The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

The questions we wrestle with as Christians about who God is, how do we live out our faith, what is the Bible, what is the truth of the Bible, what are we supposed to believe? How are we supposed to live? There are really big deep questions that we ask each other, that we ask God, that we wrestle with ourselves. And that's why the Cultivate podcast exists, to help us go deeper in our understanding of who God is, his word, and the way that he's called us to live. Everyone, welcome to the Cultivate Podcast with The Grove Church.

I'm Charlie Lofton, the lead pastor there, and I'm joined by creative director, podcast producer, great friend, cool hat wearer. Aww. Big one. Which one of those was the awe?

Great friend.

I thought maybe it

was A sappy.

Cool hat wearer.

No. I am quite known for that though. There was one time that was sometimes the women's ministry here has a clothing swap and I showed up and this woman was like, yes. I'm gonna get some hats. And I was like, oh, I'm not getting rid of my hats.

No. I just have some old t shirts here that you can have. Know. She was she was disappointed. So I I love that I've become known for it.

But shout out to Brenda Boone. She does not like it, I don't think.

Shout out to your mom that she doesn't like that you wear hats?

No. It bothers her to some extent. Also, since she's moved up here, she's been with me quite a few times when I'm like, oh, like this one, literally, as she was with me, she was like, you're getting that? Of course, I am.

Amazing. Moms for the win.

Yeah. Did

your mom listen to the podcast?

Oh, yeah. Big time.

So you're be excited about this shout out.

Yes. Yes.

Alright, we are neck deep in parables. We just finished a supersized episode.

Yeah, we did. Apologies for that.

One of my favorite parables. And now we're about to come into another one that is one of my favorites.

Really?

So we're gonna jump right in,

trying to

make it not as super It's called The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. And it's a really good, I think, follow-up to the prodigal son, where we spend a lot of time talking about how much the father loves, how much the father forgave the younger son, and this kind of connects with that.

Okay.

Matthew 18, starting verse 21. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sisters who sins against me? Up to seven times? Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but 77 times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servant.

As he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had to be sold to repay the debt. At this, the servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay back everything. The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go.

But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a 100 silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. Pay back what you owe me, he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, be patient with me, and I will pay it back. But he refused, instead he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in, you wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you, unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.

Sheesh. Boop. Teeny boop. Yeah. It's pretty heavy.

Right? So again, let's make sure we understand the kind of the the setup here because it's, again, just like with the prodigal son, it's a crazy setup to a story. Mhmm. But first, let's make sure we understand the context. Who is Jesus talking to?

One of the disciples?

Yeah, so this insider's is parable. Comes from a question from Peter, which kind of implies, probably wasn't probably wasn't a one on one, it was probably they were all hanging out. So this is something that He is communicating to his closest followers. And the question is forgiveness. You know, how many times should I forgive somebody?

That's a really funny question.

But I think Peter probably thought he was being like super cool. I mean, how many times did say? Like seven?

I'm willing to do seven.

I'm sure he thought that was like a big deal. Mean, we have because we've got this expression, right? Fool me once. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Like, to me, it's like, well, like, you get one.

You get one time, but I will not let you do it to me twice. Peter's like, fool me six times, shame on you, fool me seven times?

Shame on me.

Jesus Right? Is like, no, it's actually like a whole, not just one seven, it's like a whole bunch of sevens. And then He tells a story. It's like a king whose people owe him some money, he's got to settle up some debts. It says that somebody owes him 10,000 bags of gold.

And the word there, really, that we translate bag is the very common word talent, a talent of gold.

Oh, a talent is a measurement?

A talent is a weight measurement.

Okay.

So in the parable of the talents, this guy got 10, this guy got five, this guy five, two, one, whatever, right? It is a weighted amount of gold or silver.

Okay.

So just a few, 10,000, not pounds, but a certain amount of poundage, 10,000 of these measurements of weight, 10,000 kilograms, right? It's a weight measure, but it is a weight measure that is tied to a precious metal that then becomes money. He owes the king 10,000 bags of gold.

That's insane.

Okay? If you were to do the math on it, and say based on how much inflation and cost of gold, everything, we're talking about billions of dollars.

Yeah, that's not a debt you can

And so not come out only would it be impossible for a servant to

Amass that debt.

Amass that much debt, he could not spend that much. There was not a king alive at the time that Jesus told this story

Oh, that even had that much.

That would have had that much money to lend. You know, probably the wealthiest person in the world might have had half of that. Maybe in the entire Roman Empire, maybe the Roman government, not Caesar himself, but the entire government, they would have had that much, but they certainly would not have lent a third of the entire value of the entire kingdom to one person. I mean, at some point, two bags of gold in. That's a lot.

Be like, okay, we're Yeah, Liability. We're done. We're done here. It would have been impossible for him to spend that much, to lose that much, it would have been impossible for him have borrowed that much, because no one had that amount of money to borrow. And wouldn't it be kind of weird for

a king to loan money to a servant?

Nothing about this story makes sense. Right, you can imagine, like in the normal Parable of the Talents, know, we go, hey, I'm going to give you these bags of gold, and I expect you to do something from it. So it's like, hey, I've got this investment idea, I'm going to borrow this money for you, and I'm going to build this thing and turn it into an investment, and I'll be able to pay you back, And there's some things like that. I mean, I mean, people that are in my closest circle, I would give them some money for them to invest, either on my behalf or their own behalf, or some sort of venture together. It's a possibility.

But again, not to these degrees.

When

I teach this parable, I'll say it this way, and we'll get a laugh line, you know, where it's like, really, for purposes, what Jesus is saying is like, there's like, let's imagine this guy and he owes a king like a bazillion dollars. A kajillion.

Yeah.

It's a made up number. It's not a real number.

Okay.

I mean, billions upon billions

of But it would have then caught their attention because it's

The a hyper GDP of Multiple countries. Multiple nations, right? I mean it's like it's an incomprehensible number. It would not have even registered with them. Abigail, what would you do with a trillion dollars?

Like I don't even know how much that, I don't even know how much I that don't even know what I would buy a house? Okay, well now you spent $1,000,000 and now you have 999,000 more millions of dollars to We just can't even comprehend it. And so again, kind of like the story with the setup of the prodigal son, the setup is intentionally extreme. And so Jesus is communicating to Peter, let's just kind of talk about what you're worrying about whether or not, you you're worried about maybe being too gracious with someone.

Right, right.

So you're like a guy who owes a king an amount of money that the Roman Empire has, but no collection of any thousands of people would have this much money. You owe them an amount of money that you can imagine, like, in your brain, the whole world doesn't have this much money. That's the setup here. That's how much money you owe God. So we're already like, what?

Because I think, again, if you go from a kind of an Old Testament kind of mindset of the way the law works, I have a manageable amount of sin. Sure, I'm a sinner, but it is a manageable amount that through good works, a scapegoat or two, bull, a couple of turtledoves, and regular synagogue attendance, and clean living, God and I can be okay. I'm a sinner, sure, but a manageable amount. I understand I need God's forgiveness, but like a normal amount. Hey, no, bro, man.

Man, I got you. Yeah. It's like a guy and you went out to eat together and you're supposed to split the check and you forgot your wallet, and so I now owe you $20, I'll get you next time, my man, thanks for being a bro. And he says, Aimee, don't worry about it.

Oh,

sweet. That's where they're coming from. And he's like, imagine all the money in the world, and that's how much you owe God. And so we're already off to a weird start here as far as they're concerned. And then he forgives, which is wild, which, you just that you could even get that much debt, much less be forgiven, it's wild.

And then that same person, having been forgiven a debt of all the gold in the world, somebody comes up to him, and he owes him a 100 denarii, which is, I think of a denarius as one day's worth of wages. A minimum wage worker. Let's just say for our purposes,

Significantly different than

He works an eight hour shift, and he gets $10 an hour, $80 a day, one hundred days.

No, don't do that to me.

Or just think about like a of the annual salary of a regular person. So 10 to $20,000 a year, right? 10 to $20,000 is what we're talking about. Which, if there was somebody in your life that owed you $15,000 that's not a small amount of money.

More than I have.

It's not a small amount of money, right? But imagine you owe the government, or car loans, mortgages, everything, you owe a million dollars. And suddenly, somebody just pays off all of that debt. Now, I don't owe a million dollars anymore. Your payment on a million dollar loan was more than this $15,000 that this person owes

you. Even Yeah, with interest.

Yeah, and so now you were having to pay this debt that was tens of thousands of dollars a month, and this has been wiped clean. And so you have now saved countless amounts of money. Literally Now I come to you and say, hey, I know I still owe you $10,000 And you'd be like, oh, that's one that's like Drop of the bucket. That's like one mortgage payment, bro. Like, I'm good.

Good. I'm good. I'm great. I'm great. The best day of your life.

You know, if you win the lottery and you win $500,000,000 suddenly the fact that one of your siblings owes you $500 would be like Nothing. I just had the best day of my life. Your $500 doesn't even move the needle anymore. That's the idea here. It's not that it's an insignificant amount of money.

In comparison.

But relatively speaking, and so it really is an interesting thing that Jesus does here. He doesn't say, guy came up to him and he owed him two acorns. Right? I mean, it's a significant amount of money, but not in comparison. Billions of dollars compared to $15,000.

But I've just been forgiven billions, dollars 15,000 doesn't move the needle anymore. But it did move this guy's needle. And he was like,

I'm hold you over the fire.

Yeah, I'm gonna throw you in debtors prison. Which But is again

all of the stuff like that was very harsh. Like, I'm gonna torture him until he pay, or I guess that's at the end.

Yeah. Again, just think of like a debtors' prison, where it's like, this is where you go, and then they work in this prison, and they earn, you know, a denarius a month, but then they owe it to you. And so this guy can work this off in a hundred months, and in a hundred months his debt will be forgiven. Yeah. And so that was what should have happened to the first guy.

And again, another crazy thing about this story, he comes to the guy who owns 10,000 towns, billions of dollars, and said, don't worry, I'll pay you back. Like, how, bro?

Right. You're not any more capable than the other guy was able to pay it back.

I mean, you're an idiot. You've somehow managed to lose 10,000 talents. You're not going to be able to find 10,000 more.

Right.

And so the comparison is really stark, where it's like, okay, you owe a lot, this guy owes you something. It would have been significant, except that you have just been forgiven this amount. And so then the people find out about it. It's like, how did the king just got billions in that? What?

And they tell the king, he's like, I ain't trying to be a snitch, but that guy that you just forgave the billions, threw another dude in prison for 15,000. And the king is rightly outraged. I mean, come on, we've to have a little bit of pay it forward in you, don't you? I I could have done this to you on a magnitude of scale that you can't even comprehend, and you can't reserve any of that in light of how much I have forgiven you? And so Jesus' point here, if you have a real, full understanding of how much God has forgiven you, then even the biggest debts that normal people run up with against each other will seem insignificant by comparison.

And it will be a sign, it will be a sign as to whether or not you fully

understand How much you have.

How much you've been forgiven.

Yeah. But not just financially.

Well, yeah, it's a metaphor. Yeah. So the metaphor is all financial, but from God's, it's about sin from God's perspective, where it's like, yeah, mean, this is all the sin that you have committed, and God has forgiven you, and somebody else called you a name in middle school, and you're like, oh man, it's fine. Again, he's talking about more serious things where people can have really hurt you and you won't forgive them. And it is interesting here because I think about this a lot, because there's some, you know, I have some relationships that are not good.

But in this context, everybody is at least trying to repent. Know, this person's like, hey, please forgive me. Please forgive me this debt. And then he refuses. And so we have some, you know, people that really don't have the opportunity to forgive because they're not sorry.

But

you know, people who are legitimately sorry, you should always forgive them, not one time, not seven times, and certainly, whatever you take away from this, don't think that you're supposed to keep up with some tally sheet on Excel whether or not you've ever hit four ninety. Because the reality of it is, if you're in a close, intimate relationship with a family member, you're gonna hit four ninety. Have several people in my life, I'm sure, that are

Way beyond that.

Well over four ninety.

Yeah. So would you say the main point is how much Jesus forgives, or God forgives, or how much we should be forgiving?

Think the point is, is the answer to the question is how forgiving should I be? And the answer is, in light of how much you have been forgiven

You should be very forgiving.

You should always forgive. It would be literally impossible for everybody in the world to collect a debt against you larger than what you have been forgiven. Which is why that number is so large.

And you think their mind was like, you mean we've been that bad?

Yeah, I think, again, I don't think that people, I think it would have been shocking to hear Jesus describe the debt, the sin debt that people have against God to be said in such large terms, like the sin of the prodigal son in that story, or to think of it in terms of 10,000. Just get it. Abigail, how big a sinner are you? Oh, I'm pretty bad. I'm not the entire GDP of America sinner.

Yeah, I'm not this guy, I'm not this guy, I mean, it's not billions. It's not billions. But I got good theology, man. It's 100,000,

right? Yeah.

And yeah, so I think we think of it in terms of I've been forgiven a lot, but a manageable, comprehendible amount. And Jesus is like, no, you have been forgiven so much that it would be impossible for everyone else together to, this guy owes him $15,000, a 100 people could owe him $15,000 now we're at 1,500,000, and we're still not anywhere close to the billions of dollars of the debt that you have racked up. It's impossible for you to be so forgiving that God looks at it and is like, dang, bro, I don't know people could be that forgiving. You have experienced that much. And it wasn't because of anything that you did, or anything that you've particularly earned, it was free, and you didn't deserve it, and now go replicate that.

But I am sure that that servant walks out of there, having been forgiven billions of dollars, yeah, that's right, that's how important I am. I am so important that the king is willing to forgive me this insurmountable debt, and because I'm that important, I'm gonna choke you out until you give me the $15,000 that you owe me. And again, I think there is a certain amount of privileged thinking that we start to get into where it's like, yeah, I remember back when, when I was forgiven, but now I'm a Christian walking with God, and actually, because of that, that actually kind of makes me kind of great, makes me better than you, makes me important, and you doing something to me is actually kind of a big deal because I'm actually kind of a big deal.

Well, it's also, and I could be understanding this wrong, but it seems like he forgave him in a bankruptcy type way, not a I'll pay for you. Because that was so much money.

Well, is So

it's like he didn't even have really any pride to walk away with.

Well, yeah. Yeah. But again, you can convince yourself after the fact. You know, I lost all of this money that the king gave me, but he was willing to forgive me. Why?

Why would he forgive me? He needs me. I'm sorry, he needs you? What, to lose another And billion again, his story seems so ridiculous because of how quick the turnaround is, but it's real for us. Where it's like, oh, it may not be as immediate as this, but Christians walk around all the time acting like that their position with Jesus now entitles them to some sort of favored status out in the world.

Everything that you have is based on a generous, forgiving God, not based on anything that you did. In fact, everything that you did that led up to that was insanely stupid. Your claim to fame is that somehow you ran up an $8,000,000,000 debt. That's your claim to fame. And you don't get to say, well, you know what?

I'm the worst money manager in the world, and God forgave me, therefore treat me with some respect, please.

Actually was thinking that if that happened modern days, it would be, like, probably an article written about it.

Yeah.

Like, this is insane.

Dave Ramsey.

Yeah. But it is interesting to think of, like Jesus is telling this to Peter, not just like the what he's teaching his disciples how he wants them to live. And if that is like really applied, how different would a lot of our relationships be. Right. That we do.

It is true what you're saying of like we do find ourselves like this prideful. I'm owed something or can't do that too many times to me, but like how different would it be if we were generous with forgiveness?

Yeah, especially, again, when you think that your status as a Christian is what makes you better than someone else. Your status as a Christian is that you have some measured awareness of what a sinner you actually are. And so if you really are trading on that status, I'm a Christian. What Jesus is saying is, okay, well then you understand forgiveness in a way that other people don't. And so therefore you should be more forgiving, not you have some privileged spot with God because you are favored from Him in some way, which again, would've been a very Old Testament Jewish mindset.

So do you think the disciples had some Pharisee tendencies?

Well, that's who was teaching the law everybody.

And

so every, I mean, the Pharisees were the biggest example of kind of a works based theology, but they would've caught some of it. They were certainly catching strays from that, and would've believed that their position with respect to God gave them a privileged status more than a humble status of like, actually, because I am favored with God, it is really based on the fact that I am more keenly aware of how desperate I am for God's grace, and therefore then more willing to pass it on. And so he's turning that on its head. You think this status that you have of connection with God gives you great privilege out there, but it should really make you the most humble, forgiving people out there.

It's really walking away with humility.

And you should not think of Tally card. Yeah. That somebody, well, that a sin against me is that big of a deal. Yeah. And again, and Jesus does a really artful job with this, it's a significant amount of money.

Right, with the second surgery, Yeah,

it's significant. Not nothing. And by itself, imagine if someone came up to you and they owed you $15,000, like, okay, you should You're forgive like, Should

I though?

Should I? Mean, that's a lot of money. Yeah. But it is not a lot of money in comparison to the thing that you should already know. So Peter, you're saying, should I forgive somebody $15,000 How many times should I forgive somebody $15,000 Seven times?

He's like, well, once it hits 8,000,000,000, now we can start having a conversation. But it's not ever gonna hit that, so you should just And keep always again, I wanna be careful with this because people have crazy wild stories out there of people who are doing them real harm and real damage and things like that. I mean, this is all in the context of someone who is repentant.

Right.

And forgiving somebody doesn't mean you bring them back into your home. I mean, always feel like I need to give just a small number of disclaimers when we start talking about what feels like forgiveness, absolute forgiveness, under any circumstances, doesn't mean the person is asking for forgiveness, and also, yeah, I do need to protect myself and my children, so we're gonna still keep you outside that, I forgive you.

But you're doing like the heart The

heart forgiveness.

It's almost like people equating other things that really God's asking you to have a posture of, a heart posture towards these people of

not I just feel like I always need to put asterisk, ask me about toxic, harmful relationships, and what forgiveness looks like in that context. But again, we're just talking about every day normal, I've hurt you, should you forgive me, yes. Should I forgive you, yes, but in light of what Jesus has already done.

So,

all right. You know what's next? Good Samaritan.

Oh, that one, I don't really know much about that one.

All right. It's easily top two of kind of like most well known.

Which is fine. Know more about it for sure.

Well, I mean, you up in a context spiritually where you're probably more familiar with things like Parable of the Talents, the ones where the point is like, you need to work harder. Yes.

I know on that one very well. I've shared it many a time.

Few of these have been about you need to work harder. Maybe we need to go ahead and skip the Parable of

the Talents. Oh, I'm interested. All right.

Thank you guys for joining us. As always, you, Bagel, for joining us. I encourage you to go to our website, thegrovechurch.org/connect, find out everything you need to know about our church, our services on Sunday, better ways to connect, send us questions, all that sort of stuff. And join us next time as we continue our series of parables, look at the Good Samaritan, and see you then. Thank you for listening to the Cultivate Podcast.

Our hope is that you are taking steps to go deeper in your faith, that you are asking big questions, and you're looking for answers. We hope that we can be a resource for you through our podcast and any other way that we can help you. You can find all our episodes anywhere that you can find podcasts, including YouTube. And, again, thank you so much for joining us.