest and quietness and trust, the quietness and trust of a person who can say, He saved me, he saved me, he saved us, He will save us to the uttermost. He will remake the world. What should we hope in that we should hope in the Lord’s grace, the Lord’s grace. Our big idea, by the way, is nothing new here. It’s just pull those three things together. And we said already, the big idea is this to take away from today, trust in His power, listen to his instruction, rest in His grace. That’s how we approach politics, as the pure in heart. But just by way of application, as we wrap up here, picture with me. The person who is doing that, the person who is really resting waiting on God in quietness and trust. Do you see him there? Do you see her there, sitting in a favorite armchair? You know, Bibles open next to them, because they were just reading and meditating on it. What is that person doing, who is resting in the Lord? Praying, praying. Prayer is the surest mark of trusting in his power, resting in his grace, informed by his word, of course, we would hope And isn’t that what Paul tells us, passage that we had part of read for us this morning. Paul says this to Timothy, I urge then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving, be made for all people, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good and pleases God, our Savior, who wants all people to be saved, to come to a knowledge of the truth? I wonder is that the first passage you think of when you think of what it looks like to practice politics as the pure in heart, because it probably ought to be, must start with prayer. In fact, I would challenge you this week, especially if you are overly politically engaged, fast, fast from cable news, fast from social media, maybe just fast from the news as a whole, just completely disengaged from politics for a week, and do nothing but pray for the people in power, for human flourishing and for the space for all people to come to a knowledge of the truth. We can do something after we pray, but we shouldn’t do anything before we pray, and with our priorities quite clear, because, again, why? Why do we pray for kings and those in authority? We live quiet and peaceful lives so that the gospel of Christ Jesus can go forth, so that people can be saved, so that they can come to a knowledge of the truth. We’ve got that priority clear in our mind. We pray in quietness and trust and repentance and rest, and let me reassure you, because you’re like, I don’t know if I don’t know if I can check out of politics for a week. They need me. They need me now more than ever. First of all, they don’t but second of all, we, quote Francis Schaeffer, you need not fear that if you wait for God’s Spirit, you will not get as much done as if you charged a head in the flesh. After all, who can do the most? You or the God of heaven and earth. Let me say it again. Who can do the most your political party or the God of heaven and earth? Trust in His power, listen to his instruction, rest in His grace and prove it in prayer. Let’s pray to him now. Lord, we worship you as Lord and King, the sovereign over all nations in whose good and powerful hands all of history rests, that knowledge alone is enough for us to quiet our anxious hearts and to rest, to come to you in repentance and trust, knowing that therein lies our salvation, the God who is not only powerful enough to rule all nations, but loving enough to make a way from people from every nation to be saved in Christ. So Lord, we confess our sins. We confess the times we have not trusted in you, but have looked to our Egypt’s instead, we repent. We turn to you again. We put our hope in you, and we prove it by praying Lord. We pray for our nation, for the world. We pray for those who are in power above us, locally, the state level, the national level, wherever they are, Lord, we pray that You would give them wisdom, so that they would lead well, so that humanity can flourish, so that there is space for the gospel of Christ to go forth. Would you accomplish that by Your power and for your name’s sake? Amen.