09.17.2023 - Judged By Our Own Measure

Scripture: Matthew 18 21-35

Matthew 18:21–35 NIV

21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” 22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. 29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ 30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Order of Service:

Announcements

Kid’s Time

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Judged by Our Own Measure

Fountains

Fountains are fascinating works of human ingenuity. Based on the natural springs God created in our world, fountains attract and nurture life around them wherever we find them. It doesn’t matter how big or small they are. The gift of flowing water —living water, is a source of life shared with everything around it.

If we lived in one of those coastal cities with fountains along the waterways, we might eventually take them for granted. Their bubbling joy might fade into the background and become part of our expectations. Or, in some places with cold winter months, they might be turned off and cease flowing until the freezing weather ceases in the spring. I’ve always thought those silent fountains looked sad, like somber stone and metal structures waiting for new life. However, frozen pipes lead to broken fountains, so regular care is essential for us to enjoy their beauty when operational.

Among all of creation, humankind was made in God’s image. You and I are made to portray, reflect, and represent that creative goodness that is God in a way that inspires and nurtures life around us. When we failed to live up to the task, God sent Jesus, the one Who truly bore His image, to show and empower us to follow Him and His example. Jesus accomplished that by showing and giving us grace.

Like fountains of living water, God desires us to share the grace He gives us with others.

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Forgiveness

Grace and forgiveness are almost precisely the same thing. Without forgiveness, there is no grace. And forgiveness is not something God takes lightly. Most of the Bible is dedicated to the topics of God establishing life, us messing it up, and God offering us forgiveness and a chance to start over again. In the Old Testament Law, there was no forgiveness offered without repentance. All the sacrifices were made for sins that a person had repented (often repaid) or for unintentional or unknown sins. To sin on purpose was an act of defiance against God and was not tolerated. That is important to bear in mind for our scripture today.

The trouble with repentance is that sometimes it doesn’t last. So, in this discussion the disciples had with Jesus about dealing with sin among the people of God, Peter asked,

“Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Surely, there is a point where we realize the sinner is only pretending to repent for a day or two, and the smart thing to do is to cut them off. Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me. Knowing Jesus, Peter reached for something more significant than three strikes, and you’re out. Seven times sounds like a nice, generous, and complete Jewish number. Peter’s question is not really about a number. It is about figuring out how much wrongdoing you had to put up with (or that you could get away with) before you were kicked out of the Jesus movement. After all, there was important work to do, and if they spent all their time trying to take care of their people, keeping them on the straight and narrow, there would be no time or energy left for the rest of the world that needed to experience Jesus too.

We are taught in this world, and many of us believe that at some point, you have to stop forgiving bad behavior and start punishing it so that everyone else gets scared into good behavior. Cut a thief’s hands off, and he won’t steal again. Crucify him, and his friends and family won’t steal again either. Peter thought everyone deserved a second chance, a third chance, all the way up to a seventh time before they needed to be taught a lesson, and he was more generous than the rest of the world with this thinking.

Jesus responded with a number and a parable. The Bible translators say the number is either 77 or seven times seventy, and it is difficult to tell which it was. As far as numbers go, there is a big difference between 77 and 490, but again, this lesson is about something other than the numbers. Both are a lot more than Peter’s suggestion of seven times.

The parable further emphasizes that this is not about how many times we forgive. It is about how much forgiveness is required each time. The first servant could not repay his enormous debt to the king, even if he, his family, and everything they owned were sold. When the king forgave that debt, the ungrateful servant used his newfound freedom to exact punishment on a fellow servant whose debt was nothing compared to what the first servant had forgiven.

Jesus, in His mighty way of addressing the heart of the matter, answered Peter’s question with a number that was more than ten times the generosity Peter suggested and then turned the question on its head with this parable that asks the question back to Peter,

“How many times should God forgive you?”

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Forgiveness over time

That is a question Jesus asks us all, and, like the question, “Who do you say that I am?” we all must answer. So, what do you think?

How many times should God forgive you?

Many of us go straight to the answer: every time. Let’s not put a number on it. Let’s say we want God to forgive us every time we sin. This seems like a very Christian answer, especially when we apply it to others. That is the hard part, of course, and the reason for this entire scripture passage today. Jesus teaches that we are judged by our own measure. The way we judge others is the way God will judge us. But if everyone is forgiven every time they sin, without exception, that means there is no justice. Wrongs would always go unpunished, including the ones done to us. And the wrongs we do to others.

As a young teenager and brand-new Christian, I struggled with guilt. Part of what sent me to Christ in the first place was realizing how much my sin affected the lives of others around me. My idea that I could live my own life and do what I wanted, and it would not affect anyone else, was shattered. I started to see that my unintentional sins harmed others who did not deserve the chaos from my actions. So, if Jesus asked me as a youth, “How many times should He forgive me?” I would have initially said: “Zero.” I was a sinner. Adam and Eve might have brought sin into the world, but I kept piling on more, and I felt like the world would be a better place without sinners like me.

A youth pastor pulled me aside, saw my struggle, and explained that this forgiveness business is not about what I want. It is about what God wants. Even when I don’t want to be forgiven, Jesus wants me to be forgiven. As bad as I can get, as any of us can get, Jesus still wants to be with us more than we deserve and knows we cannot survive the punishment. For me, accepting forgiveness was not about feeling bad for being bad. It was about giving up what I thought God deserved and trusting that He knew better.

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The Flow of Forgiveness

I read a devotional about ten years ago during Lent about a man who spent those 40 days on a silent retreat. Near the end of his time, walking through a monastery garden, he came across a small spot of blood in the snow. It made him wonder how many drops of blood Jesus had to give to cover his sins. It was a strange question, and it stuck with me. We sing and shout about how the blood of Jesus washes away our sins, but it gets ridiculous when we start trying to make it into a math formula. Heaven’s math is not our math. God’s ways are not our ways. How much does it take for Jesus to forgive our sins? As much as it takes. If we are willing to receive it, He will pay the way, no matter the cost.

Where is the justice? I think justice comes in the end when we live for eternity with a God who loves us without limit in the full knowledge that we do not deserve a single day there.

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We cannot expect to hold all that grace ourselves. It is made to flow through us like a fountain. When it does, it brings new life in and through and all around us.

But the water stops when the forgiveness stops flowing through us when we keep it all to ourselves and refuse to pass it on to those who have sinned against us. After a few weeks, the dirt and leaves begin to plug up the plumbing. The water becomes dirty, the dry places begin to rust and decay, and the fountain that could have made us clean and refreshed makes us dirtier just to be near it. That is the consequence that you and I face when we stop sharing the grace we receive from God. Instead of fountains of grace, we become cesspools of sin. When we refuse to forgive, we let the sin done against us also turn us into sinners. The only way to be saved from that is to go back to those plugged places of unforgiveness and do the hard work of forgiving those people for things we refuse to let go of.

I know God has put someone or something on your mind today. What do you need to do today to make a step toward forgiving them? God loves you more than you can stand and will make you a fountain of grace. All you need to do is follow where He leads and share what He gives you. It’s your choice. Will you follow Jesus and let Him grow into a fountain of life or sink into a cesspool of sin and unforgiveness? Repent, believe, and forgive.