Generosity in Grace
Generosity • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Intro: Kevin Ramsby
Have you ever experienced a devastation, pain, offense caused by another individual? Are you angry with someone right now that just made you mad by something they did or said?
Kevin Ramsby, a fellow AG minister did in 2009.
An intruder under the influence of crack cocaine broke into his home and stabbed him 37 times. The intruder left him dying in a pool of his own blood.
By God’s grace, Ramsby did survive the assault but struggled to forgive; and he fantasized about seeking vengeance. He struggled with thoughts of suicide because of the pain brought on by another individual.
There was a word embedded in Kevin’s heart—the word forgiveness.
On one hand he is dreaming and fixated on vengeance, but on the other hand he hears God’s love and forgiveness.
Paul talks about this in his letter to the Colossians. In chapter 3 of Colossians we read in verses 12-15:
12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.
14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.
15 And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.
As Christians or Christ followers, we are God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved.
Jesus was called the “chosen one in
4 You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor.
6 As the Scriptures say, “I am placing a cornerstone in Jerusalem, chosen for great honor, and anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.”
Jesus was called the “Holy One” in
69 We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.”
And oh how He was loved by His Father
17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”
And it is in Jesus that we Christians find our identity as God’s people.
We are called to be Christlike, we are called to be holy and set apart for His service--depends not on our goodness but on HIS grace; not on our lovableness but on HIS love.
So as people whose identity is in Christ we are called to be like Him. We are called to “put on”/clothe ourselves deep sensitivity to the needs and sorrows of others.
Paul is saying here you are to forgive others as Christ forgave you!
He is saying
1— It is very inappropriate for you who have experienced the joy and release of being forgiven by Christ to refuse to share that blessing to another; and
2—it is highly presumptuous to refuse to forgive one whom Christ Himself has forgiven.
Transition:
Jesus gave a very clear illustration of this in a parable He shared with His disciples. We are going to look at that parable this morning, its found in Matthew chapter 18.
Let me give you a bit of background information as you are turning to our passage.
Question: Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?
Become like a little child
The lost sheep —leaves the 99 to find the 1/Everyone is valued by God
Forgiveness — if someone sins against you go to them privately
Some things said during this conversation must have struck a chord with Peter—the parable we are looking at this morning was hinged on a question he asked: in vs 21
21 Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”
Peter thought he was being generous because the Rabbis had taught to forgive 3x
Jesus was no longer putting a limit on the number of times His followers are to forgive others. And it is at this point Jesus begins His parable — a story that tells a Gospel truth
23 “Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him.
24 In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars.
25 He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.
26 “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’
27 Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.
I. Vertical Dimension (Vs 23-27)
When doing some study on this passage , i was hit by the magnitude of this servant’s debt.
Servant — owed 10,000 talents
Talent was a weight of measurement roughly equivalent to
7,300 days’ wages for a manual laborer
Multiply 7,300 by 10,000 and you see the servant owed an astronomical sum of money—73 million days’ wages.
That’s 200,000 years
he could never repay
Cost—everything - he and his family were to be sold
Man begged for forgiveness/mercy
King was filled with pity— GK word literally “stirring of the intestines” forgave the debtOut of pity is the same word as is used for Jesus’ ‘compassion’ in 9:36,
The king FORGAVE the debt. The king did not defer the debt, he did not develop a palatable/doable payment plant;
He did not cut the debt in half
The king took the debt off of the servant by cancelling the debt and by doing so took the debt on himself.
Can you imagine the relief and joy this man felt? How light he must have felt having the anxiety of such a large debt he could never pay lifted from him?
That’s what Jesus did for us
24 He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed.
Wouldn’t you want to go find a relative or close friend and tell them the great news and allow them to share this joy with you and spread a little cheer their way?
II. Horizontal Dimension (vs 28-32)
The servant immediately went to a fellow servant who owed him money.
Fellow servant—owed 100 denarii.
Denarius was a day’s wage. So this is roughly equivalent to three month’s wages
He choked him and threw him in prison
This emphasized how ludicrous the impropriety of this servant’s behavior was to stand on his “rights”. An inward change had not happened.
Jesus was showing His disciples a second dimension to forgiveness—a horizontal one that extends to fellow believers.
He was calling His disciples to be generous with grace - He was calling them as He is calling us today to be like HIM
4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much,
You might be saying right now that its easy for God to forgive - He is God.
Every sin we commit is a debt to God; not like a debt to an equal, contracted by buying or borrowing, but to a superior
You might ask why do i need to forgive?
32 Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.
13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.
Because Christ forgave you AND
10 So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God.
6 Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?
7 Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us.
8 So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth.
malice and wickedness will silently grow and corrupt the entire fellowship.
Conclusion: Kevin Ramsby
Ramsby pleaded with God to change his heart.
Over time he did begin to experience a transformation. His anger subsided. He developed a relationship with the intruder who attempted to take his life.
He no longer holds resentment toward the man. He said,” I see a man in need of a savior—just like me.”