Forgiven

I. Introduction

What a blessing it is to be with you again and to have the opportunity to open God’s word with you. Would you please turn with me to the book of Matthew, chapter 18, and we’ll be looking at verses 21-35 today.

As you turn there, I want to ask you a question. How many of you have been in a work meeting or a class, and after a long lecture or presentation, when you’re packing up and getting ready to leave, have found that there always seems to be that one guy who doesn’t seem to get it? That one guy who always has to ask the follow-up questions when everyone else is ready for lunch? You’re starting to put your notepad away, close the laptop, and all of a sudden the presenter ominously asks, “does anyone have any questions?” And it never fails, that guy sticks his finger in the air and goes, “yeah, I just have just one or two for clarification.” And all of a sudden, the room is filled with this collective “ugh!” as everyone’s shoulders sink.

Yeah, Peter is that guy for the disciples. And while it so often seems like the answers are obvious to everyone but the Peters of the world, in this instance, the question provided a wonderful opportunity for Jesus to teach a profound lesson on the nature of forgiveness—one which you and I certainly need to hear.

Let’s look at our passage together.

Matthew 18:21–35 ESV

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?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. 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. 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. 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. 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.’ 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. 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. 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. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

PRAY

II. Body

I. We have been forgiven an irreconcilable debt

A. An Occasion for a parable

Look with me now at the introduction to Jesus’ parable—the context which occasioned it.

Jesus just finished a wonderful lecture about welcoming people in grace, avoiding temptation, restoring people to God, and forgiving others. And after the lecture is over and everyone’s stomachs are beginning to rumble, all of a sudden, Peter’s finger goes in the air and everyone hears,

“Uh, Jesus? I have a question.” And the groans start. “Jesus,” he starts, “’how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’” And I’m picturing Jesus thinking, “Man, it’s good your name means rock because you sure have a lot of rocks rolling around in that head of yours.”

I mean, I’m convinced that Jesus’ forehead was flat because he must have been walking around in astonishment, constantly smacking himself in the forehead over the ridiculous things he saw and heard. Thank goodness Jesus is full of grace, though, amen?

We look at that and we wonder, “seven times? Why seven, Peter? What an odd number to come up with.” But Peter, in his attempt to appear overtly righteous, chose that number with intent. You see, rabbinic law—the guidelines followed in the Jewish religion at that time—held that someone should be forgiven three times for an offense before they could be discharged from a fellowship or relationship. So, Peter, with his holier-than-thou pomp, decided to more than double that number thinking, “surely this is more than adequate.”

And Jesus, in his typical grace-filled style, responds not by answering his question directly but with a parable. Join with me as we enter into Jesus’ story world and discover what He would teach us.

B. A Debt Collecting King

Jesus begins, “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” (Mat. 18.23-24).

What we see is Jesus’ story world is ruled by a benevolent king—a wealthy king—who was gracious with his money. Out of his vast wealth he lent without concern. For even large sums lent out to those in his kingdom seemed to be of no concern to him. One day, however, he decided it was time to begin settling these accounts, and he called to his throne room those who had borrowed from him so that they might repay what they owed.

At one point during this collection marathon, the king called a particular servant before him—one who owed such a large sum that it defies understanding. This servant-borrower was likely a regional ruler in the king’s kingdom—someone who oversaw part of the kingdom under the authority of the king—and he had borrowed ten thousand talents from the king. To you and me ten thousand talents has no meaning, so let me put this in context for you. A talent was the largest monetary denomination known at the time and ten thousand was the largest number for which the language at that time had a word. This means that the servant had borrowed the largest amount of the largest currency known to man. This amount of money nearly defied the imagination. It is akin to borrowing millions and millions and millions of dollars today. Some estimates even place it close to a billion dollars.

It’s apparent that this servant had hopped on the gravy train quite some time ago and, since he had never been asked for proof of a ticket, he just continued to ride. He continued to borrow and borrow never considering the cost of such a debt.

No doubt this servant had been in the presence of the king numerous times before, and he had never been asked to repay his debt. So, this time, when the king called for him to come, he had no reason to expect anything different. He no doubt received his summons and with confidence strode down to the palace to put on his show.

He swaggered on in dressed to the best:

wearing his finest fur coat

carrying his most ornate gold scepter encrusted with rubies, diamonds, sapphires, and Jade.

he had on the finest head-dress to match the scepter.

and just to add a little flair, for his kicks he slipped on his original set of high-tops—those Nike classic J’s.

He looked like a man who was going places.

Not only is he dressed to the max, but he’s got that talk and that walk. He comes in, tipping the door man with a cool hundred, giving the concubines in the room the wink-and-gun finger as he casually slides up to the throne. And because he had been so self-absorbed up to that point, he never noticed what was right in front of him. But as he gets closer, that’s when he sees it—the King’s bookkeeper seated at a small table next to the throne, pen in hand. And his eyes dart over to the King and he sees the dead-pan glare which tells him this meeting will not be like all others before it.

His world is about to come crashing down. And in an instant the fear sets in.

As the booming voice of the king echoes through the great hall, piercing through the panic-stricken racing of his mind, he hears the king say, “I have called you here today to repay all that I have lent you. Everything you have borrowed is now due.” The silence that followed felt like it lasted for ages. And when this servant finally spoke it was nearly a whisper, so quiet that the king and his bookkeeper struggled to hear the faint response over their hushed breath as the servant admitted, “I cannot pay.”

In a flash of thunder, as if the heavens themselves had rained down with rage, the king shouted,

“How dare you impugn my throne with your willful dereliction? How dare you borrow so heavily when you knew you could not pay? Your insolence must cost you! I order that you shall be sold with your wife and your children, your house and your land, your stock and your field, everything you have so that even a portion of your debt might be satisfied! You shall never again live free. You shall suffer the torment of heavy labor, burdened with hunger and thirst, as you experience, for the remainder of your life, the consequences of your offense. Never again shall you see your wife or children, but you shall know that because of your insolence they, too, shall suffer the same fate as you.”

And Jesus tells us that servant did the only thing he knew he could do—he dropped to his knees, laid prostrate before his king and, through tear-filled sobs, pled for mercy—for time to pay his debt. The absurdity of such a plea was not lost on the king. A debt of this size couldn’t be repaid even if the servant had two lifetimes to settle it. His servant’s plea for time was a façade, a last-ditch effort to cling to some thread of hope which was slipping rapidly through his grasp.

No one really knows what happened in the heart of that king. No one could have predicted what he would say next. For no one in the world could have presumed there was any hope for this foolish servant. Yet somehow, the king was moved to mercy.

Although failure to collect on such a large debt could be seen as weakness, irrationality, or even as an invitation for others to take advantage of him, the king chose to wipe the debt clean. No more time would be necessary; there was no “pay what you can when you can” agreement. With a calm sigh, the king simply said,

“Today, I chose mercy. You may go free. You are released from the debt you have incurred.”

Everyone in the hall stood in stunned silence, unsure if they had heard the king correctly. The servant, as he lay crumpled in a heap on the cold stone floor, slowly began to lift himself up, and he raised his eyes to the king. There he was met, not with the dead-pan face which greeted him at first but with a look of grace. Slowly his trembling gave way to strength as he somehow picked himself up. And bowing his head with a shaky voice, he uttered,

“thank you my king; you will not regret it.”

And in no way like he had entered that great hall, the servant stumbled out.

C. Bringing it Home

Honestly, we sit here today and wonder how a king—with such regal power and authority—could be so foolish as to cancel such a massive record of debt. Kings are supposed to be wise and yet here he is just letting go of a debt worth millions and millions of dollars! What a nut job! Can you imagine Jeff Bezos lending ten million dollars to your cousin Mike and, when he couldn’t pay it back, Jeff just goes, “eh, that’s okay. We’ll just call it even?” Never gonna happen! Bezos is worth billions, and he didn’t get there by throwing away a fortune just because he feels bad for someone.

And while such a thing is astonishing to us, unthinkable even, this is the reality of the forgiveness we have received from God through Christ Jesus. Our record of debt against God—incurred through sin—is so vast, so deep that we could never satisfy that debt. Though we often come just like this servant and plead for patience, insisting we can make it right, the reality is that we never could. But God, because of his rich mercy, forgave our debt.

He knew we could never pay the high cost in order to restore our relationship with Him. This is the wonderful and terrible reality of the cross that Jesus bore. He took our debt upon Himself so that through His sacrifice, through his payment, we might be freed from our indebtedness to God. Such forgiveness certainly wasn’t warranted, wasn’t earned, but was simply gifted to us through God’s great mercy.

II. When we feel entitled to hold an offense it proves we feel entitled to God’s grace.

A. Unjust Justice

Return with me to the second act of Jesus story where we find this servant leaving the court of the King.

Having staggered out with barely the strength to walk, this servant begins to breathe the fresh air of freedom he was nearly denied. Slowly his strength begins to return, and he begins to put himself back together. Slowly his confidence returns. After all, he just escaped a death sentence—why shouldn’t he be confident? If he can take on the king and come out a victor, the world has nothing to throw at him that he cannot handle.

And there he was, back in stride, walking down the path into the city from which he had been called.

No sooner did he enter those city gates did something catch his eye. A fellow servant of the king, alongside whom he had served for many years, was walking his way. Seeing this other man, he remembered that the guy owed him. For nearly a year already, this man had maintained an outstanding debt and yet he had made no effort to repay it. With confidence in hand, the servant felt his indignation rising within him as he tallied in his mind the several thousand dollars this man owed him.

How dare he not pay? Allowing such an outstanding debt to stand was tantamount to an admission of weakness. He couldn’t let others think they could just take advantage of him like this. This situation could not stand. An example must be made. Seeing the other man, the servant grabbed him by the neck and thrust him to the ground. Shaking with rage, he began to shout,

“how dare you walk into my city, down my streets, knowing you owe me and have not paid? I demand, right here and now, pay me what you owe for you have repudiated my grace for far too long!”

With fear in his eyes, the man looked up and through stifled coughs, with a choked voice, he pleaded.

“have patience with me, and I will pay you. Just a little more time and I can bring you everything I owe.”

What lies! The servant had heard such excuses before and this one was no different. It was a feeble attempt at skirting responsibility. No longer could the servant contain his rage.

“Your time is up and so is my patience!” he fumed. “Guards!” he shouted, as several soldiers scurried his way, “drag this man to the prison and throw him in. Hand him over to the torturers to be flogged day after day until he should pay what he owes me.”

And at that, the soldiers seized the man and dragged him away, his cries filling the streets as he went. Moments later, there were no more cries. The bustling streets had quieted and the clinking of coins changing hands had ceased as onlookers stood in shock. There was simply silence.

And the servant, filled with pride and indignation, knew that justice had been done. Through retribution, the debt was now satisfied. His honor was intact.

B. Bringing it Home

How in the world can someone who just experienced unprecedented forgiveness turn around and express such contempt for the debt of another? What kind of pure evil circulated through this servant’s veins? I look at this man and I have the same contempt for him as he had for his fellow servant! I mean, how calloused can one person be?

Do you know what his root problem was, though? What issue was at the heart of this servant’s reprehensible behavior? It wasn’t greed; it was entitlement.

Throughout this entire saga he felt entitled. He was entitled to the millions he borrowed from the king. He was entitled to the king’s forgiveness when he couldn’t repay. He was entitled to the 100 denarii the other man owed him, and he was entitled to justice when the man could not pay. There was nothing he did not deserve.

And although we stand back and ask, “who in the world does he think he is that he has such an overdeveloped sense of entitlement?” The real question we should as is “who do I think I am that I am entitled to hold on to the offense of another?”

So often we stand accused in another’s court we cry “mercy, mercy, mercy!” yet when we sit as judge in our own, we often cry “justice, justice, justice!” And in doing so, we reveal the perversion, the double standard, hidden deep within our own hearts! By withholding forgiveness from others, we prove we have never understood the forgiveness which we have received.

And our lack of forgiveness exposes our entitlement.

Entitlement was the heart of Peter’s question and, if we’re honest, with ourselves; it’s at the root of our unwillingness to forgive, too. Peter asked how many times he had to forgive before he was entitled to hold an offense over someone else, and Jesus’ response is eye-opening. He responded,

“I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Mat. 18.22).

His response was not meant to be a literal count but figurative. Forgive every time! Why? Because any offense someone has committed against us pales in comparison to the offense we have committed against God, and yet He forgave us. Over and over again, He continues to forgive.

How many times have you promised God,

I swear, I won’t look at this kind of stuff anymore.

I’ll get my spending under control.

I promise I’ll stop talking that way,

I’ll stop behaving this way.

Lord, I swear I’ll get my anger under control

God, just forgive me and help!”

Yet we fall back into the same behavior time and time again and yet, God forgives.

III. Failure to forgive exposes that we have not been forgiven.

A. True Justice For the Unjust

So astounded were the bystanders who witnessed the wrath of this servant that word began to spread. Rumors began to fly, and eventually the king caught wind of what had happened. Enraged with righteous indignation, the king recalled the servant into his presence and this time real justice was about to take place.

In a show of pure ignorance, the servant comes into the presence of the king in much the same way he did on his first visit. He strides in without much of a care in the world—confident in himself and his standing before the king. After all, what does he have to fear? The king loved him, otherwise he wouldn’t have erased his debt. He did not owe the king anything now and, therefore, he had nothing to fear.

This time, however, he hardly made it in the door before the rage of the king burst forth. In his rage, the king shouted,

“You wicked, unrighteous, malicious servant! Who do you think you are? Word has come to me of how callously you attacked another over such a pithy debt. How he pleaded with you to be patient and how under the guise of justice, you revealed the evil which lives within you. You were in this very room not long ago pleading for mercy over the immense debt which you owed me. And when you pled I did more than you asked. You pleaded for time and I gave you freedom—so much more than you deserved. Should you not have shown the same mercy which I showed you?”

And, paralyzed with fear, the servant could hardly utter a single syllable before the king ordered him to be hauled off to jail—to be handed over to the torturers—so his debt might be extracted through suffering. At that very moment, the servant was seized by the guards and dragged from the presence of the king, his cries fading with him as he was taken away. And then there was silence.

Hear what Jesus spoke, recorded in the gospel of Luke,

“Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops” (Luke 12.3).

The deeds of the servant did not escape the watchful eye of the king. Though the servant thought his perverted form of justice was his alone to mete, though he thought he could conceal the evil, the greed, and the malice which filled him, he was exposed. What he had done in the dark had made it into the light. It was proclaimed far and wide until it reached the ear of the king. And when it did, true justice was done.

As he drew his story to a close, the crowd stood silent before Jesus. Breathlessness filled the air as all eyes were fixed on Him. And after what seemed like an eternity, Jesus spoke again:

“So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (Mat. 18.35).

Here’s the reality we must come to terms with—failure to forgive shows we haven’t been forgiven. If you harbor within you an unwillingness to forgive your brothers or sisters for their offenses, there is a very real possibility you haven’t truly experienced the forgiveness of God.

The servant in Jesus’ parable paid lip service to the king. He never truly repented because he didn’t feel he had anything to repent of. He felt entitled. And his lack of repentance was exposed in his lack of forgiveness for others.

III. Conclusion

Is there someone in your life who has hurt you in some way, who you have been struggling to forgive? Someone who has offended you and you’re just not ready to let it go? Have you been holding onto an offense with a white-knuckle grip, unwilling to release it? Let me encourage you today to let go of your entitlement. Let go of the offense and run toward forgiveness.

When you pursue peace with all people in this way, you reveal to others the divine grace of God—the divine grace that lives within you and the divine grace that is available to them.

There are some great offenses out there, lots of painful offenses which have left deep scars in each of us. I’m not saying it’s easy to offer forgiveness like this, but I am saying it is necessary. Our need to forgive is a natural stream which flows from the life-giving spring of the gospel.

Following Jesus’ crucifixion, John records Jesus’ resurrection encounter with Thomas like this:

Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20.26-28).

Jesus, too, bore scars because of the offense of others—because of your offenses—and his scars were deep. The scars of his hands engulfed the fingers of Thomas and the scar in His side enveloped Thomas’ hand. These were scars which cut to the depths of Jesus’ body. Yet He forgave.

Have you experienced the forgiveness of God available through the suffering, scaring, and death of Christ? Have you truly come to terms with the offense you have caused and heartfeltly repented for your sin? Then, in your freedom, release the offense of others and offer the forgiveness that was first given to you.

At the beginning of our passage, Peter asked the wrong question. He asked Jesus how often he must be forgiving. The right question, not just for Peter but for you and me, is how we can live out of our experience of forgiveness in Christ Jesus. Let’s pray.