(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

This whole letter is about a personal matter. And the fact that it's preserved for us, it's in the Bible for us to read, that should tell you that God wants us to get the message in here down pat. Let's just be honest here, diplomacy is not something that comes natural to most people, especially yours truly. It's something that we have to work on. And you're saying, what are you talking about? What is diplomacy? Well, diplomacy, the definition is the act of basically bringing peace to a situation. It's an interpersonal skill. It's basically communicating to people or resolving tension between people in an effective way. I think they use the word sensitive in there to describe diplomacy. And sometimes people of our sort have an issue with sensitivity and being sensitive to people's emotions and feelings. And, you know, the reason why is because we, especially in these types of churches, deal with a lot of bad people. You know, we go out into the community and let's face it, we're engaging people all the time. You know, we're trying to get people saved. We're giving them the gospel. We're trying to disciple people. We have new people come in and out of this church all the time. And we're always communicating with people. And with that brings the worst of the worst, right? If you follow the apostles throughout the Bible, you follow these new church plants, there's always bad apples. And so with that, you can get in this mindset to where like you almost have like PTSD, you know, like you're just used to, you know, the devil's coming in, right? That's how it seemed for the first year and a half of this church. Just bad apple after bad apple after bad apple going out of the community. This community is not used to a Baptist church coming around to their door and trying to preach them the gospel. And it seems like the devils just wake up and they want to shoo us out of here, you know? And so you get into this mindset and then all of a sudden you find yourself like, wait a second, at least I do. I find myself getting used to that battle. And then I'll find myself in a situation where I need to be a diplomat. I need to resolve a situation. And I'm looking for like, all right, whose head am I going to tear off here? You know, how am I going to lash out at this person here? When in reality, I need to be diplomatic. I need to be able to diffuse that situation. And if you think about it, all of us do that, right? You parents out there, you're, I mean, think about it. You're doing diplomacy on a daily basis. You children, you're doing diplomacy on a daily basis. You're just doing it the wrong way with tears and manipulation and stuff like that, right? You're trying to manipulate these emotions and stuff with your families. But you know, you're already doing this, right? We just need to become aware of some things and learn this. Because like I said, it's a learned behavior. It's a learned skill that we need to have and that God expects us to have. And so the background with the book of Philemon is Philemon is a Colossian. And he's obviously a great Christian, a wealthy man who had servants at one point in his life. And one of the servants that is mentioned in Philemon is a guy by the name of Onesimus. And if you've followed us through the ACT series, you've probably heard that name Onesimus. So Philemon and Onesimus had a working contract, if you will. So the King James Bible says that Onesimus was Philemon's servant. The modern versions will say that he was his slave, right? And you'll hear sermons in these liberal churches like, Oh, you know, he was a slave to Philemon. And then they'll just really harp on that aspect that the Bible had slaves and, you know, it endorses slaves. I've heard that before in these liberal churches. You know, well, you know, the Bible does kind of, you know, endorse slavery and we need to be careful here because that's just how it was back then. They don't even realize this is talking about a non-Hebrew culture even at that. You know what I mean? But the point of the letter is, is Paul's like, Okay, Philemon, great Christian, got him saved, okay? And the Bible doesn't tell us this. It doesn't tell us why Onesimus ran, but obviously Onesimus flees and he goes to Rome for some reason. I think it's probably because Paul got Philemon saved, his whole household saved, got him trained up, and Onesimus might have been like, This is weak, dude. What is this stuff? You know, I'm not used to this, this Bible stuff, this church. And maybe that's why he fled to Rome and then ran into Paul. So Paul gets Onesimus saved while he's in prison in Rome. And then now there's a problem. Now we have a problem. Now we have two brothers in Christ who have serious beef between each other, because it doesn't tell us this, but more than likely Onesimus probably agreed to work for Philemon for a certain period of time, and it did not fulfill his obligation, did not fulfill his duty, which was punishable by the law of that time. And this is a very sensitive situation because you have a great Christian who's a fellow laborer, a fellow soldier in Onesimus, and the same thing applies to Philemon, and they're going to need to meet together, right? They're going to need to come together and fellowship and work together, because they're both under Paul's ministry, basically. I mean, Paul's over these guys, and he can tell, it doesn't say this, but it's implied that if they get together without some kind of mitigation, there's going to be fireworks. There's a fuse lit between these two. And so that's why Paul writes this letter to diffuse a possible situation that could go very, very badly. And there's nothing more awkward than being around two people that just start fighting, you know? Like sometimes I'll be in somebody's house fixing an appliance, and all of a sudden the husband and wife will just break out and start yelling and screaming at each other and fighting. This happens to me like every other week. And it is the most awkward situation because now I'm like, oh man, are these guys even going to pay for the work? Are the cops going to get called? I mean, these people are ruthless to each other out there, you know? And they're just screaming at each other. And I'm like, hey, so I want to just like knock you both out, but you know, I need to be the mature Christian here and find a way to diffuse the situation. And so I figured, you know, this is a good topic that we can all learn from and apply. So Philemon, look down at verse number eight. It says, Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee, that which is convenient. What Paul's telling Philemon here is he's saying, hey, as an apostle, right? He's like, as an apostle, basically, I originally thought, you know, I could just enjoin thee. That word means to instruct or urge or command. So Paul's saying initially, you know, I thought to just go down there and tell you, you need to receive Onesimus and forgive him his debts, right? But if you look at verse nine, he says, Yet for love's sake, I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds. And so he takes another approach, right? He doesn't want to just go to Philemon and say, hey, look, this is how it is. This is the way it's going to go down, right? He decides to basically make Philemon want to do Paul's will, right? You see how he does that? He says, I could do this. I could assert authority in this situation, but I want you out of your own heart, Philemon, to receive Onesimus, to forgive him and to mend that relationship. And that's powerful. That is not something that comes natural to most people, like I've been saying. Now, turn to Matthew chapter number five real quick. Matthew chapter number five. And then while you were turning, I'm going to read for you Proverbs 15 one, which says this, a soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. And remember, I told you at the beginning of the sermon, I was going to give you a disclaimer because you're like, you're going to talk about diplomacy after you kick all these people out of here. Well, here's the thing, right? Let's take soul winning, for example, right? What do we often do? We try to establish a relationship right off the bat, right? We try to be kind to people because we want to impose our will on them. We want them to hear the gospel, right? We want them to listen to the message that we have. So you're doing the act of a diplomat just right off the bat, you know? And what happens oftentimes out soul winning, especially around here? There's usually one person in an apartment complex that wants to really flip out, right? We had this in Ontario. Briley had this last Wednesday with that clown that called the health department on us. There's usually one guy that will come out and just, you can't reason with him, okay? So when you're listening to me preach this sermon, we need to understand that I'm not saying that you can reason with everybody. There are certain people who you cannot use diplomacy on. There are some people that are implacable, that cannot be placated, that cannot be told anything, okay? And in fact, we're going to take a look at 1 Samuel 25 today about a guy that follows in that category, okay? There are some people that you cannot mend their, you can't impose your will on. You cannot reason with them, especially these people that come out in these apartments that just want to lash out at us. They want to literally physically shove us off the property. And some of them, who's heard me say this? Get back inside, right? Everybody in here, get back inside, right? I say that to people. And I got to explain why I do that, okay? The reason why I do that, and you say, well, Proverbs 51 says a soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. That is true, and that's exactly why I do it, okay? Those are grievous words, and it stirs up anger. And you saw how that worked in Ontario, right? The guy in the wheelchair who was irate, cussing us out, flipping out on us. What do we tell him? Get back inside, right? Because we're walking away. If you notice, I'm usually walking away. I've already said, hey, we're done here. Your little area of responsibility that you pay rent for, we're not going to knock here anymore. We're done with that. I have the right to go to these other units, right? When they then pursue us and they pursue me, I tell them to get back inside, because I know that's going to stir them up. Those are grievous words. It causes them to get angry. But here's the thing, right? Here's the thing. Here's what that does. That sends a signal to the people around us who we want to talk to that that person's crazy. And when the police showed up, that guy was so irate that the neighbors were like, they already knew. They were like, this guy is just crazy. And the police were like, hey, that guy was really upset. He called saying, you guys did all sorts of stuff to him and said all sorts of things. And they totally took our side, because we were calm. We were collective. We just had it together. We just said, hey, here's what happened. He just didn't like the Bible and he started cussing us out. And they're all, yeah, yeah. We could tell by the way he called dispatch that he was flipped out. But he did that because we told him, I think it was brother Jeff, said, get back inside. You know? And we probably tell somebody that once a month. Maybe five times a month. I don't know. It's often, right? And you got to be careful, okay? Because that could send some people into a physical rage. But here's the thing. Like I said, I'm usually backing up and just walking away. And it's a method of self-defense. Get back inside. Because there are other people around who are listening to this. They can hear through the walls and they're hearing, wait. Oh, so the police do come. They're like, okay, well, hey, he told him to get away from him, right? You have that right. You have the right when somebody is coming at you to say, get back inside. I did this last week. A guy flipped out because he knocked on his door without a mask, right? And let me tell you, this situation was not about the mask. This guy hates God, right? He's a devil sodomite dog who hates God. And now he's got another avenue to attack God's people. And that is the mask, okay? And so these guys, you know, they're so willing. They're doing their thing. And this guy wants to charge them and pursue them. They have the right to say, get back inside. Now that does stir up anger. But here's the thing, when the other neighbors then talk with us, they're like, they can tell, okay, you're here with the Bible. You're here with a message. You've got it together. You got your thoughts together. You didn't flip out. All you did is say, get back inside. And that person lost it. And they can see the difference in the two people. So who do you think they're really going to trust? Who do you think they're going to listen to? And so by doing that, you also establish a connection with the people in the community. And that's exactly what we did that day in Ontario when we told that guy, hey, get back inside, right? It's kind of harsh, but man, it works. And we gave seven gospel presentations to people that all heard that encounter. Because they saw that and they're like, oh, okay. Well, these guys didn't start trouble. I'm going to listen to you. It works. It works 100%. Now, like I've been saying, the Bible doesn't use the word diplomacy, but it does use the word peacemaking. And again, it is not natural, especially for me. I've had jobs where most of my career I've spent arguing and fighting to get what I want done, done. When I worked for the government, it was, okay, we have to get this stuff done. You go to meetings and it's like, I need these resources. And they're on the table and I've got to be aggressive to get them. But now I'm in a different job where I can't do stuff like that. And it's hard. And God's teaching me, hey, you need to learn some other skills, boy, because you're not going to be a very good pastor if you're just arguing with everybody all over town. So like I said, I got no shame in telling on myself, right? I am not perfect whatsoever, but that's why we have the word of God. And look at verse number nine, Matthew chapter five, verse nine. This is why we need this sermon here. Jesus says this. He says, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. Don't ever let anybody tell you, oh, we'll see if you're really the child of God, then you'll automatically do this. Or, hey, you have to be a peacemaker in order to be saved. You have to follow all these things. No. What does John chapter one, verse 12 say? It says, but as many as received him to them gave you power to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on his name. So when you divide the word of God, you know what the answer is? It's God's standard and expectation that his children would be peacemakers. This is something that we have to learn. This is something that we have to go with that we have to implement in our lives. If you want to mature as a Christian, which I hope everybody in here does, this is a skill that we need to learn. And we need to decide in our hearts that we're going to practice this. Go to Ephesians chapter number six. I was soul winning one time in Tacoma with this guy. This guy was repenting your sins. But, you know, you got to do the best you can sometimes in some of these old churches. And he was literally talking to me about Matthew chapter five. And he's like, you know, I work with this guy and he says he's saved and it's all by believing and and stuff, but he's not really a peacemaker. And, you know, he's not really, you know, falling in line with Matthew chapter five. And so that's how I can tell he's not saved. Well, I'm like, no, that's how I can tell you you're not saved. Ephesians chapter six, look at verse number 19. So Paul's asking for prayer here about some things. And I want you to notice something here. Ephesians 6 19, it says, and for me, that utterance, right? So he's asking for prayer, and for me, that utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly and make known the mystery of the gospel. You know, I find that very encouraging. Paul, you know, just an awesome Christian person who's been through it all, who's got some of the best knowledge you could ever want, is asking people humbly in a culture that's not Jewish, that has nothing to do with that for prayer. He's asking these people, hey, pray for me that I may be continuously able to preach the gospel. Look at verse 20. He says, for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. So even the apostle Paul understands that the way that we speak and we interact with people and communicate with people requires prayer. If you want to take the way that you converse with other people and the relationships that you build, if you want to take all that stuff to the next level, you need to start with prayer, just like Paul did, okay? So diplomacy is a learned skill that we need God's help with. Yes, there are people that this comes naturally to, but again, I have to say this a thousand times, it is not natural to most people, okay? This is something that we have to learn, especially in these types of churches, because we do fight so much with people. We're out there fighting the battle, and it's so easy to just carry that on into every situation. But when we do that, we're going to wind up hurting some relationships. There will be some people that could be restored that maybe they won't be now because we were jerks and we were not careful with their needs. We didn't properly discern the situation, okay? Turn to, let's see here, I'm going to have you guys go to Matthew chapter number 17. Matthew chapter 17. So again, diplomacy is a learned skill that we need God's help with. Even the apostle Paul later in his ministry understood that. You know, the Bible says in Proverbs 18 that a brother offended is harder to be one than a strong city. So isn't it better that we just try not to offend that brother right off the bat? Because then, I mean, to mend that relationship is difficult. That's why we have the book of Philemon here, because Paul understood that. A brother to be one is difficult after he's been offended. It's a hard thing. And Paul knows, though Onesimus is now a different person, now that he's a great Christian, and though Philemon is a great Christian and a new person, when these two collide, you know, if that beef doesn't get settled, man, there's going to be some fireworks. That fuse is going to blow, right? And so he's like, I need to defuse the situation before it gets out of hand, okay? So Matthew chapter 17. Look at verse number 24. We're going to read about a problem here that Jesus and his disciples find themselves in, and obviously, you're going to see the wisdom that Jesus teaches the apostles here to solve or defuse a situation. Look at verse 24. It says, and when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? Okay? And so here's these temple guys like, hey, you guys aren't paying your little tribute money. You're not going to contribute anything to our cause, to our temple here. Look at verse 25. Now look what Peter says. Peter saith unto him, of strangers, Jesus saith unto him, then are the children free. And so here's the problem. Here's the problem. Peter, Jesus, you know, and the disciples, they're free. They, on paper, on policy, they don't have to pay this tribute money. Understand that. They do not have to pay this. And Jesus is telling Peter that. He's like, I want you to understand, you do not have to pay this. But look what happens. Look at verse 27. Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast and hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up, and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money that take and given to them for me and for thee. Why does Jesus decide to go ahead and have him pay the tribute money anyway? To avoid offense, right? Here's the one thing that you need to just remember about diplomacy. If you can remember this one thing, you won't have any trouble exercising this skill. And that is that diplomacy depends on mission over emotion. You see, Jesus understood the mission. The mission is twofold for the body of Christ. It's to edify and to evangelize, right? And he realizes, if I offend these people, then the whole community, they're not going to understand what's going on here. They don't understand that we're children, that we are free, that we don't have to pay this. And instead of going to every single door and just telling, hey, we don't have to pay taxes, we don't have to pay this tribute, he says, let's just not offend them because it's not that big of a deal. In the grand scheme of things, let's just pay the tribute so that the mission can get accomplished. So they pay the tribute. Nobody is offended, and they're able to go on, preach the gospel, and edify disciples and make apostles, and just go on and start churches and do great works for God. We see that's the key here. Whether it's in your secular part of your life or your Christian life, you need to understand that diplomacy depends on mission over emotion. You have to have that mindset. You have to have that mission at the priority, at the forefront of your mind if you want to be a good diplomat, right? Because look, we could spend all of our energy and time out in the community fighting masks. We could do that, right? But you know what? That's going to offend a lot of people because most people have their heads buried in the media, and they just believe whatever they're told, right? And so is that a wise choice that we go and do that? Even though we don't agree with it, even though it's silly, it's stupid, right? There are some situations where it would be better for you to just maybe comply with that if someone's salvation is on the line. You see what I'm saying? It's just an example. It's just an example because we need to realize that the mission needs to overpower our emotions. Because look, I'm sure Peter in here, you know, and the rest of the disciples were like, yeah, we don't have to pay it. We are free. We don't have to. But instead of letting that emotion control their behavior, they decide, you know what? We're going to realize, we're going to put the mission first. And you know what? Paying a little bit of tribute money is not going to compromise our mission. It's not going to compromise our objective. It's not going to stop us from the end goal. You see, as a diplomat, you need to have a clear understanding of what your goal is. Once you've got that and you realize that's my mission, I have to get there any way possible, then your priorities will fall in line and you will be able to diffuse situations. Just like Paul told Philemon, right? He said, I thought originally to just tell you this is how it's going to be. But for love's sake, but for love's sake, I want you to make that decision. And then he spends 25 verses telling him why, okay? Go back to Philemon. Back to Philemon. I have a perfect story for this. A couple of Red Hot preaching conferences ago, the movie A Dispensation of Heresy was playing on a Friday, right? And at Verity Baptist Church, you know, they're kind of like in an area like this, where they've got this building and there's like this furniture store. Is it still there, the furniture store, the guys that hate us? Yeah, so there's this furniture store, right? Well, lo and behold, Friday, mid-morning, what about 11 o'clock the movie starts, it's going on. And at Verity Baptist Church, they have an usher program, right? They have ushers, they have guys that stand out in the front, and sometimes they miss the whole service or they have to watch it on the monitor because they have to, you know, catch people that might be coming in late or newcomers and just kind of show them around and explain things, and also their job is to watch, okay? Well, this furniture company decided to get a big delivery, and keep in mind now, at this point, there's a lot of cars in the parking lot, and they've got no way to offload their goods that they just bought. And so, the head usher there, who, his name's Vlady, I'll just throw him on the bus here, but this guy here, I believe, I don't know if he learned this or if this just comes natural to him, but I mean, he displayed a great act of diplomacy this day, because this guy was so upset that he couldn't offload his furniture, they were gonna come in and interrupt the whole movie and stop it and make people move their cars and just cause havoc on the situation. This guy was irate, he was extremely upset. And so, what Vlady does is he says, hey, you know what, how about we just help you offload this stuff here, we'll take it into your little shed in your garage and help you out, and completely defuse the situation. You know why he did that? He did that because he understood the mission over emotion. There was a lot of emotions at stake there, because we already knew those people didn't like us, right? He wanted to watch the movie, he wanted to hear that stuff as well, but he understood it was more important for the mass group of people who flew there, who drove there, who attend there, to watch that movie. He understood that was the mission in his mind. And he said, I'm not gonna let my emotions crumple this mission. And so, what he did is, I'll sacrifice myself and I'll get my brothers here that are out here to help defuse the situation, move the goods into the shed, help you out, and the guy was, he was okay with that. Problem solved. You see, that's somebody who understood this concept, mission over emotions. That's all you have to really understand with a subject, and the rest of the stuff is gonna fall right into place for you, okay? So Philemon, look at verse number one, we're gonna move on here to the first point. It says, Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ and Timothy, our brother, unto Philemon, our dearly beloved and fellow laborer, and to our beloved Aphea and Archippus, our fellow soldier, into the church in thy house. It doesn't say this, but I believe Aphea is probably Philemon's wife, and I think Archippus is probably their son. I think that's safe to say, if you look up the word Aphea, it is a female name. And you can find these guys mentioned in Colossians chapter four as well. But look at verse three, he says, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Jump down to verse number seven. He says, for we have great joy and consolation in thy love because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by the brother. Notice how he opens up the letter to Philemon, the first few verses, with tact, right, with compliments. Even though Paul got Philemon saved, right, he's still reminding him of their relationship, right? He's complimenting him, you know, he's saying, hey, fellow laborer, hey, brother, right? Here's point number one, establishing rapport is essential for persuading people to act against their will. If you want somebody to think that's your idea and that your option is the best, you need to make sure you have rapport with that person. You know what rapport is? It's a connection, right? If you've been coming here on Sunday nights, we've talked extensively about this because Paul uses all the time. In fact, when he was on trial, you know, his little kangaroo trial, and he could perceive that there were Pharisees in the room and Sadducees, you know what he did? He immediately established a connection with those Pharisees because he was a Pharisee, and then he got them to fight each other and then was like, I'm out. It worked perfectly, right? You have to establish a connection with people if you want them to listen to you. Think about it, this is why we ask people questions at the door like, hey, oh, do you attend church, right? Because at least around here, most people do. Or if they say, let's take this for an example, let's say, oh, no, I don't go to church and say, yeah, you know what, there was a time in my life where I didn't go to church either, but, right, you're looking to make a connection with these people because people are more inclined to listen to somebody who they have even a mild connection with. Think about that. Are you 100% sure you're on your way to heaven today? No. You know what, there was a time in my life where I wasn't sure either, and somebody showed me these verses. Sometimes that worked. You know what, sometimes this stuff doesn't work, like I said. But I'll tell you what, it's never going to work if you don't establish some kind of relationship, some kind of rapport right off the bat. I don't know if I've, I think I've told the story here before. I was soul winning in Vancouver with an old IFB church, and this, I was with the pastor of this church, and we were on the second story of this apartment, and we were watching his son run around trying to go soul winning. And this guy, this little kid, he runs up to this lady, right, and he's like, hey, you. And she's like, yes. He's like, are you sure you're going to heaven someday? And she's like, uh. And he goes, why are you, aren't you? And she's like, I don't know. He's like, well, you're going to hell then. Look, you, you want to go to hell? Is that what you want? I was like bent over, man. I was done. I was laughing so hard. You know, obviously as a kid, it's kind of a cute story, and he goes on and reads her like, you know, four or five verses out of the Bible, and he forces her to pray. He's like, pray right now. Pray this right now, you know. And I was just realizing, you know, that's how some, and not here, but I've seen adults do stuff like that. I've seen adults who've even attended this church in the past knock on someone's door, say, hey, we're from, you know, Shield of Faith Baptist Church. You know, are you saved? Oh, no, huh? Oh, well, you know, you need to listen to what happens here. You're going straight to hell. You know, no, no discernment of emotion, no, no establishing rapport, nothing. And you know what happens every single time? Those people don't listen. Now, that lady listened to that little kid because it was a cute thing, you know, but most of us in here aren't that cute. Okay. And it doesn't work. You say, well, how in the world do we establish rapport? You know how you do it? By listening. By listening, not just to the words that are coming out of the person's mouth so you can double dutch yourself into the conversation, but listening to how they say it. Because sometimes people say things and they mean something else, right? So like you ask somebody, are you a hundred percent sure if you died today, you go to heaven? And they're like, yeah. Yep. Yeah. Do you really think they mean that? No, they don't. Do you go to church? Oh yeah, I do. Oh great. Which one? The journey. Right. Do you really think you go to the journey? Probably not. Or maybe they're, their, their, their mind's going through the phone book. Okay. They just want to get you away from them or they're waiting for you to hopefully have matured and learn how to use diplomacy and make a connection real quick so that they can let their guard down and be more inclined to listen to you. Right. So that is the first step in building rapport with somebody is listening to not only what they're saying, but how they are saying it. It's important. It's imperative for you to advance the gospel as an ambassador of Christ. Jessica was telling me a story about Ms. Patty. Sorry, Ms. Patty, I'm going to throw you under the bus too, but she's really good at doing this. You know, she'll knock on somebody's door and if they say like, Hey, you know, I'm a, I'm a Catholic. Yeah. I go to St. Mary's or I go to St. Mark's over here with, you know, the pedophile priests and all those guys. And we worship the guy with the fish hat. I don't say all that, but you know, she'll, she'll, she'll immediately do this where she'll say, you know, I go, I used to go to a Catholic church and I used to buy into that until somebody showed me these verses here about how to be saved and then it's a free gift and I don't have to work and I can rest. And so she's really good at making that connection with her past being a Catholic. Well, here's the thing. A lot of us have had our hand dipped in the Catholic church. I know I have, I grew up with my mom taking me there, you know, and if you haven't, you know, you can still find a way to build rapport with that person immediately. This isn't something like you have to show up to their door and be like, okay, I need to build rapport with you, so let's go have coffee. Can I come by later and take you to dinner and we'll eat some, you know, no, you don't have to do that. You can do this very quickly just by listening and finding something or at least making some kind of a connection with those people. You know, if you have a Catholic background, you can use that. But you know what we all have? We all have an unsaved background, don't we? And you know what? They're unsaved. So you've got something right off the bat that you can use to build rapport because it is imperative in order to be a diplomat. You have to have it. We all have to work on this, okay? So jump down to verse number 15. Jump down to verse number 15 and we'll move on here. So point number one, establishing rapport is essential for persuading people to act against their will. I mean, you think about it. A lot of times when you're at somebody's door, they don't want to listen to you initially. Who in here has got somebody saved who initially you could tell they didn't want to listen to you? All right, that proves right there that you have matured to the point that you're doing what I'm teaching. You just might not be aware of it. And guess what? You can do this in other areas of your life. Whether you need to diffuse two people fighting in front of you that's awkward, or you're back here and two people are arguing about white chili and red chili, turkey chili versus beef, you know, and you're feeling a little awkward, you know, you can employ that diplomacy and bring that situation to a standing halt. Look, you're going to need this next month, okay, for this chili cook-off. I'm telling you, it's gonna get nasty. All right, verse 15, look what he says here. He says, For perhaps, for perhaps he, Onesimus, for perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him forever, not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. Why does Paul paint this situation to Philemon like this? He says, perhaps, right? He's like, you know, maybe Onesimus departed so that you would grow fond of him and want him back, right? Here's point number two. Here's point number two. You need to be able to guide people to see your objective from a different angle, okay? If they're not getting what you're trying to sell them or say to them right off the bat, try a different angle like Paul's doing here, because that's what he's doing, right? He's already established in the beginning that he wants him to receive Onesimus. That is crystal clear. He's not dancing, he's not being deceptive here, right? He's clearly laid out what his objective is, but now as you get to the middle point of the letter, he's saying, hey, you know, did you perhaps even think that maybe the reason Onesimus left? Because God had his hand in it. God had his provision. Maybe he just needed to leave your house for a little while so that he could really let that seed set in and kind of think about some things and get this stuff in order and understand it and run into me so I could do a one-on-one with him and explain him the gospel. I mean, don't you think it's kind of weird? Philemon gets saved, Onesimus dips out, and what are the chances that he would run into Paul who's in prison in Rome? What are the odds of that? And Paul's, you know, just bringing that situation up to Philemon. He's like, you know, you need to think about this. And that's why I said at the beginning, you need to have a clear understanding of what your goal is in whatever situation it is that you find yourself trying to be a diplomat. You need to make sure you understand very clearly what your goals are and what your mission is, because then when you have that clear understanding, you can then paint it in different angles to teach someone what you really mean. And you can show them the value in what you're trying to give them. And that's exactly what Paul is doing here. So we need to learn how to guide people to our objective by helping them see the situation from different angles. Okay, now turn to 1 Samuel chapter number 25. 1 Samuel chapter 25. And through this entire letter, I mean, Paul is using just the best display of tact possible. I mean, he's just, you know, he's not being rough around the edges here. And like I said, there's a time and a place for all of that. You know, there's a time and a place to be harsh to people. There's a time and a place for war. There's a time and a place for peace. And hopefully we find ourselves, you know, trying to make peace more often than war. But, you know, with us approaching the end, it doesn't seem like that's going to be the case very long. So what we're going to do now is we're going to take a look at this point here, right? We need to learn how to guide people to see our objective from a different angle here. So what we're going to do is we're going to read this quick story here about, again, three characters. So we've got David, right? Before he becomes king, we've got David and we've got a guy, a husband and wife team. So the wife's name is Abigail and the husband's name is Nabal. And he is, Nabal is a, what the Bible says, a churlish person. He's a very evil, a very wicked person. He's somebody who you cannot reason with. You couldn't go up to Nabal and try to tell him anything. You can't tell him how to work. You can't give him advice because he's just not going to listen to you. He's like those guys that we run into at these apartments or in these neighborhoods, or that like to call and just want to fight with us, right? There's no dealing with him. But Abigail, the Bible says that she's of a beautiful countenance and she's of good understanding. And she displays the art of diplomacy here very well. And she, so the situation here is David and his men are taking care of Nabal's sheep and his stuff out in the wilderness, right? They come across all this stuff and they're like, oh, there's no, you know, no authority structure here. So they go in, they start taking care of the sheep. They start helping out the shepherds. They start protecting them. You know, they're helping Nabal take care of his stuff, right? And then so David, you know, being on the run and stuff like he always was, is asking for a little bit of provision. He's asking for a little bit of help. And so he sends his guys to Nabal and says, hey, you know, we've, we haven't harmed any of your stuff. We've taken care of it. In fact, we've profited you. We've given you everything back to you in its right order, but better, right? We've been a good steward with your stuff. You know, we're just asking for a little bit of food and, you know, and some provisions. And Nabal's like, look, you probably broke away from your master. You're an idiot. Get out of here. I don't even know who you are, right? Which was a huge insult because everybody knew who David was at that time. I mean, he'd already slayed Goliath. He had already killed his 10,000s. You know, I mean, this guy's steamrolling people. He's behaving himself wisely. But in this situation here, when he hears that, he doesn't behave himself wisely. He decides, oh, that's how it is, huh? Right? And he gets like how we all get sometimes and says, let's take up swords and go kill these guys. And so David determines in his heart, you know what? I'm going to kill everybody. And he means everybody, including Abigail. He was going to, he was, he had his mind set. Okay, that's how it's going to be. I'm going to kill everyone, all your whole household. But Abigail, being of a good understanding and of a beautiful countenance, displays diplomacy. She establishes a connection with him. Maybe too much of a connection if you know the full story, because she winds up becoming his wife later on. But that's a different sermon, okay? But she also helps, I want to show you how she helps David see the benefit in what she's trying to do. She now has a mission, and that mission is to stop him from killing her husband and from killing her whole household, okay? And she does this very beautifully. I think it's great. Let's see, let's start here in verse number 21. It says, Now David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him. And he hath requited me evil for good. So he was wronged, just like Philemon. Philemon was wronged when Onesimus left. He shouldn't have done that. That was a breach of contract. That was wrong. Verse 22, So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave all that pertain unto him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall. So he's going to kill all the guys. He's going to kill everybody, right? And, you know, she could have wound up being caught in the crossfire. She could have wound up dying as well. Verse 23, And when Abigail saw David, she hasted and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me, let this iniquity be, and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid. What is she doing here? She's establishing that connection. She's showing David that she's sincere, that she has a plan, and she wants him to listen to her objective now. She wants her, or she wants him to listen to what she has, her mission, her goals, right? That's why she's doing that. It's very similar to how Paul opens up the letter to Philemon, right? By maintaining that rapport that he once built with him. You see, this is an ongoing thing. Don't just think because somebody is your friend today, you know, that, you know, that they're, they're just going to automatically always listen to you when there's a situation. You need to sometimes remind them of that connection that you once had, and that's exactly what she is doing here. Verse 25, let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him, but I thine handmaids are not the young men of my lord whom thou didst send. So she is saying, I agree with you, David, this guy is evil. He's a devil. He's a son of Belial. He cannot be reasoned with. He's a monster. Verse 26, now therefore my lord, as the lord liveth, as thy soul liveth, seeing the lord hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood and from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies and they that seek evil to my lord be as Nabal. Do you see what she just did there? She's causing David to look at the situation from a different angle, right? Now therefore my lord, as the lord, capital L-O-R-D, as god liveth, and as thy soul liveth, she says this, seeing the lord god, right, the lord hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood. She's basically saying, hey, don't you think it's kind of providential that I am here now bowing before you and making a request? She's basically telling him, hey, I could have, you know, it's possible that I could have been off working somewhere or that I wouldn't have heard your plans or that I wouldn't have been around to see you guys coming to do harm. Don't you think god's in this? That's what she's saying. Don't you, can't you see how god's working in the situation? She's getting him to think about her vision maybe in a different way instead of just saying don't kill us, don't kill us, don't kill us, right? Why doesn't she do that? Because she understands that diplomacy has to be used because this is a situation with a big fuse, right? I mean the situation with Philemon and Onesimus was bad, but this is really bad because David's hell-bent on going to kill these guys and he's done it a million times and he's got no problems with it. I mean he'd go kill a bunch of people and eat a Big Mac. It's nothing to him, you know. He's not a psychopath, he's a warrior. It's just the way he is, right? But she understanding that, understanding his intent says, no, you need to think about how god's working in this right now. He's allowed me to be here to stop you. Think about that. Look, jump down to verse 29. She says this, yet a man has risen to pursue thee and to seek thy soul but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the lord thy god and the souls of thine enemies them shall he sling out as out of the middle of a sling. She's telling David, hey, the Lord God, he could take care of them all. He can avenge you. He can settle the situation. You don't have to do this. Verse 30, and it shall come to pass when the Lord shall have done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning me and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel. So she has an understanding of God's plans for David. Think about that, right? And she's telling him, hey, look, this isn't a coincidence. I didn't just happen to be here while you're going to do this harm to my household. Look at verse 31. That this shall be no grief unto thee nor offensive heart unto my lord either that thou has shed blood causeless or that my lord hath avenged himself but when the Lord shall have dealt well with my lord then remember thine handmaid. And so she has another request because now she understands, okay, if David doesn't kill him, somebody's going to because the guy is evil. He's bringing it upon himself. She realizes, you know, someday God's just going to strike my husband dead or he's going to allow the enemy to come in and just take everything he has because he has no mercy for people. He's got no remorse. What he has reaped, he's going to sow. She understands that very clearly. So verse 32, and David said to Abigail, blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent thee this day to meet me. So he buys it. He realized, remember, she pitches that to him. She's like, don't you realize that God sent me here? This isn't an accident. And he says he agrees with it. But how would this have played out if she was like, don't kill us, please don't kill us. Just turn around and go and try to like just aggressively talk him away. It might not have worked because he's already aggressive. She's got to bring his emotions down here, right? And she's not so full of pride, you know, to where she's, you know, coming at him like that. She bows herself before him, you know, and basically gives him respect even though he's not king yet, you know, and humbles herself. And that's hard to do. That is hard to do, right? Because we like to be on top. We like to be the dude in charge of the woman, you know, in charge of whatever, right? We like that. It is hard to eat humble pie. But you know what? When you understand mission over emotion, you'll do what's necessary to get your objective done so that you can accomplish that mission. That's exactly what she does. She's like, I'm not going to let my emotions, I don't have to bow to you. Technically, just like Jesus and Peter and the disciples, they didn't have to pay the tribute money because they're children of the king. They decided, let's put our emotions aside and let's get the job done. And it works out perfectly. Verse 33, and blessed be thy advice and blessed be thou which has kept me this day from coming to shed blood and from avenging myself with mine own hand. Go back to Philemon. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. It is God's standard and his expectation that we learn how to be peacemakers. Do you see how Abigail was blessed here because she learned throughout her life how to be a peacemaker? It's the same thing for us. You will be blessed by it. You will be blessed by that. Philemon, look at verse number 17 and we will move on here. And so again, the point is learning your mission to the point to where you can paint that for somebody to really see it so that they could see the value in it, right? She explains her goals and what she wants to David in a way that showed him in his mind the value of it. He's like, you know what? You are right. God could avenge it. And we didn't read the rest of the story, but basically, you know, when Nabal wakes up from his drunken state, he hears that Abigail gave David and his man provision and his heart basically died within him. And then he died 10 days later of a heart attack, which should tell you something, right? Allowing bitterness and envy and all these things that we talk about to fester in you, it causes health problems. Okay. And also, you know, just because you hear somebody dying of a heart attack, it's not always natural. Sometimes God does give people heart attacks just to kill them. You can stop your heart like that. All right. So let's move on here. Let's look at verse number 17 now. Finally, I'm in verse 17. If thou count me, therefore a partner, receive him as my self. You see how he's doing this rapport thing and this connection throughout the entire letter. You see that? How he displays tack through the entire letter, you know, putting him above himself, right? If you count me, therefore a partner. Paul could have said, look, I'm an apostle. I was chosen by Jesus Christ. You're going to do what I say. Could have, but it's not wise because he understands mission over emotion, right? He's not going to let the emotion of his position dictate what happens, dictate the mission, right? He's going to say, you know what? I'm going to humble myself here so that I can get my point across to you and resolve the situation in love because that is his goal. Okay. So he says, if thou count me, therefore a partner, receive him as my self. Verse 18, if he hath wronged thee, or, oh, with the ought, put that on mine account. There's another thing that we need to realize. We need to take any kind of responsibility that we can when we're trying to be diplomatic. You know, an example in soul winning would be, you know, I know it's late. You know, I know, I know people, most people are eating dinner right now, but if you just have a few minutes and you listen to me, what I have to say would benefit you, change your life, you know, it's very important. Something to that effect here. That's what Paul's doing. He's saying, hey, if Onesimus, if he took anything with him when he left you, or if he still owes you like two years worth of work, you know, he's basically saying, hey, you know, sum that up to money and I'll find a way to pay you. Put that on mine account. I accept responsibility. Verse 19, I, Paul, have written it with mine own hand. I will repay it, albeit I do not say to thee how thou o'est done to me, even I known self besides. You got to love Paul here, right? He's not going to let this go because he's like, I'm not going to insert my apostleship authority over you, right? But I'm not going to use the fact that I got you saved in this either, right? But he still mentions it. See how he kind of brings that up. He's like, I, he's like, hey, look, whatever Onesimus, you know, took from you, look, I'll pay for it. And then he's basically insinuating, you owe me a bigger debt than what Onesimus owes you, right? He's like, I, Paul, have written it with my own hand. I will repay it, albeit I do not say to thee how thou owes me, even I known self besides. Why does finally even owe himself to Paul? Because Paul got him saved, which is another slap in the face to everybody. You don't get anybody saved. Well, that's not what Paul said over and over and over and over again in the Bible, is it? But you got to, you got to laugh when you read that though. I mean, Paul's just like, Hey, I'm not going to say, I'm not even gonna bring up the fact that you owe me your eternal destination. Paul's hilarious, man. Look at verse 20. He says, yay, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord, refresh my bowels in the Lord. Having confidence in thy obedience, I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou will also do more than I say. Do you see what he's doing here? What is he doing? He's remind, he's, he's basically telling him how it's going to be and selling it to him in a way that he's like, yeah, you're right. This is great. Verse 22, but with all prepare me also a lodging for, I trust that through your prayers, I shall be given unto you. And we talked about this last Sunday. You know, people say, well, Paul got his head lopped off in Rome, but it seems to indicate here that he expects to go visit Colossae or Colossae again to even see Philemon. Now these verses that we just read, right? If you count me a partner, he says, right? Hey, don't forget. I got you saved, but I'm not going to bring it up. Hey, if he owes you anything, just charge it to me. Right? Just give it to me. And he says, I have confidence in thee, you know, that you're going to do more than I even request. Here's point number three, remain, remain assertive with your objective. Remain assertive with your objective. You say, well, what in the world are you talking about? Here's the thing. Most people today, they seriously lack assertiveness. I mean, just go to work. Just go talk to people. They lack assertiveness. This is why you'll knock on someone's door. You can totally tell. They don't want to hear a word you're saying, but they'll listen to the entire gospel presentation because they lack assertiveness. They don't have the fortitude to say, you know what? I don't want to listen to this. I want to go to hell. Or I just don't have time. I don't care. Whatever the case is, they don't have that assertiveness. Most people don't have that because of the way our culture is being bred through the media and through TV and movies and music and all these things. We're being bred to be a bunch of sissies. All of us. A bunch of weak-sauce, lazy people. That's what our society wants. But we need to remain assertive with our goals. This is why we don't allow people to run us off apartment complexes. Compromise will jeopardize your mission completion. And that's why I say it is tempting in these situations to give up more than you should. It is. It's tempting when somebody's going like irate at one of these apartment complexes. It's tempting to just want to leave the whole thing, leave the whole area. But that compromises our mission. So we use diplomacy. And you know what? Sometimes people come out and they're seemingly mad, and we can talk them down. A lot of you guys have done this. I've heard you. You pull out the definition of soliciting. You're like, hey, look, I understand it's frustrating to talk to religious people out the door, but not everybody feels that way. And honestly, we're not selling anything. I've heard some of you guys do that before. And what happens? They're like, all right, well, just don't leave the trash everywhere because they got to go pick it up. You've diffused these situations before. You guys know how to do this. You just didn't know you were doing it. And just remember that compromise will jeopardize completion every single time. Our goal is to remain assertive with what we need to do and to not let people take too much. This is why, as your parents, when your kids are, they're pouring it on thick. They're crying because they want this or they want that. And they're really trying to manipulate you. You need to put that mission over those emotions because they know how to tug on your heartstrings, don't they? They know how to tug on those and get what they want. But you need to realize, hey, it's not time for you to eat that right now. It's not good for you. You need to realize, as a parent, that your mission is to raise children that are godly, that are assertive, that know what they want and can work hard, and that realize that they don't live in a world that's going to feed them by a silver spoon. That's all made up. That's Hollywood stuff. You know, these people, these billionaires and stuff that are out there, you know, that have the good life and they're always, you know, throwing their ads on YouTube in between your sermons and stuff, you know, they've stomped on a lot of people to get where they're at. You need to realize that. They've stomped on a lot of people and have hurt a lot of people and have lied and in some cases murdered a lot of people to get to where they're at. But yet they want to sit there and portray this culture to you. Oh, you can have just whatever you want, you know, if you just do this and do that. And that's not true. And as parents, we need to realize that. We need to realize that we need to work hard. We need to raise these children to work hard and to realize that things aren't fair. But yet we still have a mission. We still have objectives. We still have goals. And we need to be able to sacrifice some things in order to complete all of that mission. All of it. 100% of that mission. And you say, well, how do you do that? Again, like I've been saying, you do that by clearly understanding what it is you want to do and remaining assertive, remaining vigilant, remaining disciplined, not compromising. Think about it. Compromise is what gets people out the door. This is why some people who aren't bad, they're just, they're just back sitting, they just can't get it right. And they just don't come back. You know why? It's because of compromise. They know what the mission is. They've got an idea of what it is, but they never decided to actually hunker down and own it. And when the emotions came and the world came and knocked on the door, the world starts talking with them, it just pulls them away because they don't want to hurt their family. They don't want to hurt their friends that they had before. You see, part of being a good diplomat sometimes is cutting people off that are worthless in your life. And sometimes that might be your own blood family. Right. So I'll tell you a quick story about this point here. Jessica and her sister hate each other, okay. Well, she doesn't hate her sister, but her sister indicates that she hates her. These guys have been fighting most of our married life. Well, there was a situation, there's been two situations, where they've been at home with mom, right. They both love mom. Mom's great. You guys have met her. She's been here before. Well, there's a little argument ensues between them. You get Jessica and her sister in a room, something's going to happen, just the way it is, okay. And now her mom's finding herself in the role of a diplomat, having to diffuse the situation. Well, there was this one time where they were in the, were you guys in the kitchen or something, and her sister decides to slap her in the face. You know, Jessica being the older sister, and she can be pretty feisty, you know, and she knows how to scrap because she lives with me. She could easily just mop her sister up if she wanted to. Now think about this. Somebody slapped you in the face, what do you think, how do you think your emotions are going to be? They're going to be up there, right. But Jessica in her mind knows what the mission is, and the mission is, I'm here to visit my mom. I don't want to put her in that position. I don't want to hurt my mom, right. So your sister, she doesn't care. She's like, I'll just do whatever I want. I need to get my point across. I'm gonna do it any way that I can, even through physical violence. So she slaps Jessica across the face. Instead of Jessica physically retaliating against her in that moment, she decides to just leave. And the reason why she did that and didn't lash out back at her, because that would have hurt her mom 10 times more than just leaving. She understood mission over emotion. That's maturity. That's maturity that I like to say that I have to you guys, but I don't always have it. It depends on how much sleep I got the night before. And I'm just kidding, you know. Depends on the situation, all right. But anyways, topic for another day. Mission over emotion. That is the mindset that you have got to develop. If you can just develop that mindset that says, I'm going to get this objective completed no matter what, in a way that we don't offend people, in a way that doesn't compromise it. Because if she would have retaliated physically in that situation, it would have compromised her mission of keeping her mom happy, right. And because she left, because she didn't retaliate, it was one slap. It was one thing. And you know, she was able to diffuse that. As strange as that sounds, it worked out. So how in the world can you diffuse a situation after you just got slapped? Well, it didn't turn into a full-out brawl, where they're rolling around on the floor, pulling hair, you know, like you see on WorldStar or Street Beefs or something like that, right. Street Beefs. Is that what it is, Street Beefs? Right, we're trying to avoid these Street Beef situations, okay. That's what this is all about. And when you understand your mission needs to take priority over your emotions, it will fall into place for you. Say, what were those three points again? I failed at being a diplomat this week because I couldn't remember those. It's okay. Those all come into play and more that we didn't even cover. If you could just remember, mission over emotion. Your act of diplomacy depends on your mentality regarding the mission over emotion. So that is it. Let's pray. Thank you so much, Lord, for your word.