Forgive or Not to Forgive

Good morning, and welcome to showing you a physical script and then heart and stuff.

For those of you joining us online, welcome to you personally to this space.

Could the words of my mouth and the meditations of all hearts be acceptable to you?

Oh Lord, who is our strength and our deeper?

The first thing I want to hear this morning is these words from the psalmist.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger, and of great kindness.

For as far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our sins from us.

This morning's sermon title is forgive or not to forgive.

That's the question.

We confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed.

By what we have done and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart.

We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

We are truly sorry and we have we repent.

For the sake of your own son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us, that we might delight in your will and walk in your ways.

To the glory of your name.

Amen.

Must Sundays, beloved of the church, here we say these words, or the words from right one, feel humor me.

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker of all things, judge of all men, we acknowledge and bewil our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, by thought, word, and deed against thy divine majesty, and provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.

We do earnestly repent and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings.

The remembrance of them is grievous unto us.

The burden of them is intolerable.

Have mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father.

For thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ's sake, forgive us all that is passed, and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life to the honor and glory of thy name through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

You see, beloved, these words are not just something that we say to get to the next part of the service.

They are meant to remind us that we have a task as Christians, as the followers of Jesus Christ, to live differently.

We are to live a life seeking to be different.

In our gospel this morning, we find ourselves dead center of this ask from our Lord Jesus.

But not before Peter, Peter, in his straightforward way, he asked Jesus what he's thinking, what's on his mind.

How many times should we forgive?

Seven times?

Is that enough forgiveness?

Is that all we gotta do?

Is that all we need?

Is that all that God needs to give us?

Seven times.

That should be enough.

But Jesus replies, not seven, but seventy-seven times.

Now this number isn't specific, so you know, like don't keep traveling tracks at home on all of your beloved friends and neighbors who have sinned against you, but instead it is a number of completeness, of immeasurability, a number so vast.

We've all heard this story before.

Jesus goes on to recount the parable known as the unmerciful servant.

The servant begs for mercy.

Begs.

Just like we do every Sunday morning.

Did you catch what those words really said?

They begged the Almighty through the intercession of Jesus Christ to forgive those things which God should not forgive us for.

But his mercy and grace allow it.

So this serpent is begging for mercy.

Mercy from a debt.

How much debt do you think it is exactly?

So the slave owes how much?

10,000 pounds.

That doesn't mean he has ten thousand talents.

It's a monetary form.

One power is worth twenty years of the day of laborer's wages.

Twenty years.

And he owes how much?

Ten thousand.

That's more than a lifetime's work.

That's more than three billion dollars if you want to give it a financial sum.

A lifetime's worth of wages, and several more lifetimes.

The to catch the gospel that not only is he the one to be punished, but so are his wife and children.

They're going to continue to pay for the sin.

They're going to continue to pay the debt over their lifetimes.

Lucky for them not just be sold.

But the Lord in his mercy releases him and wipes it away as if it never existed.

So essentially, his life and the lives of his whole family are free.

Free from the burden of the multi-lifetime death.

But then just moments later, after receiving his life back, he decides to do something stupid.

Have you ever done that?

Yeah.

He does something stupid.

And I'm sure he regrets it now.

He jumps his fellow slings and grabs him by the throat and says, Pay me the hundred denari that you owe.

A denari is worth about a day's wages.

So he owes them essentially a hundred days worth of work.

But do you remember how much he owed before?

Lifetimes of work.

And it was forgiven.

But now he finds himself with his hands wrapped around his fellow man's throat, telling him that he must pay.

Well, beloved, when the world sees injustice, oftentimes it gets a voice.

And so his fellow slaves, they get just a little upset because they know what's happened and what is now transpiring.

And they can't keep the trap shut.

So they go tell the boss.

What does the boss do?

Because of his desire for the repayment after having received mercy, the Lord rebukes him and sends him to be tortured until he can pay.

Tell him when will he be able to pay?

It can't work if it be a torture.

So essentially, he's been condemned to death.

Then Jesus has some explicit words for us.

Words that don't ring joyous to us, but are true.

God will do the same to us.

The same if we do not forgive our brothers and sisters.

Not from our pocketbooks, but from our hearts.

And one of those comes from this passage.

And it's an offery sentence that priests generally don't like to use because it sometimes gets them in trouble.

But if you're offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar.

And go.

First, be reconciled to your brother.

And then I will offer your gift.

We are being asked to make sure we are in a state of forgiveness with one another before coming to the altar to offer our gifts.

Sadly, always easy, right?

Why is it not easy?

Well, I've been married for 21 years.

And sometimes we want to be upset.

And sometimes we want to be angry.

And sometimes it feels real good.

Sometimes, because we know that we're right, it feels really good to be superior in a situation.

Amen.

This season at the Pentecost, I like to call the discipleship season.

We hear from Jesus how we are to live out only two things.

The commandments given in Matthew 22 and Mark 12.

You might have heard them before that we should love God with our everything.

Specifically our heart, our mind, our soul, our strength.

That's our everything.

And then secondly, you guessed it.

We're to love our neighbors as ourselves.

In this gospel, we get a vignette of that very thing.

The slave wanted mercy, but didn't love his neighbor enough.

When I was preparing for the sermon, I was reminded of the conversation I had with a work colleague, and we were talking about the cost of discipleship.

He too was in seminary at the time, at a Baptist seminary, and he relayed that the cost of discipleship for him and his wife, they had determined, was loving their neighbor to the extreme, and beginning with their family.

And that they would be together forever.

So he and his wife planned, saved, and eventually made happen a way for them and their tradition to ensure that they were doing everything to make it good for the salvation of the souls of their children and grandchildren.

So they sold their beautiful home and they bought a more expensive home with less square footage, a home right across the street from their child and their grandchildren.

Not so that they could be closer to them for familiar reasons, but for a specific reason.

They wanted to remove any and all obstacles from the way of them getting their children and grandchildren to church for the knowledge of Jesus and his salvagor.

So each Saturday night and Sunday morning, they call next door and ask, Do you want to go to church?

If you do, you can ride with us.

We'll be ready in ten.

They offer to their grandchildren in every opportunity for them to go to church with them.

And even go to church, especially when there's children events, so their grandchildren would want to come to church.

And guess whose store they're knocking on on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Who is he?

But what caused this change was a realization that God had forgiven him of his sins, and he wanted his closest family and friends to fill that too.

For he knew where he had come from, and if God could forgive him, then certainly God could forgive his family.

So back to those confessions I started with.

What are we in our lives holding against one another?

That is keeping us from living into the full stature of who God made us to be.

Forgive or not to forgive is the question.

What are we holding against someone that you're ready to let go of?

Earl, listen up.

All those who asked him this morning, your bulletin is a piece of white paper.

I hear you going, Yah! And I want to ask you to do something that maybe makes you a little uncomfortable, and that's okay.

I want to invite you to write down what one of those things are that you're willing to give up today to be worshiped God.

And I want you to fold it up, wad it up, whatever your desire is.

And I want you to come to this table to receive God's grace and mercy.

Place it in the basket there at the baptismal pond.

And then bless yourselves with the water of rebirth.

Don't worry, no one will ever see me serious.

Immediately after the service.

And it's full of grace.

Remembering those words again from the psalmist.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and afraid of kindness.

As far as the east is from the west, so far as he remembers our sets from us.

It means freedom.

And it means peace and life.

So as we forgive, we are also forgiven.

May we always be ready to confess our false and sin.

And even more ready to receive forgiveness.

We invite you to join us each and every Sunday and to follow the podcast so that you can stay connected with future messages.

Until next time.

God bless.