Our lives are full of relationships. Maybe one of your relationships is going through a rough time right now. Or maybe you simply want to connect more deeply with those around you. This morning I want specifically to look at how the gospel, how the work of the Spirit through Christ in us, can deepen and transform our relationships this summer and throughout our lives, even the most difficult and seemingly hopeless ones. To do that we are going to tackle an entire book of the Bible this morning together, the book of Philemon. The apostle Paul wrote the letter of Philemon from a prison cell most likely in Rome. But if Paul is in prison, how was he able to get this letter to Philemon and the church that met in their home? It turns out that the identity of the letter carrier would be the first big test in the friendship between Paul and Philemon. Let’s see what God’s Word has to say about our relationships.

We are in the middle of a series looking at how to have a truly restful and purposeful summer. Last week we looked at all the anxiety we feel around money, and the same truths about how we spend our money apply to how we spend our time. Our Father doesn’t ask us to give so He can have more of our money, but so that He can have more of us, more of our heart. As we look at what the Bible has to say about rest, we see God’s same heart. God Himself doesn’t need to rest, but He chooses to set the example of rest in His creation. Long before God mandates rest, He models rest. Looking at Genesis 2, God doesn’t need to rest and He certainly needs neither our work nor our rest; and yet, He puts the command for us to rest into His moral law. If God doesn’t need rest, what does our He actually want with our rest?

Summer is a chance for a new rhythm, a chance to switch up how we will recreate; a time for vacations perhaps. But often in the suburbs we become activity-holics or leisure-holics who fill the summer up with so much stuff that it becomes draining, purposeless and the opposite of restful. And then we hit August more exhausted than ever and wonder where our summer went. So, for the next three Sundays we will look at a couple of ways to make our summer different than the suburban norm; to have a summer full of purpose, rest and connection in Christ. This morning we will look at what the Bible has to say about one of the things that causes us the most anxiety and personal drain over the summer: our money. Money can be hard and awkward to talk about in churches, but as the church we must constantly adjust our attitudes about money from ungodly to godly because money is one of the things that Jesus Himself spoke most often about during His earthly ministry. So let’s look at one of Jesus’ most well known passages on money in Luke 12.