Chain Breakers
Notes
Transcript
Jesus teaches us to forgive as we are forgiven, over and over again. Forgiveness is not optional. We behold His grace, His forgiveness, His love… and then we reflect it.
Logan Repented
Logan Repented
As Wayne pointed out last week, I do tend to tease my children a lot, and two weeks ago I brought Logan before the church for his sin against me, bullying me in a beloved video game.
Here is the good news. He repented. Hallelujah! I have gained a brother… son… brother son? Weird.
But then he did it again. And he repented. He was like “Don’t cry, Dad, I’m sorry!”
And then again and again. He sinned against me, then repented, then sinned, then repented.
How many times, Oh Lord, do I have to forgive this???!
Unforgiveness gets a bad rap, but it really is the most natural way.
Unforgiveness
Unforgiveness
You must pay
I want you to hurt like I hurt.
I want you to suffer like I suffer.
This is unforgiveness. You owe me, I hold your debt - literally, morally, spiritually, via honor or justice… you owe me.
Unforgiveness is the natural state. If all debts were forgiven, the whole financial system would collapse. Borrowing couldn’t be a thing at all. Crime would have no meaning, Justice would be empty, and there would be absolute chaos in the streets.
Recap
Recap
Jesus teaches about this process of reconciliation. If someone has “sinned against you.” Not just offended you, or done something you didn’t like, or even hurt your feelings… they have sinned against you. You are to go and seek reconciliation. And if they don’t repent, bring witnesses, and if they still don’t, involve the community, and if they STILL don’t, you’ve got some new boundaries and way of interacting with them. As a still-loved Gentile, but not as a brother anymore.
Repeat Offenders
Repeat Offenders
And Peter pipes up. What if they DO repent. And they do it again. And they do it again. I bet Peter has a story here:
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?”
I think this “seven times” comes from Jesus himself:
3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,
4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
So maybe Peter is helping Jesus along, letting the others know that there are in fact limits to this forgiveness.
Or he just wants there to be limits to this forgiveness. Maybe it’s his brother Andrew punching Peter in the face. Every day. And after, every time, Andrew repents. He is so sorry, I will change my ways, please forgive me!
And then again, like a big-brother reflex, punches Peter right in the face.
How many times, Jesus? Seven? Seven times is way more than my heart wants.
Seven is a number of completion, of perfection, and likely that is why Jesus chose it the first time. It isn’t a limit, it’s the idea of perfectly over and over again. And he clarifies in the same way:
22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Either “seventy-seven” or “seventy times seven”… the point is not the number but ALL the times. Don’t stop at 78, don’t stop at 491, when your brother repents, you forgive. Period.
For the Christian, forgiveness is not optional.
Jesus responds with this famous story.
23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.
24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.
A talent is a laborer’s wages for 20 years. People have estimated this somewhere between 200 million and 1 trillion US dollars. But Jesus has taken the largest known denomination and the largest number that has a name… it’s the largest amount of money easily designated. It’s equivalent to us saying “1 BILLION dollars!” HUGE amount of money, that’s the heart of it.
This “servant” must have been incredibly wealthy, influential, playing with huge swaths of the Kingdom to amass that kind of debt.
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.
That sounds shocking to us, but this was standard practice and the real story behind most “slavery” of the day.
26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’
27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
Anyone here ever “forgive” millions of dollars of debt just because someone asked? No? Me neither.
How rich must this king be that he could even afford to think about it?
And what a beautiful day. His whole life trajectory shifted with those words. From lifelong slavery for him and his family, back to freedom and life again.
28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’
A “denarii” is a day’s wages for a laborer. So not 20 years (like a talent), a single day. Let’s be generous, above minimum wage, and call it a $100. So a hundred would be $1000… not nothing, but compared to HIS debt? It really is nothing.
29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’
30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.
Unforgiveness
Unforgiveness
The normal, logical, human way of things
Not maybe the man has his reasons here:
This is how I can pay back my debt to the King like I promised. I have to call in all the debts people owe me to pay for my own forgiveness.
Or maybe he thinks this guy actually has the money, he is just holding back. His repentance isn’t sincere, crocodile tears, a day or two in prison and he will cough up the money.
Or, I incurred my debt to the King doing “good” stuff. I was working hard, just made a few mistakes. This guy is lazy and was never going to be worth it.
I am worthy of the King’s grace… he is not worthy of mine or anyone else’s.
Whatever his excuses and reasons, it says “He refused.” He “would not will it.”
This wasn’t “he didn’t think of it” or “it was an oversight” or “he forgot.” It was an intentional act of the will to not forgive.
31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place.
Fellow Christians? Or just fellow humans. The hypocrisy of unforgiving “Christians” stinks to high heaven.
Quite literally. The King is ticked.
32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.
Yikes. Does that make anyone else nervous? Me too.
So first, let’s behold the grace of the King.
The Grace of God
The Grace of God
Our debt is paid.
He is the King who has grace upon us, takes pity on us, forgives our astronomical debt.
What is our debt to Him? What was it? Not payment for the “little” sins of your life. Honestly, that’s small potatoes.
For He gave us life… so we owe Him our life.
He gave us Creation… so we owe him rent in His Universe.
He gave us community, companionship, the Life of every person we know and love.
He gave us Freedom, of thought, of heart, of will… the ability to love, to choose and to choose love.
He gave us Spirit, Soul, Eternity.
And when we threw it all away, when and as we choose poorly, we choose Sin and Slavery, we choose Death and Debt…
He laid down His own life freely, that our debts could be paid, that we could be forever free from Debt, from Death, from Slavery, from Sin… and beautifully free again.
What’s the price on that? A billion? A trillion? What’s your life worth, freedom worth, now multiplied by Eternity? What’s the earning potential, the quality of life potential on that?
Jesus has undersold our debt to the King.
This is the Grace of God.
People sometimes will claim Christians are all about guilt. We are not. And if you are getting all wrapped up in guilt and shame… go back to the cross, go back to the gospel, you have gone far astray.
We behold our guilt ONLY ever that we might realize and recognize the measure of the Grace of God… and then go and be and do likewise.
This is who we are.
Grace Like God
Grace Like God
How much could someone else possibly owe us?
They punched us in the face. That’s real. Damages. Assault and Battery. Prison sentence, fines. They stole our leg, they hurt our feelings, they crippled us for life…
Yes, damages for life, lost wages, mental trauma, emotional damage, all of it. For this life. You can get to some pretty large lawsuit damages. Well into the millions for sure.
Orders of magnitude less, always, than what we have been given by God. Than what we have been forgiven by God.
The debt we are owed by others is ludicrously smaller than what we once owed to God. And we forgive as we are forgiven.
In fact, the kind of small-hearted unforgiveness that would continue to withold forgiveness is so radically incompatible with the Grace God has given us, Jesus says this scary thing:
34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.
35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
This is not a secret hint at Purgatory, a holding place where you essentially earn your way out… though this is one of those proof texts used for that. The parable isn’t trying to teach us about state of the dead or 2nd chances after death, it is trying to teach us about the absolute importance of forgiveness.
And, even in the story, this guy has no chance of paying off his millions-to-trillions of debt from a prison cell. This would be more a recipe for hell than purgatory.
What the parable is teaching is the absolute importance of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is not optional.
And this isn’t the first time. This isn’t a one off. Remember this from the Sermon on the Mount, right at the end of the Lord’s Prayer?
15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Forgiveness is not optional.
Forgiveness is not optional.
Forgive as you have been forgiven.
Show mercy as you have been shown mercy.
For here’s the Truth at the center of your life and mine: you have been shown great mercy.
The Limits of Forgiveness
The Limits of Forgiveness
What are the guardrails here?
That’s what Peter wanted right?
This doesn’t say that the King forgot the debt. It was his memory of the debt that gave rise to such anger in the King… and then retroactively holding him accountable to it.
It doesn’t mean there isn’t a change in the relationship, some new boundaries. I wonder if the servant still holds his same positions of influence and authority. i doubt it. I certainly wouldn’t loan him another $20, much less the millions he was in debt for before.
That doesn’t undo the radical forgiveness, his debt is forgiven by the King… honestly it wouldn’t be loving or healthy for him or me to put him in the same situation all over again.
This is super clear in cases of abuse, for example. Forgive, yes, it isn’t optional. AND get somewhere safe. AND report to the police, that’s a loving act to any other victims and even to the abuser themselves.
It is often said that God loves us just as we are, forgives us, and then loves us too much to leave us that way. He is not content that we or anyone should remain stuck in our sins.
He’s got that part.
But the forgiveness part? Our part? Forgiveness is not optional. Forgiven as you have been forgiven.
But when in doubt, err towards grace. Err towards forgiveness. Better to make the mistake of trusting too much, taking grace too far, than the other way around.
Justice will be served in the end… it just isn’t your job to do so.
By the measure of the grace you have received, show grace again.
On the same measure, it isn’t your job really to determine if the repentance is “real.” Or real enough for you, to convince you.
In Jesus’ parable, was the man really “sorry?” It doesn’t seem so from his actions. But the King gave the initial forgiveness regardless.
You can’t judge the heart, and in almost all cases, you should stop trying. Where there is repentance, or the seeming of it, the saying of it, the illusion of it… just forgive. Err towards forgiveness.
Let us be a people famous for TOO much grace. TOO much mercy. TOO much love. TOO much forgiveness. What a beautiful thing that would be.
So… who’s debt do you need to fogive today?
Maybe they have offended you over and over, and it is offense number 77.
In light of the lavish grace of our King, forgive as you have been forgiven.
I heard this text preached by a friend, Eddie, here at church, who took it an interesting direction. One sin with lifetimes of hurt, ongoing hurt, such that it could take 7*70 times to forgive, as it comes up again and again in the heart and mind.
In light of the lavish grace of our King, forgive as you have been forgiven. Over and over again if that is what it takes for your heart and head to catch up. That’s okay, that’s a work in progress.
We are chain breakers!
We behold God’s grace… and we turn and show grace to others.
We receive God’s forgiveness… and we turn and forgive others.
Just as we receive God’s love, and turn and love as He has first loved us.
Let’s break some chains.
And if and as we struggle to forgive, we turn and behold His forgiveness, His grace, His love, these are reps for the soul, this is the work of forgiveness, this is discipleship.
For the Christian, forgiveness is not optional. We forgive as we are forgiven, over and over again. Let’s loose the chains.
Let us behold His grace… and then forgive. Let’s break some chains.
