An Unforgiving Servant

You probably heard the news story of Amber Guyger, the off-duty police officer who mistakenly walked into the apartment of a 26 year old man named Botham Jean thinking it was her own.

She pulled out her gun and shot him, only then realizing it wasn’t her apartment.

It was a heartbreaking story that led to a lot of anger, fueled by the racial tension throughout the country.

Guyger was convicted of murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

But the heartbreaking story took a really incredible turn when, in the victim impact statement, Botham’s younger brother Brandt publically forgave Guyger, said he didn’t want her to go to prison, and asked the judge if he could give her a hug.

There was an outpouring of reactions over what Brandt did, both positive and negative.

Many people praised him and shared how they were moved to forgive those that hurt them.

While others were outraged and argued that she didn’t deserve his forgiveness.

It really is one of the most powerful modern pictures of forgiveness and one Jesus would likely point to as an example of living out His words in Matthew 18.

Forgiveness is central to the Kingdom of God and reveals the true character and purpose of our King.

Our parable today reveals the heart of God for a Kingdom birthed in forgiveness.

Matthew 18:21–35 CSB

21 Then Peter approached him and asked, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times?” 22 “I tell you, not as many as seven,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven. 23 “For this reason, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle accounts, one who owed ten thousand talents was brought before him. 25 Since he did not have the money to pay it back, his master commanded that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt. 26 “At this, the servant fell facedown before him and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 Then the master of that servant had compassion, released him, and forgave him the loan. 28 “That servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him, started choking him, and said, ‘Pay what you owe!’ 29 “At this, his fellow servant fell down and began begging him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ 30 But he wasn’t willing. Instead, he went and threw him into prison until he could pay what was owed. 31 When the other servants saw what had taken place, they were deeply distressed and went and reported to their master everything that had happened. 32 Then, after he had summoned him, his master said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. 33 Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And because he was angry, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay everything that was owed. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from your heart.”

Context is Key

The section begins with a question from Peter about forgiveness.

Peter’s question likely came from what Jesus had just taught about.

In the previous section He talked through how to handle conflict between brothers and sisters in the church.

Giving us a process that seeks to restore relationships and hold one another accountable.

So Peter’s question seems to be, “How many times should we do that Lord?”

How many times do we forgive before we say “No more!”?

His question reveals something about all of us. It is a question we all ask, whether we use words or just think it in our minds.

We all struggle with forgiveness to some extent.

We have all been hurt, lied to, mistreated, abused, treated unfairly, or a variety of other offenses.

And the opportunities to forgive is presented in every one of those situations.

But is there a limit to forgiveness?

Are there some things that we just can’t forgive? Or a threshold that someone crosses where we can no longer forgive them?

This is a practical question, yet it is also a deeply spiritual question.

And like all of Jesus’s parables, His answer has a practical side, but also a deeply spiritual side as well.

Jesus tells this parable to give us another glimpse at His glorious kingdom.

To help us to see what forgiveness looks like in the Kingdom of God.

The parable reveals 2 things about the Kingdom:

The Kingdom is FORMED by UNFATHOMABLE forgiveness.

Peter wasn’t really asking a “Kingdom” question, he wanted to know about forgiveness.

He wanted to know HOW to forgive.

It was a practical, real life type question, about how to relate with others, especially when you feel hurt or wronged by them.

But the answer to his questioned was revealed in the unfolding of the Kingdom of God, Jesus’s work of restoring the brokenness of our world because of sin.

So in response, Jesus tells a story that begins with “The Kingdom of heaven is like this...”

Let me tell you about a King and his servant.

The servant had accrued a debt that was more than anyone could ever accrue.

We are talking 100s of millions if not a billion. HE WAS A SERVANT and this was a debt to the level of the super wealthy.

He could have made the debt 1 years worth of wages, or 5, or maybe even 10, but instead He makes it lifetimes (plural) worth of debt.

There is no fathomable way he could accrue such a debt, and yet he did.

He was helpless and hopeless, the King would have been right and just to sell this man’s entire family into slavery, to basically take his whole life and family future away...but he doesn’t.

The UNFATHOMABLE debt this man owes, which he does not argue about, seemingly excepting responsibility for it, is forgiven.

By exaggerating the debt the man owes, Jesus is highlighting the extraordinary compassion of the king.

He is also teaching the disciples, and us, just how deep and desperate we are apart from the saving work of Jesus.

Like the man in the story, we too have a debt so enormous that there is NO fathomable way we could ever pay it off.

We could not give enough, work hard enough, or fix ourselves up enough to balance our account with God.

We are hopeless, helpless, and lost…outside of God’s saving grace in Christ.

Colossians 2:13–14 CSB

13 And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. 14 He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

This is the UNFATHOMABLE grace of God in his UNFATHOMABLE work of Forgiveness.

And though it may seem simple for the King to declare the man forgiven of his debt, the reality is the debt does not just vanish.

Someone would cover the cost. Someone would have to pay. And the cost would be more than most anyone could ever imagine.

Just like the man’s debt, the debt God forgave us from cost the life of His one and only son.

The grace and forgiveness of God is not cheap, Jesus wants us to understand that.

He wants Peter and the other disciples to understand that.

The Kingdom of God was and is formed by the UNFATHOMABLE grace and forgiveness of God.

But the story doesn’t end there.

The Kingdom People are CALLED to SINCERE and CEASELESS forgiveness.

Peter’s question was about forgiveness between people. How many times DO I need to forgive someone?

Peter was generous in his question, since the common teaching of the day was 3 times by the Rabbinical law.

Peter goes with 7 times, a good bible number representing perfection or completeness.

Jesus’s answer fits the mold of most of Jesus’s answers to questions.

70 times 7...

But before you go doing math, Jesus wasn’t saying 490 times, but rather there is no number we should put as the limit to our forgiveness.

So in the parable so far, Jesus has highlighted the extraordinarily compassionate forgiveness of the King, he now shifts to the response of the servant.

The shift happens in 28 as the servant leaves the King and runs into a fellow servant who owes him some money.

100 denari, or 100 days of work. 1/3 of a year.

It isn’t a tiny debt by any means, but Jesus is making a point of comparison.

100 denari vs 10,000 talents. $20,000 vs $500,000,000-1 billion.

If there wasn’t such a glaring difference between the 2 numbers we would all agree, that is a sizable debt. If someone owed us that we would really feel it.

We can villainize the first servant here, but the reality is, he was legitimately owed money from the other, and outside of the situation, he would be right to demand payment.

But his actions reflect a hardness of heart that shows he really doesn’t understand what has happened to him.

He has just been forgiven from a debt his great, great, great, great grandsons wouldn’t be able to pay off.

And yet, this man, who, like him, has likely made some mistakes and gotten into some financial trouble.

And, like him, he falls to his knees, begging the man to be patient with him as he works to pay back what he owes.

And yet, Jesus says “he wasn’t willing...”

What happened between the moment he heard the words “I forgive him, release him and his family”, to the moment he throws the other servant in prison?

The question really isn’t what happened, but what didn’t happen.

If we go back quickly to verse 26 we see something in the servant that reveals something about his heart and his understanding of his debt.

Matthew 18:26 CSB

26 “At this, the servant fell facedown before him and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you everything.’

There is this absurd idea in the mind of this man that he, by his own power and through his own ingenuity, he can somehow earn enough, perhaps through hard work and shrewd business practice, to pay back the debt that he owes.

He really doesn’t get it does he?

The reason he has no compassion on the second servant is that he really doesn’t understand the true magnitude of his own debt and the inconceivable mercy he has been shown by the king.

There is a born-in belief in all of us that just doesn’t understand how broken and hopeless we are without Jesus.

Even in those who would confess to be Christians, we often fail to understand the magnitude of our sinfulness and the glorious goodness of God’s grace.

Sure, we know we have lied, looked at someone with lustful intent, maybe even fallen into some pretty bad stuff at certain points in our lives...

But we struggle to understand that our sin, individually and corporately, is so deep and so vast that it is like floating in the middle of the ocean trying to dry it out with a Dixie cup.

Jesus’s blood was not one option among many, it is the ONLY way and our ONLY hope.

When begin to understand this, then and only then, will we begin to grasp the enormity and beauty of God’s gracious forgiveness.

And then, and only then, will we be able to forgive others as we have been forgiven.

Jesus is making forgiveness a test of genuine faith.

He is asking: If you CAN’T forgive, have you been FORGIVEN?

All Christians are forgiven an unpayable debt solely on the basis of what God Himself has done for us. That inestimable gift of free forgiveness becomes the ground on which all other kinds of forgiveness are based, and also the pattern for how we are to forgive others. If we keep in perspective how much God forgave, and how much it cost Him to forgive, we will soon realize that no transgression against us can ever justify an unforgiving spirit. Christians who hold grudges or refuse to forgive others have lost sight of the price paid for their own forgiveness. — John MacArthur

Jesus is intentional, I believe, to not make the second servant’s debt a meager amount.

100 denari was significant to a working class person. It would have been felt, it would have hurt, and the desire for payback would have been considerable.

But it didn’t compare.

Forgiveness is a touchy subject for many of us:

Some of you have been abused and mistreated really awful ways and you could hear me saying “oh that’s no big deal!”

I am not saying that!

Some of you have been hurt by people who are suppose to love and protect you.

You have been lied to, stolen from, betrayed, and/or slandered by people you trusted.

Those are REAL and it REALLY hurts.

Please don’t hear me making light of how your pain.

Jesus isn’t making light of it either.

but what He is doing is seeking to free you from the weight of carrying around the bitterness and the burden of trying to get payment or revenge from those who wronged you.

The parable ends rather darkly, and can leave us with some serious questions.

Is Jesus saying I shouldn’t hold people accountable for injustice or abuse?

No, He isn’t saying we should let people mistreat us or others, but rather that we should be quick to forgive even as we seek justice and protect those who are hurt.

Jesus corrects mistreatment and injustice, but He doesn’t condone bitterness and revenge.

Is Jesus saying we can lose our salvation of we refuse to forgive?

No, He is saying that if we refuse, or even struggle, to forgive then do we understand the grace we have received in Jesus?

Or, have we really received and experienced that grace?

Jesus is answering Peter’s question.

How many times must we forgive?

When our forgiveness surpassed the forgiveness of God in Jesus, maybe then we can think about slowing down a bit.

We are invited to live FREELY in FORGIVENESS.

Bitterness and stubborn anger is a prison we lock ourselves into.

it seems to make sense to us hold grudges, seek vengeance or vindication, or refuse to forgive

They should get off Scott free

they won’t learn otherwise

They should feel like I do

what do I gain if I forgive?!

Forgiveness is not a condoning of another’s sin or actions, but a releasing of our own resentment and anger toward them.

you see what Jesus’s answer to that is?

you gain freedom and joy everlasting, his gift to us through his grace and forgiveness.

Unforgiveness is a heavy burden.

It stays with us and wears us down, affecting many facets of our life.

Unforgiveness erodes our wellness and grows bitterness and resentment.

The weight of unforgiveness will continue to grow – hurting ourselves more than anyone else.

Forgiveness really is giving up our right to pay back or get even with someone who has wronged us.

When we see it this way, we find a freedom that we otherwise wouldn’t have.

“I forgive you” no longer implies our hurts are insignificant, nor does it indicate the one who wronged us is “off the hook.”

It forces us to face up to the reality that we don’t have to live in denial by pretending the offense never happened and it removes the responsibility for reconciliation from us alone.

And it draws us closer to God as we seek His help in extending forgiveness and trust Him for justice.

Jesus is inviting us to freedom, peace, and everlasting HOPE in Him, not in revenge.