Extravagantly Forgiven to Forgive
Matthew: The King and His Kingdom • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 45:58
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· 11 viewsYour forgiveness must be unlimited, empowered by faith in future grace.
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Call to Worship
Call to Worship
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.
And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Adoration
Adoration
Confession
Confession
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Message
Message
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?”
Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.
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.
So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’
And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
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.’
So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’
He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.
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.
Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.
So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
After immediately addressing forgiveness of a brother (Matthew 18:15-20), Peter brings up the next logical question…
How much forgiveness should be granted in the Jesus community?
When a brother has been won back through repentance, how many times should we forgive him?
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?”
Keep in mind that Peter is discussing sins against him or “transgressions.”
Illustration of a house with a hole in the roof.
In a 1st Century culture, when you were wronged it was an issue of honor since they lived in an honor/shame culture.
If wrong was done, then equal wrong needed to be retaliated for honor to be restored.
In the Gentile world, every wrong done should receive a just retribution.
In the OT, a generous and forgiving spirit was to forgive three times (Job 33:29-30; Amos 1:3, 2:6).
Even amongst the Rabbi’s of Jesus’ day, 3 or 4 repeated offenses resulted in “no forgiveness” granted (Carson).
So for Peter to say “up until seven times”, he is thinking he is being abundantly gracious.
Notice how Jesus correct’s Peter’s conception of forgiveness.
Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Or literally, “seventy times seven” (KJV).
Jesus is not merely putting a higher limit of 490.
“Once they’ve wronged you 491 times, then you exact retribution.”
Rather, Jesus’ correction shows an unlimited number.
As much as Lamech’s principle in Genesis 4:24 was to extract vengeance, Jesus speaks of forgiveness.
If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”
Lamech is saying that,
“If you think Cain was bad, I’m going to be 10x worse!”
Jesus flips Lamech’s paradigm by saying,
“If you think you should forgive a little, it must be 10x a little!”
In the first century, they didn’t use the same nomenclature that we do for infinity.
In our culture we use the sideways 8 to represent forever or infinity.
But in Jesus’ culture, the number 7 represented perfection, it was the number of completeness or wholeness.
So when you place two perfect numbers beside each other “77” they mean a number of perfection or a number without limit.
The problem for Peter is not that he’s number is too low, it’s that he’s counting!
Your forgiveness must be unlimited!
Your forgiveness is NOT quantifiable!
Your forgiveness must be unlimited, empowered by faith in future grace.
Your forgiveness must be unlimited, empowered by faith in future grace.
Normally, I will rush to make qualifications.
But here we need to sit in this for a while.
Jesus shows that putting a limit on grace will rot out the whole foundation of the house!
Just in case there is any confusion, Jesus will clearly give a parable to drive the point home for us.
Extravagant mercy received.
Extravagant mercy received.
“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.
Who does the king represent in this parable?
In this parable, Jesus is comparing the king to God Himself.
HE is the ONE who RULES over everything.
This parable does not envision a master who is spineless and haphazard.
This MASTER is JUST.
Servants would work to pay a debt they owed.
The same way we think about paying a mortgage off, servants would work to pay off their debts to their master.
The nature of sin is like that of a debt.
When transgression is done, a debt is made.
Repayment is needed to rectify the wrong done.
An unpayable debt to a Just Master.
An unpayable debt to a Just Master.
One debtor is brought to our attention that owes a ridiculous sum of money.
When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.
The largest Greco-Roman coin equivalent to 6000 denarii, one talent was worth 6,000 days of work.
And he owed 10,000 talents.
This was 200,000 years of work!
This is an uncountable amount of money.
It could never be paid back!
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.
If a debt it owed, it must be paid to rectify the debt.
The master does the only thing he knows will actually pay him back some of the debt he is owed.
Much like a foreclosed, the bank takes the house and sells the house for the debt which is owed.
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
Application to everyone
All sin is primarily against God and only secondarily against other people.
So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’
Could this man pay back his debt?
No! The king wasn’t stupid.
Despite this man’s best of intentions, he had no ability to repay an impossible debt!
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Some believe that if they intend to pay back their massive debt before a Holy God, that He is somehow pleased.
This is a farce because no amount of good intentions to repay our debt before a Holy God can actually accomplish them.
Application to unbelievers
Do not be deceived, your best intentions to pay God back for the wrong done to Him will never suffice!
But notice why the king lets go of the debt…
And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
Mercy is to have pity on the helpless.
Mercy is to have pity on the helpless.
He is merciful to release the debt against him.
When we talk about “debt forgiveness” it actually becomes more like debt transfer.
The King did not look on the servant and measure if he would be paid back.
The King knew He must absorb the loss.
He looked at the servant and “out of pity” or “being moved with compassion” he forgave the debt and released him.
An unthinkable release of payment.
An unthinkable release of payment.
The king doesn’t say…
“Well, because you were sincere, I’ll forgive you!”
“Because you intended to pay me back, I’ll forgive you!”
“Because you were really sorry, I’ll forgive you!”
The phrase, “out of pity for him” is the crux of radical forgiveness.
It wasn’t out of his ability to pay it back.
It wasn’t out of a desire to get something else from them.
It was out of pity or compassion.
He CANNOT just overlook this debt, he must absorb it.
The king knows that he must be the one who absorbs the payment.
This is the essence of forgiveness which requires someone to absorb the offense!
This is the essence of forgiveness which requires someone to absorb the offense!
In this parable, the king absorbed the offense of this servant.
The forgiveness of the servant had everything to do with the character of the King.
If you’re a Christian here today, this is true for you!
I love this parable because it reflects the heart of the gospel!
The glory of the forgiveness granted in this parable doesn’t come from this man!
The glory of this parable shines from the KING’s mercy toward a helpless man!
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Christian, you have received extravagant mercy!
Christians are those who have received and believed on the death of Jesus as payment for our sin!
Application to marriage.
Keeping score in a marriage will rot the bones of a marriage.
"I apologized first last time, so it's your turn to come to me!”
“I took care of the kids all weekend, so you owe me a night out!”
Christian marriages do not keep score because the score card was buried with Jesus in His death!
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Application to churches.
Keeping score in a church rots its bones.
“I forgive them, but I won’t forget about what they did to me!”
By that we typically mean something like, “I’ll remember!”
If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
People loved by Christ should be the quickest to extend forgiveness to others.
Until this point we’ve watched a master release an unimaginable debt.
Everyone loves the idea of them receiving mercy.
But the test of a person’s understanding of mercy isn’t their reception but their willingness to grant it to others.
In verse 28 the main actor switches from the king to the forgiven servant.
Extravagant mercy rejected.
Extravagant mercy rejected.
What does it look like to reject mercy?
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 trivial debt to an unjust man.
A trivial debt to an unjust man.
To be fair to this servant: this fellow servant owed this man a large sum of money.
He would be owed 20 weeks worth of work or the equivalent of $12k dollars.
$12,000 dollars isn’t pocket change!
So before we rag all over this guy, we need to consider the large debt he was owed.
But, it’s only when this value is compared to what was forgiven do we see clearly!
No one has ever sinned against you as much as you have sinned against God!
No one has ever sinned against you as much as you have sinned against God!
Notice how this fellow servant responds…
So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’
This is a quotation from what he told his master!
An extraction of payment.
An extraction of payment.
He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.
This man’s refusal to let go of the debt against him reveals he does not understand the amount by which he has been forgiven!
It is like he has forgotten what the king just forgave him for.
Maybe you think to yourself, “How cruel could this man have been?”
When people refuse to release others of their debts toward us.
People are no different when they don’t forgive.
Maybe you think to yourself, “I do forgive people around me.”
Un-forgiveness can take on all kinds of forms.
It is not just screaming and yelling at another person.
Usually, it is a calm and cool demeanor toward another.
But this coldness toward another is to shame them or ignore them so you don’t have to “deal with it”
“But, Daniel, you just don’t understand what this person did to me!”
Our ability to forgive another person has nothing to do with the severity of their wrong against us.
It has everything to do with the greatness of the forgiveness that we have been shown!
No one has ever sinned against you as much as you have sinned against God!
No one has ever sinned against you as much as you have sinned against God!
So when we walk around and carry the offenses that others have done to us, we are essentially saying,
“I don’t know how much I have been forgiven.”
Extravagant mercy rationalized.
Extravagant mercy rationalized.
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.
Notice that this forgiven servant is brought before the king by his fellow servants.
How do you think the other slaves heard about this guy throwing his friend in prison?
He was going around telling everybody the ways he was wronged!
They see what is taking place and how unjust it is and they inform their master of this injustice.
Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
The master’s expectation of the servant was to forgive others.
And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.
So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
The result for that bitter/resentful/and wicked servant is judgment.
The judgment he chose to bitterly enact on a fellow servant will result in him paying back his own debt.
(1) What is the proper motivation for forgiveness?
(2) What kind of forgiveness is demanded by God from us?
Rationalized motivations.
Rationalized motivations.
What is the proper motivation for forgiveness?
Obligation of mercy is a trap.
Obligation of mercy is a trap.
What do I mean by “obligation of mercy”?
Illustration of growing up conflict with siblings.
When I was growing up my siblings would often get into scuffles.
My mom would often say something like,
“You need to apologize for what you did!”
How does it go?
The offending sibling would go to the offended and through gritted teeth say,
“Sorry for hitting you.”
Does God’s household operate under this compelled mercy?
I would argue that if the obligation principle drives your forgiveness you’ll eventually be filled with either bitter resentment or self-righteous pride.
Bitter resentment says,
“You still owe me”
“I’ll forgive but I won’t forget.”
Self-righteous pride says,
“Look at how gracious I was toward them for what they did to me.”
Gratitude responds to but doesn’t motivate mercy.
Gratitude responds to but doesn’t motivate mercy.
Limited by gratitude
Gratitude is an excellent response to mercy.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!
Illustration of the “Debtor’s ethic.”
Maybe you reason within yourself as you hear this parable,
“This guy’s problem is that he isn’t grateful enough!”
“If only he would have been more grateful, he would have had mercy on the other guy!”
“The debtor’s ethic says, ‘Because you have done something good for me, I feel indebted to do something good for you.’”
“In the debtor’s ethic, the Christian life is pictured as an effort to pay back the debt we owe to God. Usually the concession is made that can never fully pay it off. But ‘gratitude’ demands that we work at it.”—John Piper
The mercy we have received in the past frees us from keeping score!
Gratitude focuses on the past, whereas faith focuses on the future.
God’s grace toward us in the past should inform his grace for the future.
But gratitude as a motivator wrongly places a response for a driver.
What gives us the daily power to let go of real damage done?
“Gratitude is primarily a response to the past grace of God; it malfunctions when forced to function as motivation for the future—unless it is transformed into faith in future grace.”—John Piper, Future Grace, 45
Empowered by faith in future grace.
Empowered by faith in future grace.
Believing that God’s grace will meet us tomorrow.
Believeing His future forgiveness, care, comfort, and justice will give us all we need!
The forgiven forgive
Our forgiveness of others does not earn us anything before God.
Instead, the truly regenerate are those who forgive other others.
We don’t earn God’s grace, but forgiveness is an evidence of the redeemed soul.
The Christian is motivated to imitate our Savior from faith.
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.
And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Paul doesn’t say,
“You should be so grateful for all God has done for you, so forgive!”
Instead our imitation of our Savior springs from a heart of faith!
We remember God’s kindness toward us in the past and look forward to His future dealings with us by faith!
But this man couldn’t let go of past wrong because he felt he was owed compensation.
The declaration of adoption compels the obedience of faith.
Whereas the debtor’s ethic tries to repay a debt from gratefulness.
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
Rationalized forgiveness.
Rationalized forgiveness.
What kind of forgiveness is demanded by God from us?
Judicial forgiveness is unlimited.
Judicial forgiveness is unlimited.
Layer #1 – Attitudinal/Heart posture before God.
Vertical: Between me & the Lord
So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
This first layer can be seen as the foundation of a house.
This layer of forgiveness is unconditional.
This layer is accomplished in God’s presence
Unconditional heart-forgiveness (Layer 1) means releasing the right to personal vengeance to God (Romans 12:19).
This is regardless if they ever apologize and seek forgiveness.
Commitments made to God
We entrust the offender to God.
We get rid of bitterness.
We are willing to reconcile if he repents.
All we can do is extend the hand of fellowship.
Church
The community of faith is meant to have unlimited and boundless forgiveness.
We are all beggars who have received infinitely better than we deserve.
If we ever struggle to have mercy on others, may we remember that we all will stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
And on that day, we all will desire for more mercy.
Relational forgiveness requires reconciliation.
Relational forgiveness requires reconciliation.
Layer #2 - Transacted or Granted
To reconcile my relationship.
This layer is dependent on offender repenting.
Commitments to offender: Not raise the offense
To myself (dwell, brood)
Thinking constantly about it
Obsessing over it
To you (use against later)
To others (gossip)
Your forgiveness must be unlimited, empowered by faith in future grace.
Your forgiveness must be unlimited, empowered by faith in future grace.
It’s only the eyes of faith that allows us to see what has been done for us and the greater reward!
Corrie ten Boom is well known for her book, The Hiding Place.
She and her family spent time in a concentration camp during WWII.
Her sister and best friend Betsie died there.
Well after the war, she was speaking at an even in Germany on the reality of God’s forgiveness.
After her talk, one man came up to her and described that he was one of the guards.
The former guard came to her, explaining that he later became a Christian.
Upon recounting this, he extended his hand and asked, “Will you forgive me?”
“Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him…
She goes on to describe the power that Christ gave her in that moment to take this man’s hand.
“And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His.
Benediction
Benediction
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
“When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”
