Sermon Tone Analysis

Biblical Forgiveness...

Good morning everyone, I hope you are well today.

Well we are here in the month of December, and there is only 20 days till Christmas.

And with the approach of Christmas, we are working hard to get ready for this time with our family.

We are beginning the search for the right gifts, the decorations are going up, and menu’s are being planned.

It’s a wonderful time.

But we cannot lost sight of Jesus.

We celebrate Christmas because of Christ and His coming into the world.

The gift that He brought for all mankind.

Take time daily to thank Him, to praise his name for the goodness He has brought to your life with His presence.

But let me stop right here and ask you are you free to worship and free to celebrate the loving presence of our Lord in us?

One thing that hinders individuals and families this time of year is un-forgiveness.

We hold onto things that either we did or what someone did to us and since we cannot seem to let go of that… we have great difficulty in participating in worship and allowing God to bless and speak to our lives.

People try to ignore it, but offenses are hard to over come.

But it starts with practicing Biblical forgiveness.

So lets go to our main text today and we will look at several others as well.

Now I know I have skipped a few verses coming to this one, that is OK, we will address them later.

Now Jesus has been talking about the Biblical model of forgiveness.

Jesus speaks about how to approach a person who has committed an offense against you and most certainly you could reverse it and approach a person you have wronged.

The out come of this event in verses 15 to 20 is restoration.

Restoration is an important word to hold onto my friends.

The word restoration means to being back to an original position or condition.

When we forgive others or seek forgiveness the mission is to restore and bring back what once was...

That is God’s mission as well, God forgives us to bring us back in correct position with Him… to restore our relationship with Him, that we might enjoy the blessing of walking with Him and others freely and correctly.

And ultimately that we can one day walk in His presence face to face.

So lets begin...

The first thought is this....

1.

A Great Debt....

As we open this text, we understand that Jesus is presenting a parable to His disciples and others.

And again a parable is a earthy story with a heavenly meaning.

So Jesus is taking something they knew and understood and uses it to help them see what God the Father was doing on behalf of humanity.

So Jesus takes the story of debt, what one person or family owed to another and builds off of it.

Just like today, people could sell property, and in those days they could even place themselves into limited servant-tude (like an indentured servant), or that could borrow money with the promise to pay back the loan or work it off.

And just like today, there are times when something happens, crops are grown in hopes of producing a good harvest, but at times tragedy comes in one form or another, crops are ruined or diminished and suddenly someone is unable to repay the debt.

This may have been what happens here, we are not certain… but there is a unique piece to this story.

Its the amount of debt owed by the person.

let’s go back to the text.

Look at the size of this debt… 10,000 talents.

From everything we know, that is an amount so large no person or family could even come close to pay back in a life time of work.

It was so large that people would have a hard time imagining it.

In our world today it would be like owe a hundred million dollars to a trillion.

We cannot even imagine it could we.

It is a great debt.

So what is the debt?

Well Jesus uses the amount of 10,000 talents, one talent was the largest denomination of currency in that particular time.

But really it is representative of our debt before God.

We know from the testimony of Scriptures, mankind, it doesn’t matter who we are, if we enter this world in a palace or a pauper's shack, we come into this world with a sinful nature and with it a sin debt.

Sin separates us from God and in the course of our days we are lost, disobedient and the very intent of our heart is continually evil.

It is the sin nature we are born with...

It is a debt we cannot remedy on our own.

We cannot give enough, or do enough to please God, and we are found wanting in the scales of His justice.

Each person born of woman is apart from God, that is the natural point of life.

We enter with a sin debt… You are alienated from God.

How will you settle your debt?

How will you fair on the day of judgment if you haven’t dealt with that debt?

A debt requires restitution.

Sin has consequences… What will you do?

How will you stand in front of God?

And this brings me to my second thought....

2. We are Generously Forgiven...

Now this is a conditional statement…

What do I mean by that?

Just as each person enters this world with a sin debt.

So each person has the wondrous opportunity to experience the forgiveness of God, but each person as to turn to God in repentance, and receive His forgiveness.

Now back to Jesus parable… look at verses 25-27

Do you see the debt of this person… so large he cannot pay it and since he cannot rectify this issue himself, the King is forced to take action to satisfy the debt.

Debt ( especially a sin debt) always has to be rectified, settled.

The king would ordered the man and all that He has sold… property, family it doesn’t matter.

Sell everything that I might regain the debt He owed the me is the King’s position.

You know a long time ago if you had a debt that you could not pay, the local government would remand you over to a debtor’s prison or the poor farm where you would work to pay off your debt… that was the only choice.

The King was determined to do this, He was going to sell him and all that he had...

But the servant bowed in humility and pleaded for mercy .... Have patience with me and I will repay it… And the Scriptures tell us the King had pity on him and forgave him the debt verse 27 tells us...

The King is so moved by the plight of the man that he is not looking for repayment of what is owed to him and cancels the debt all together…

Sheer grace is at work here… Sheer grace is at work here....

The phrase “took pity or out of pity” for him, is the key phrase, it is the same Greek word for compassion that characterizes Jesus emotions and behavior, just like in chapter 9 verse 36 and chapter 14 verse 14.

Compassion moves people to have a multitude of responses when they encounter a great need… The King forgave this man’s debt, He showed him mercy and grace.

Never loose sight of the fact that this one man in this parable is a representative of the world and its entire population.

The world is in need just as you were in need when you realized you could never satisfy the debt that was upon your life.

There is no amount of money that can satisfy your debt, your works, your righteous acts the Bible says in Isaiah 64:6 can only be compared to as filthy rags in front of a Holy God.

So if we cannot buy our way to heaven and if we cannot work our way there, someone might ask then why does God receive us when we call to Him.

Its based in His mercy and grace, as seen in the sacrificial death of Christ.

God loved us before we could love Him.

And in that love, when we call upon the name of the Lord… He receives us and forgives us.

Why, because God paid our debt.

He gave His one and only Son! Jesus took our place and upon his body He satisfied the penalty of sin and of the law.

He bore that upon Himself, in His own body, His blood shed for the remission of sin.

Isaiah says By His stripes we are healed… Isa 53:5.

So that we might be justified and forgiven before God the father...

Imagine with me, God provided everything we need, He generously forgave us!

And He is still forgiving and saving and will keep on saving until He comes again.

Do you believe that?

By faith I do!

Amen!

Now just one last thought for today...

3. We Must Forgive...

Now imagine with me, you’ve been making your house payment for 30 years and you still owe 30 more years… and then suddenly some benefactor came and paid all your debt…

You would feel such a relief… the debt you could never seem to pay, it is suddenly paid.

You would be shout’n from the roof tops, I’m free!

This gracious person has helped me… Praise the Lord.

That is the idea of this man, he has been forgiven all that he ever owed, his family is safe and secure all because of the work of another who had mercy and compassion on him.