9/15/19 Matthew 18:21-35 “Our Undeserving Grace”

13 Sep 9/15/19 Matthew 18:21-35 “Our Undeserving Grace”

9/15/19     Matthew 18:21-35         “Our Undeserving Grace”

Today’s Scripture is one that we have heard many times and it is a theme that runs all through the Bible.  That is because it is a sin that we are so good at committing.  This is the sin of not forgiving.  God talks many times about this and that is why we are talking about it again today.  There probably isn’t a person here, and I include children on this, that has not been hurt.  Any time we are in relationships we will get hurt.  The big difference between people who have many relationships and activities in their lives and those who shut out others is in how they handle forgiveness.  Today’s reading really lays it out for you and then accentuates the need for forgiveness by they use of a parable.  Let’s see if we can learn a little from Jesus.

Steve Shepherd tells the true story that happened several years ago when an 18 year old girl was killed by a 17 year old drunk driver.  The driver was convicted of manslaughter and drunk driving.  The girl’s family also sued for $1.5 million and they settled for $936.  The young man was ordered to pay $1 a week for 18 years as a reminder of what he had done.

Now this young man was truly sorry for what he did.  He did his community service plus he spoke out against drunk driving for 7 years which was 6 more years than his sentence required.  But he would always forget to send the $1 to the family on Friday.

The money was supposed to go into a scholarship fund in the girl’s name.  The family took the young man to court 4 different times for non-payment.  The young man was once sentenced to 30 days in jail for failing to pay.  This girl’s death haunted him because of this weekly payment.  At one point he offered to send them all the $1 checks at one time so he wouldn’t have to do it every week.  The family refused this.  They wanted to make sure that he was always reminded of what he did.  This almost seems more like revenge to me.  This also might be a little over kill.  This young man basically had to say he was sorry 936 times.  How many times is enough?

And that is the question that Peter raises in verse 21.  How many times are we required to forgive?  And then Peter offers up 7 times.  7 times was a very generous offer in those days.  The Law of Moses only required that you forgive 3 times.  As a matter of fact, they used to teach that God only required that we forgive someone 3 times.  After that you were seeking revenge or whatever.  So Peter is being very generous by offering forgiveness twice the amount required by the Law plus one.

And this brings up the question, “How many times do you forgive?”  We live in a society, a world that demands revenge.  You know I like to pick on politicians, lawyers and the media and today I will pick on the media.  The best way to stop many reporters in their tracks is to forgive someone when you should be exacting revenge according to society.  I have seen this happen many times on TV and in the paper.  Do you remember when Terry Anderson was held hostage in Lebanon for 7 years in the late 80’s?  He was held in terrible conditions.  After he was freed he chose to forgive his captors and most of the media people didn’t know how to answer this.  They were stunned.  So if we continue on Peter’s way of thinking, we could forgive them 6 more times and we would still be doing great.

But what does Jesus say about this.  He tells Peter that he is to forgive 77 times or as some texts have it, 70×7.  In other words it is a lot of times.  Jesus is telling Peter and us that if we are keeping track of how many times we forgive someone, then we don’t get the point.  And the point is that we are to keep on forgiving no matter what.  There is no count on forgiving.  It is kind of like when we are to pray unceasingly.  We are to forgive the same way, unceasingly!

I think that maybe Peter had asked the wrong question here.  Instead he should have asked, “How many times do I need to forgive?”  This question helps us to turn this back to our hearts.  Remember when we talked a few weeks back and we found out that forgiveness begins between you and God.  We found that forgiveness is part of a healing process.  Forgiveness is about how we can make ourselves better.  It is about you and not about the other person.  If you are not careful, it will be your heart that is in a prison and not the person that you need to forgive.

Think back to our opening story.  There was no forgiveness there.  Then think back to the story I told you a couple of weeks ago about the woman in Moorhead who was in a similar situation.  She forgave and embraced the young man who took the life of her child.  She had freed herself so that she could move on.  The family in the opening story was stuck right along with the fellow who had to pay $1 every Friday.  Understand this, they not only required the man to pay weekly, but they had to receive the payment weekly so that this terrible wound would not heal.  We have to be so careful not to go into a revenge mode.  Remember what God tells us, “Vengeance is mine.”  We are to stay out of it and leave it to God.  And here we can see an example of why we are to do it God’s way.

As we move on, Jesus goes on to tell a parable that will also illustrate this and a few other things.  We always have to be careful when reading parables that we don’t read too much into them.  This is not the kingdom of heaven.  Some of the points that Jesus will make are like the kingdom of heaven, but they are not the kingdom of heaven.

We start off with the king who was settling his accounts.  He found a man that owed him ten thousand talents.  In our modern terms this would be like a gabillion dollars.  There was absolutely no way that this man could pay this off in his lifetime.

How many of you have been in a situation like this?  How many of you have been or are now in this dilemma?  Our economy may not be too bad now but how is it with your economy?  We seem to think that we can max out our credit cards and all other sources of credit and then we don’t have to pay it back.  This is how our country is run.  This is one of the reasons we have recessions.  In the recession of a few years ago, one in every 42 homes in Las Vegas is in foreclosure.  We had bankers and real estate people in our own area telling us that our local economy is great while overpriced houses sat on the market and wouldn’t sell.  Easy loans and variable rate loans gave us a terrible economy.  Many, many people didn’t know where to turn next and were about to lose all that they had.

And this is like our man in the story.  So he falls to the feet of the king and he begs for mercy.  This wonderful and kind king takes pity on this poor man and forgave of all his debt.

Each and every person here today is in the same boat as our man in the story.  Each one of us has a tremendous sin debt that you will never be able to pay.  Unfortunately, we live in this world where sin rules and for the most part we succumb to it.  And if you don’t believe me think about this.  When was the last time that you went for a week without sinning?  When was the last time you went for a day w/o sinning?  How long can you go w/o sinning?

God has had this wonderful plan in place since the beginning of time.  This is the plan where Jesus came to us as a man that would walk among us and teach us.  He would eventually die for us and our sin debt.  Your sin debt is erased through Jesus Christ.  Your gabillion sins are gone in the sight of God, thanks to Jesus Christ.  If you are sitting here today, wallowing in your sin, lost in your ways and continually drowning in the ways of the world, then ask Jesus to come into your life and take control of it.  By doing this, you can be like some of the rest of us who carry our sin debt in a bag marked, “Paid in Full.”  Our debt is paid in full by what Jesus did.

And along with all of this grace, Jesus goes on and gives us a little truth about ourselves.  The forgiven man goes out and demands payment from people who owe him.  He was forgiven a gabillion dollars and he goes out and demands payment back to him of $100.  This servant cannot pay and the forgiven man throws him in prison.  Then the king finds out how ungrateful the man really is, calls him back and throws him in jail and has him tortured.

This is where many people are today.  We are out there demanding that debts be paid to us.  You say that such and such wronged me and I deserve an apology.  Or that guy put a fence up 6” into my property.  Or the best one yet and this comes from our children, “He looked at me wrong!”  I am trying to show you just how trivial all of your complaints are.  Jesus Christ forgave you all of your sins.  Or at least He will if you ask Him to live in your heart.  And if you think about it, that is a lot of forgiveness.  I shudder when I think of all the things that I have done wrong and the potential of all the things that I can still do wrong.  How minor is the wrong that has been done to me compared to all the wrong that I have done to God?

This is our old human nature to be miffed by every little thing.  This is what we have to be on guard against.  Jesus Christ has offered us all of this grace, a tremendous amount of grace.  And this grace is free.  All that we have to do is to extend it to our neighbors.  We are to treat our neighbors as ourselves.  Once again we can see where we are to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, all of our souls and all of our minds and we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  This theme keeps getting repeated all through the Bible.

Now we come to verse 35.  This is how God will treat you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.  We have to be careful here because this does not mean that God will take away our salvation.  God doesn’t work with threats.  You can keep your salvation when you don’t forgive, but you will give up God’s blessings.

And keep in mind that God is not withholding blessings.  You are withholding the blessings from yourself.  God wants you to have every blessing that is offered.  God wants you to have it all.  This is no different than the concept of some people going to heaven and some people don’t.  God wants everyone to go to heaven.  We are offered chance after chance to accept.  But to those who don’t go to heaven, it was their choice.  They were given many, many opportunities to accept Jesus but they chose not to follow God.  They did the choosing.  God offered them salvation but they in effect, they said, “No thank you.  I can do it myself.”  But you know what?  You can never, never do it yourself!

This is how God’s plan works.  You can either accept salvation or you can reject it.  When it comes time for getting blessings for forgiving people, you can either accept the blessings by forgiving others or you can reject them by not forgiving.  You can either accept or reject the wonders of a prayer life.  You can either accept or reject the blessings that come with attending and belonging to one church.  You are in charge of getting God’s blessings.  It is up to you.

I would like everyone here today to search their hearts.  Do a thorough search to see if you know of someone who needs your forgiveness.  It could be long ago or it could be last week.  Then take the matter to God and ask how to go about it.  If you cannot get in touch with the person, then God will help.  If the person is a neighbor or friend, then God will help.  God will help.  God only wants what is the very best for you, and like it or not, forgiveness is the best.  As I read in Sermon Central awhile back, “Forgiveness doesn’t make the other person right, it makes you free.”  That is your choice.

I would like to close with a little story from Rick McCarley.  This is a story about an attorney who was a church member.  You know how I like to tell stories about attorneys.  Anyway, the pastor had been talking about several Scriptures like the one we had today.  This lawyer was so inspired that he decided to cancel the debts of his clients that owed him money for longer than 6 months.  I think we all wish we could get a deal like that once in a while.  So he drafted a letter explaining his decision and its Biblical basis and sent out 17 debt canceling letters via certified mail.  One by one the letters began to be returned, unsigned and undelivered.  There could have been lots of reasons why this happened but it would be unlikely that this would occur 16 out of 17 times.  So 16 letters came back because the clients refused to sign for and open the envelopes for fear that the attorney was suing them for their debts.  How profound is it that we owe a debt for our sin and God is willing to cancel it but many, many people will not even open the letter that explains.  I don’t understand people like this.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus loves you whether you know Him or not.  Open His letter and accept this love that is given freely.  The love of Jesus is extravagant, it is lavish, it is relentless and it is free.  Your life will be changed for the better instantly through Jesus.  God and I have been through a lot of things together, some good and some not so good.  But I do not regret a moment of it.  A life in Jesus is the best that there can be.  Accept His teachings and you will be free.  You don’t deserve it but you can have it.  Thank you Jesus for your love and your grace.  Let’s pray.