Notes from a prison sermon!

Philemon – Mending Broken Relationships
Example of mending fractured relationships-Prisoners lives!

Point # 1 Prisoner:
V1= Paul calls himself a prisoner of Christ Jesus. What does it mean to be a prisoner of Christ Jesus?

Point # 2 = Philemon’s Godly character:
V5= faith in the Lord Jesus, not faith that God is going to do what we want, but faith in Jesus.
V5= love for all the saints. Even your enemies from the streets.
V6= active in sharing your faith.

A verse with a promise: If you share your faith, you will have a fuller understanding of Christ. Are you sharing your faith?

V9= The appeal on the basis of LOVE! Why is love so important in mending a relationship?

Point # 3 = Changes in Onesimus: 1-was useless, now useful; 2- was selfish, now selfless (helpful in the ministry); 3- was a slave to Philemon, now a brother in Christ.

PUT your self in Onesimus’s place, what would it take for you to return to Philemon? A better question may be, what do you have to do, right now, to mend a fractured relationship? Does it take time to restore relationships? How long does it take to restore trust?

What will it require of Philemon to do what Paul asks? What does it require of you to do what God says we should do in the Bible?

Pray brother pray!

Comments and prayer requests that we heard this week from the 53 prisoners we saw:

I would like you to pray for my wife and my 3 children who are suffering a lot.

Please pray for my daughter that she would have a good future.

I’ve never had a Bible in my hands and I need your help.

I would like to give myself to God. I don’t know anything about God, but I want Him to open my mind so that I could be His servant.


I just got over shingles and know I have to learn to trust God and not worry.

Please pray for my family…that our Lord would fill them with His grace, but most important, His love.

I don’t know where I would be if the Lord had not forgiven me.

Pray for inmate C. who is anorexic / bulimic.

I need patience and I want to follow God, no matter what.


I praise God for being so good to me and answering my prayer to go to a minimum security facility.

Please pray for sufficient finances for my wife and children.

Pray for inmates J. and G. who have cancer.

Pray that I will be able to find a good church and a job when I am released.

Pray for God’s will in my appeal.

I am sad because my cousin died in Puerto Rico and I can’t be with my family now.

I love my new bilingual Bible that I use for Bible study.

Pray that I could find my way back to God, after all I’ve been through and done.

We run out of words to explain it!

As we enter class today, one man asks if he could sing a song and another asks if he could share a short message of encouragement. When the first brother finished, a second asked if he could sing Psalm 121. Picture it; this man with tattoos all over his body singing a Psalm from the Bible! As the title says, we run out of words to explain what God is doing. We continue to be spectators, watching what God is doing! All glory and praise to Him!