Matthew 18:21-35 | Kingdom Now: Forgiveness That Sets You Free

Thank you. Heather.

Baptism was a great.

That was a great celebration.

As I was looking at those pictures

of people who were baptized last week.

Some of their stories ran through my mind of just incredible

restoration and and renewal of life.

It just, I love I love those moments with our church.

Last week as we opened up Matthew 18, and we're going to finish it this week.

So if you have a Bible and brought one with you, if you turn to Matthew 18

last week, Jesus walked his disciples and us

through the process that he expects his people to go through.

When someone sends against them.

And it's not a quick process necessarily.

It's not necessarily an easy process.

There are some times where offenses just need to be overlooked.

There are some times where it needs to be confronted and talked through.

But he gives.

He gives a

he gives a system on how he expects his people to do that with each other.

And the goal being restoration, not winning.

But the natural question is

when someone sins against me over and over.

The natural question is

how many times do I have to go through this process with them?

Right?

How many times do you expect me to be in that?

And basically, how much time do I have to keep forgiving them

when happens over and over?

That's the natural question.

And that's that's our question.

I mean, we've all been in those scenarios

the first time, okay.

The second time.

All right.

The third time.

And I don't I don't know where your threshold is,

but we all have a threshold of enough's enough,

right.

Okay, I'm going to start this whole thing over and let's do this

as if you're in this with me.

And so the natural question is how?

And so in Matthew 18 verses that we'll look at today, 21

through 35 or so, he answers the question,

and then he gives a warning.

That is quite scary.

And so let me just give you the big idea for this section.

The big idea for this section is this the kingdom consists of a king

who releases the repentant from a debt they cannot pay,

and expects his people

to do the same for each other.

That's the kingdom of heaven.

This this passage of what

Jesus is going to teach and and really require of his people.

This is important for all of us. But

I want to I want to just make this point.

It's especially important for the millennial generation,

those who are 30 to 45 years old,

because you need to develop this.

Pay attention to me.

You need to develop this because you're in the midst of it.

You're in the midst of marriage.

You're in the midst of parenting.

You're in the midst of years of relational hurt that you probably

still haven't dealt with well.

This is really important for you.

It's also really important for the Gen Z generation, those around

29 to 14 years old or so,

because this single discipline

will largely impact the totality

of your spiritual formation,

because you're growing up and living in a culture

of a culture of offense.

The culture teaches you to be offended,

not to reconcile enough to forgive.

So it's very important

for you in the Gen Z generation and the the general, for

those

who are, you know, just one years old to 13 year olds.

Now, listen, this is really important.

Your world there will communicate digitally.

And so what happens is the person is removed from other people

and harassment and grievance and manipulation oftentimes hidden.

And so developing the discipline

to deal with one on one forgiveness

is an unknown discipline for that generation.

They have to be taught it.

In the greatest way they'll be taught is by seeing it

in their parents.

And gen beta, the ones who are just now born.

The only way they're going to get this is if they see it modeled for them.

And so verses 21 through 35

has to do with God's immense mercy

and forgiveness for those who have sinned against him

and the forgiveness required from them

if it's been received by them.

So I want to make two notes about forgiveness

before we get into the specific passage.

And and that is just the first thing ini discussion about forgiving people

is going to raise another question

about what has been called self-forgiveness.

I have to forgive myself.

I have trouble forgiving myself.

Let me say this with clarity

and as much gentleness as I can muster.

Self-forgiveness is nowhere in the Bible.

It's become

a modern, Christianized counseling mantra

that you have to learn to forgive yourself.

But as gently and as truthfully as I can tell you

this, it's not in the Bible.

Let me give you four reasons

why people struggle with this idea of self-forgiveness.

One is because they're living under false guilt from Satan.

If you've been forgiven by

God, ought to be the most joyful thing in your world.

So to still struggle with self-forgiveness means you're

buying some guilt from the devil that isn't yours to own.

The second thing about this

whole idea of self-forgiveness.

Is that it's it's pretty arrogant

to think that you've offended yourself more than you've offended God.

The third thing is

that if you struggle with quote unquote self-forgiveness,

it may be because you don't believe

God's forgiveness is strong enough or goes far enough.

It's just not adequate to be forgiven by him.

So you also have to be forgiven by yourself.

The fourth thing

about this idea of self-forgiveness

is that oftentimes, and this is what I really think is going on

with most people, it's self-imposed

penance to punish themselves enough so they'll feel worthy

of God's forgiveness and love.

And at the heart of that, it discredits the cross and is demonic.

And so as I open the door

in this discussion of forgiveness, please,

if you first need to deal

with the erroneous idea

that you cannot forgive yourself, you probably haven't understood

God's forgiveness of you, or you have an accepted it.

This is not about us forgiven ourselves.

If we've accepted the forgiveness

of Almighty God, it's pretty arrogant.

To not feel as though

we've there's enough there for us to be forgiven.

The second, let me just say this.

I don't want you to suffer from false guilt,

nor from ignorance, nor from arrogance.

God's forgiveness is enough.

Blessed is the one

whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

David wrote that affair, falling

under conviction of his sin with Bathsheba

and having her husband killed

in experiencing the confession of his sin

and the receiving of the mercy and grace of God.

His response was, blessed is the one

who understands

that your vilest transgression and sin

is forgiven, covered, removed.

That word, blessed in the Greek translation

of the Hebrew Old Testament is Makarios, which means happy.

The happiest people are those who realize

the incredible release

from their transgression and sin.

The second thing I want.

Well, let me. Yeah.

Let me.

Hebrews eight I got this one,

for I will forgive their wickedness.

And what?

Often does God remember your sin?

If you've repented of it,

how often does you remember it?

Have any of you in a Christian God?

I'm sorry. Again, it's like wait, wait wait.

Start over.

There is no again.

Do you understand?

The second thing with this idea of

of forgiveness, before we get into

the text, is that personal forgiveness of individual grievance

and sin is a uniquely Jesus New Testament thing.

Nowhere in the Old

Testament are we commanded to personal forgiveness.

It's not in the Old Testament we're not commanded.

It's not part of the law.

We're not commanded

in the Old Testament to personally, one on one, forgive each other.

This is a New Testament Jesus thing,

the Old Testament focus on repayment

of grievance and repayment for hurt,

the legality of it.

Jesus and the news of the New Testament introduces a whole new paradigm.

That's because it's a whole new kingdom.

What we read in Matthew 18

is absolutely revolutionary.

Absolutely revolutionary.

And it's beautiful and as glorious.

And it's so

wonderful to believe and so difficult to practice.

And so join me.

Verse 2122.

Peter heard what

Jesus said about the process of forgiving each other.

How to do it.

This natural question is are natural question.

Peter came up to it

and said to him, Lord, how often, how many times I have to do this?

How often do I have to forgive somebody?

That's the natural question.

It's our question.

How often will my how often will my brother sin against me?

And I forgive him? As many as seven times.

And Jesus said to him, I don't say to you seven times, but 77

times.

In light of verses 15 through 20,

the how often,

how many times?

The interesting thing is, if

you read loose account of this and Luke, I think chapter 17,

the issue isn't if someone sends against me seven times,

the issue is if someone says it gives me seven times in the same day.

No, no, no.

Get this.

Someone does you wrong

and they're wrong and they say, hey, sorry.

You're like, okay, I forgive you.

The same day they do the same thing again.

Hey. Sorry.

All right,

I forgive you.

The third time. Same day.

At that point, you start thinking.

You know what?

I don't believe you're sorry, right?

Because how do you do the same thing three times in one day?

Okay,

the fourth time.

What do you want from me?

The fifth time?

Okay, okay.

Now you've crossed.

Like I don't know where your personal.

I don't know where your threshold is. I know where mine tends to be.

And five times in one day is you like you're.

I don't believe.

I don't believe you're sorry.

I don't believe you repented, right?

Do you not?

Do you agree with me?

The sixth time in one day?

What's going on here?

The seventh time.

I don't believe anything about you.

And so Peter's like, hey, Jesus.

Peter's.

He thinks he's being pretty gracious because the rabbis of the time

thought they taught you.

You forgive someone three times.

And at that point, if they do it a fourth, then you know that

they're they don't care. They're not really repentant.

They're not sorry. So you're not obligated to forgive.

So three times.

So Peter's like, look here, fellas.

I'm one of the ones that got invited up on the mountain.

When did Jesus special ones.

So he's like, I'm going to show you how gracious I am.

So how about this? Jesus, how about seven times?

See, what he's doing

is taking what they taught and doubling it.

And Adam one on top, just to show how gracious

and magnanimous he is.

And what's Jesus say?

No, no, no, not seven times.

I've never said seven times.

How about 70 times seven?

In other words,

Jesus wasn't introducing a spiritual, you know, calculator and checklist.

He's saying innumerable

perfection times perfection times ten.

Like like you just.

It says you just keep forgiven him.

Jesus is not saying

that repeated sin is not serious.

Jesus is saying that forgiveness

is more serious.

And so then he goes on and so he says, it

says in, in in verse 23 he says, I'm going to give you this parable.

Now let's understand what a parable is.

Remember, a parable is a simple story thrown next to a difficult

truth to help us understand what the difficult truth is.

So what he's just said is difficult truth, right?

Right.

Thank you.

So now he's going to throw a parable next to it to make it easily understood.

So here's the parable in verse 23.

And this is what the Bible says.

Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king

who wish to settle accounts with his servants.

When he had begun to settle, one was brought to him who owed him

10,000 talents,

and since he could not pay his master, his master ordered him to be sold

with his wife and children, and all that they had, and payment be made.

So the servant fell on his knees, employing him.

Have patience with me, and I will pay you

everything.

He says.

Let me help you understand what the kingdom of heaven is like,

because this is what I've just told you.

This is what you have to do if you're going to be citizens of my kingdom.

This is what you have to do.

Now let me tell you what my kingdom is like.

My kingdom is like.

It consists of a King who is incredibly gracious, merciful, and forgiving.

And it's made up of people

who become that

for others.

This king

had people that owed him, and one of the ones that Odem owed him

10,000 talents.

Let me help you understand the depth of debt

that this man was living with.

A talent was the largest monetary denomination in their day,

the largest one.

And this man owed 10,000 of those

that would equal in their day to a debt

of $8 billion.

$8 billion.

That's the debt this man owed

a talent.

The equivalency of a talent was 20 years worth of work

for one talent.

That's that's how big this is.

This man owed 10,000 talents.

That means he owed

200,000 lifetimes of work.

That was his debt.

200,000 lifetimes.

He was under a life sentence

with no hope of getting out of it.

For context, King Herod,

the national income of his kingdom in

that day was 9000 or 900 talents.

So the debt that this man owed was 11 times the national income.

In our context, depending on what study and group

you read, let's just say that our country's income is $30 trillion.

That would be your personal debt.

My personal debt of $330 trillion.

That's how much this guy owes.

There is no hope of him ever getting out of it.

The debt that he has incurred is so large

that he could work for 200,000 lives

and still be in debt.

There's no hope.

He's completely without resource

and recourse.

Now, please understand

Jesus is not talking about finances here.

He's talking about a spiritual

debt that's owed the King,

that none of us

have the resource or the recourse to repay.

Do you understand?

This is no trite debt.

And Jesus uses this extravagant language

to help drive home the point.

The servant is without hope.

And what is this servant?

What does this servant. What's his response?

The king says, look, you owe me.

I'm going to put you,

your wife, your kids all in prison until I get something back.

What's the what's this man's response?

What's his response?

Be patient.

I'll work hard.

That's religion.

That's religion.

Religion says God.

Just don't don't, don't call my number yet.

I'm going to work hard.

I'm going to be better.

I'm going to do stuff right.

I'm going to stop doing a bad stuff.

I'm just just don't don't call my number yet.

I'm going to work really hard.

I'm going to make you proud.

I'm going to do something to earn.

This man.

Beg for more time, to work harder.

That's that's exactly what religious people do spiritually.

Listen, sin is not a simple parking ticket.

It's a debt we can never repay.

And we have to understand.

That we are in debt.

I am in debt.

I had a debt that I could not.

You have a debt you cannot pay.

I don't care how hard you work.

I don't care how many lifetimes you try to be.

You cannot pay it.

You okay?

You shouldn't be.

There's a debt you can't pay.

You shouldn't be. Okay.

Until verse 27.

We're only at 26.

Verse 27.

And out of pity for him, the master of the servant

released him and forgave him the debt.

Listen, spiritually,

we don't need better terms of repayment.

We need mercy.

We don't need to negotiate better terms with God.

We need him to have mercy

and notice what the King did.

He had pity and he released him and forgave.

That's what releasing is, what forgiveness is.

Forgiveness is releasing

both the person of what they owe

and the expectation that I have.

It's twofold.

When one asks forgiveness,

I forgive them of what they rightfully owed me

and to of my right to hold them to it

and my expectation.

This ought to be the happiest moment

in this guy's life right here.

The debt was real.

The payment was owed.

The king had a right to something.

But rather than justice, the king absorbed the loss

and released him.

Beautiful.

He should have been

jumping out of his socks. Happy

now? If you've ever had a debt forgiven you, you.

You can start understanding.

When I was in college, I was playing rugby and on this one play I ran around

the edge and I snapped my ankle and they took me to the hospital.

I was paying my way through school.

I was paying my rent, my food, everything.

And now I'm in the hospital with a broken ankle.

And so they do whatever they can do to people without insurance, you know,

set it, send me out the door.

And the only thing I could think was, oh my God, how am I?

I already oh, too much money.

I'm living like I can't afford this.

How am I going to pay this hospital bill?

And sure enough, a couple days later, open the mail.

There's this letter from the hospital in Spokane, Washington.

Letterhead and everything. I'm thinking, okay, here it comes.

It's here's the bill. It's going to go to collections.

I just don't know what to do.

Open it up.

And it says, Mr.

Roth,

the debt you owe the hospital has been forgiven.

No, Bill.

I don't know who paid it.

I don't know how they did it. I never even asked for it.

I just got a letter that says my debt had been freed.

Do you know how happy I was?

It was awesome.

It was awesome.

And that's the way it usually is.

When we realized the debt.

We've been forgiven by God's like, yeah, this is amazing.

And we're in that moment of until we are transgressed against.

And that's exactly what happens with this guy.

Listen, in this parable, we're the servant.

God is the king.

Sin is the debt.

Judgment is well deserved.

Repayment is impossible.

Jesus became the payment.

And mercy is our only hope.

The Bible says, listen,

that Jesus didn't come to make bad people better.

Jesus came to release the repentant completely.

Completely.

The Bible tells us,

if one seven in him we have redemption through his blood,

the forgiveness of trespass according to the riches of

not our behavior, not our duty, but according to the riches of what?

His grace.

Psalm 103.

He does not deal with us according to our sins,

nor repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast

love toward those who fear him.

As far as the east is from the West so far

does he remove our transgressions from us.

Who is like this God?

Who's a God like you?

O God, who pardons sin and forgives

the trust, the transgressions of the remit of his inheritance.

You do not stay angry forever, but delight

you delight to show mercy.

You will again have compassion on us.

You'll tread our sins underfoot, and hurl all of our iniquities

into the depths of the sea, and then put up a no fishing

sign.

How great is this God?

And when that is our realization, there's such a joy

that we've been forgiven this much until

someone sins against us.

Verse 28.

But when that same servant went out,

he found it one of his fellow servants, who owed him 100 denari.

And seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, pay me 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 out and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.

Says Joy,

until he realized he had been offended.

See, people who minimize their own debt

will magnify everyone else's.

People who minimize their own debt

will magnify everyone else's.

And this is this, this is.

This is why some of us have such a difficult time with

that person that past,

because we've minimized the debt we've been forgiven of,

so we magnify theirs against us.

Did you follow?

One denari was one day's wage.

So? So this this

this guy owed him 100, 100 days worth of work.

It's not an insignificant amount, but compared

to the 330 trillion.

It's not that the debt wasn't real.

It's not that the offense hadn't happened.

It's not that thing you really owed the guy something.

But in comparison to what the guy had been forgiven.

And so the comparison is never offense against a vacuum,

the comparison is

how we've been offended against what we've been forgiven.

That's the comparison.

And it makes a huge difference.

The second debtor has the exact same plea as the first.

Be patient.

I'll repay.

And that first did to the second.

But the king had a right to do to him.

See, here's

how it works for me and probably for you.

We want grace for ourselves, but

justice from others.

We talk about grace, but we collect debts.

And Jesus says

it shouldn't be that way in my kingdom.

When we know people like this, we're surrounded by people like this.

This is this is the nature of people.

That they hold our offenses,

and they rehearse them in their minds, and they act like everything's okay.

But the moment you cross a man, the claws come out

and they just unload.

Oh, now I know what you did.

I remember that,

and sometimes we are those people.

Let me help us

church, understand what forgiveness is.

Forgiveness is saying what you did was wrong.

I'm not going to like it wasn't.

There is a death there.

But I release you from repaying me for it.

And I release me

from wanting you to repay me for it.

That's what forgiveness is.

Now, having said that, let me say this.

It doesn't mean, though, that I continue to put myself

in a position for you to rack up dead against me.

Do you understand?

I'm going to forgive you.

I'm not going to expect anything.

I'm not going to demand from you what I have the right to demand, and I'm

going to release me from wanting that from you.

But at the same time, I'm not going to keep myself

in a position for you to continue to rack up dead against me.

I forgive you, I release you from what I'm owed

and I release me from wanting it.

But you go your way, I'll go my way.

And that's okay.

Because forgiveness doesn't mean I have to keep myself in the position

for you to continue to transgress against me.

If there's truly no repentance there,

you follow.

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?

The others run to the king, and they tattle.

Now Jesus had just got done saying, you see, someone sinned against you.

You go one on one, then take a couple with you.

If they don't repent and then take it to the church, what do they do?

They went right to the king.

They didn't go to the person.

And I think they were right to do that.

Here's why.

Because that wicked servant didn't sin against the other servant.

There was no sin in demanding what he was owed.

He was within his legal right.

There was no sin in that.

He had a legal right

for that debtor to be punished

until that debt was made right.

But he was still wicked,

not because he had acted within his rights,

but because he accepted

forgiveness and release and didn't give it.

So, though he was right,

according to the letter of the law, he was wicked

because he was willing to accept something

from a benevolent, kind, merciful king

and not give that to the king.

Subjects.

Wicked.

He was wicked

not because he accumulated debt.

He was wicked because his behavior

contradicted the grace that he had received.

So we are never more like God when we forgive and release,

and we are never less like God when we do not.

The king's mercy is to become

his people's pattern.

Verse 34.

And in his anger

his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt.

He was doomed.

There was no way for him to ever pay it back.

The king did to the wicked

servant exactly what the wicked servant did to his fellow

person.

James 213 is really, really

clear, for judgment is without mercy

to one who has shown no mercy.

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

See, the King expects the mercy

he gives to to reshape the people who follow him.

And the most frightful verse of this whole parable.

Verse 35.

So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you,

if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

So also my father would do to you.

If you do not forgive your brother from your heart,

doesn't mean you forget.

It means you say, I'm going to release you from what you owe me,

and I'm going to release me

from desiring it.

It doesn't mean we have to keep this thing here

so you can continue to rack up unrepentant debt against me.

Not at all.

But I release you from paying me back,

and I release me from wanting it.

See, I know that

I'm moving towards forgiveness when their name

no longer controls my spirit.

It doesn't mean I deny the injustice.

It just means that my spirit isn't controlled

by them anymore.

And if I accept the father's

release of my debt, I must release others.

Theirs.

At least from

my expectation of receiving it.

And friends, that's what communion

signifies and is about.

This debt that we had

that was so enormous, there's no way

that we could have ever repaid it.

There's no way.

There's no doubt the debt was real.

And there's no denying the King had a right

to demand payment.

And the king says, I will get payment,

but I'm going to get it through my son

because it's too big for you.

You can work for 200,000 lives

and never get to the place

of being able to pay your debt.

But I have a son.

And the payment of that debt was made

by the body of Jesus and the blood of him

on the cross.

That is open to be received

by anybody who will.

But please understand,

the moment we receive that, we

enter into a new kingdom,

and there's a new ethic in that new kingdom.

And and that new ethic says,

if you've received this,

you are now commanded

to give this,

because what you've received is far greater

than anything that you will give.

And so I want to invite you,

if you've if you've never dealt with this debt issue by faith

in what Jesus did on the cross, I want to invite you in this moment.

And then I'm going to write the rest of us who already have to pray as well.

So just just in this moment, just pray with me.

Join me in this moment.

If you've never accepted Jesus as your Savior and allowed his body

to be your payment for your sin, I invite you in this moment to say, God,

I admit I am a sinner and I am

in debt and I cannot pay it.

I believe

Jesus and what you did on the cross

to pay my debt and I accept it.

And I choose this day

to turn and renounce the sin of my past.

I ask you to make me a new person.

Give me the power of your spirit to love you

with my whole heart and soul and mind and strength.

And I choose today

to give you my full allegiance without delay,

without hesitation.

If that's your prayer,

you have become a new citizen of a new kingdom,

with new obligation

and new empowerment to fulfill that.

And if that is our story, that we are

citizens of that kingdom, our prayer now is this.

Father, I cannot forgive people like you've asked me to.

I don't have it in me to do that.

So clothe me in the power of

your spirit to enable me to do what you've asked of me.

And by your Spirit, I now release

those who have sinned against me

from what they owe me and from my expectation of receiving it.

And I choose freedom

and forgiveness.

That's the prayer.

And the wisdom we can do.

That is because of what Jesus died on the cross.

So if you have a relationship with Jesus, let's remember

the debt that was paid and how it was paid when he was handed

over to the men who would mutilate him and crucify him, he shared a meal

with his disciples and he took the bread and he lifts up to heaven.

And he broke, and he gave thanks and said, this is my body,

which I'm giving for you as payment for your debt.

Remember me every time you take this.

And in a very similar way, Jesus took the cup

and he said, this cup is a new covenant of my blood

shed for you, for the forgiveness, the release of your sin.

Remembering me every time you take this.

I'm going to invite you in this moment

that if that is your confession,

if that's your testimony.

That you allow the Spirit of God

to give you the power to forgive and release

whatever debt someone may, oh, you and

your expectation of being satisfied by it

to help you do that.

After we sing the song, even as we sing this song,

I have my prayers that are going to come down from here.

Because here's the thing your temptation is going to be like, I did it, I did.

I'm good with God and walk out.

There's there's great power in confession

and having someone pray with you.

I'm going to name this right now, and I want you to pray with me

that God releases me, that I release this, and I release that person, and I

release the expectation.

You can't do it on your own.

And so if, if, if you are served

better by praying with someone, these prayers will be up here.

Don't leave this place without freedom and release.

Let's sing.