The Forgiving Heart
Notes
Transcript
Today we pick back up in our study of Matthew 18 and what Jesus is teaching us about forgiveness. Last time we covered the pattern for church discipline, we talked about seeking out our brother or sister in Christ with a hope of restoration, with a desire to see them come to repentance. Today we get into the part about forgiving those who offend us, or sin against us. To teach the disciples what forgiving from the heart looks like Jesus uses a parable. But we before we get to that I want to remind you of the definition of forgiveness
Forgiveness
Forgiveness
a release from an obligation—a decision not to consider a debt or an offense.
We must keep this in mind as we move thorough the text.
21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
“Then”—we see the start of a conversation between Jesus and Peter. The then here is right after Jesus had taught them about seeking out their brother who had sinned against them. Then Peter comes to Jesus with a question, Peter’s question stems from verse 15. But Peter asks Jesus for further explanation. The rabbinic custom of the time was to forgive someone no more than three times, so Peter being Peter says Lord as many as “seven times”. He goes a bit further, all the way to seven. Seven is a common biblical number for completeness. So, Peter asks a somewhat pious question—the norm was three and he took it to seven.
22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven!
dry erase board
Jesus answers Peter’s question in this verse with a math problem. Not seven times, but seventy times seven— well how many times is that, don’t worry I did the math for you its 490 times. Jesus is telling us to keep count and once we get to 491 we can stop forgiving our brother right—NO— we need to forget the math and look at the heart of what Jesus is trying to teach Peter and us. How many of you are perfect and no longer sin? Well if you still sin, lets say only one time a day, and say you are 50 years old 365 days a year one sin a day that is 18,250 sins but who’s counting right. And when we sin who is it against—Ultimately God— when we sin does God keep count, NO, Jesus is trying to get our hearts in the right place for true forgiveness.
23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.
“Therefore” this gives us the reason for the parable. Because of Christ’s lesson on forgiving and because of Peter’s question He moves into this parable. As Jesus does in other parables He starts out with the comparison of the kingdom and a king. Okay picture it is the end of the year and the king is wanting to balance His books. Well His servants had borrowed from Him, and now it was time to be paid back. This parable compares an earthly king to our heavenly king.
24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.
One of his servants was brought to him and he owed him —the king— 10,000 talents. At this time the talent was the highest currency. A talent would equal approx. $200,000 dollars. At this time 10,000 was the highest Greek number. If you use the $200,000 it would be 2 million dollars, but the key to what Jesus is telling them the number is immense beyond comprehension. The current national debt of the U.S. is 35 trillion dollars. Think of it this way the average U.S. salary is $63,795 according to the Social Security Admin. You, your wife and two kids living on around $63,000 and you owe 35 trillion to the king. What are the chances you could pay of this debt. The average American works 45 years, and say you could afford $1,000 dollars a month that’s only $540,000 dollars. That only leaves you owing $34,999,999,460,000 dollars. Get the point. The point is the debt owed is so much more than can ever be repaired.
25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.
One thing that was common in that day was for debtors who could not pay to be thrown into prison and work off their deft. Or as we see here for them to be sold and the profit goes towards paying off the debt. The king was selling the entire family and their possessions. Now we need to be very clear Jesus is not condoning human trafficking, or slavery, He is merely using common practice of the time.
26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’
We see the servants response to being sold to pay their debts. They know there is absolutely no way they could repay the debt, even after being sold the king would have to settled for a smaller payoff. Their only response was to beg for mercy. They were completely bankrupt when it came to paying their debt, they begged for mercy and implored the king for mercy. The servant would never be able to pay the debt back no matter how much time they had. Remember our numbers from before. Keep this in mind as we move to the next verse.
27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
The kings response is one of mercy and grace. His heart went out to the servant. He had compression on his servant, you could think of this as a family affair—many times the servants were like one of the family. Remember Peter’s question “a brother sins”. This should be the pattern in the lives of Christians. We must be merciful and forgiving with each other. One commentator puts it this way— “Our debt to God is like the distance from the earth to the sun 93.962 million miles, but our debt to one another is like the distance from Chicago to Indianapolis 183 miles. There is real distance there but it is not comparable. And if God can bridge the first gap, we should bridge the second. When we get adopted into the family of God our sins are forgiven and forgotten.
Jeremiah 31:34 (ESV)
34 For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
This should also be how we act within the family, gracious and forgiving of one another, and this forgiving never stops. Think about it what if God kept an account of our sins and held them against us. We are to forgive as we have been forgiven. Jesus also teaches in Matthew 5:23 to seek out our brothers and sisters to be reconciled.
The Forgiving Heart
The Forgiving Heart