INTRO
Gonzaga Players Arrested for Pot and Mushroom Possession: In an absolute shocker, two college kids from the Pacific Northwest have been arrested for marijuana and mushroom possession. Josh Heytvelt and Theo Davis were pulled over by police for a broken taillight, but inspection of the car yielded both pot and psychedelic mushrooms. The two players have been suspended from the team indefinitely. The marijuana possession charge is only a misdemeanor, but possession of psychedelic mushrooms is a felony. Heytvelt was the second leading scorer for the Bulldogs, who are tied for first in the West Coast Conference. Davis has not yet played this season after shoulder surgery in October. [2/12/07]
Gonzaga basketball players caught with psychedelic mushrooms and marijuana in a vehicle a couple weeks ago. Not too surprising – lots of college students use drugs regularly. Disappointing if you’re a Zag fan, but not all that shocking.
A couple days later I was interested to hear Kiro radio talk-show host Dory Monson discussing this news story. His question that he was soliciting opinions from others was this.
Since Gonzaga is a Christian institution, should the university act with more leniency (forgiveness and grace) and allow the players to play if they were repentant, or should they bring down strict discipline upon these student athletes?
What do you think? How many of you think the right thing would be to act lenient? How many of you think the right thing would be strictness?
Forgiveness is a sticky subject. As parents we always ask ourselves how much “grace” to impart to our chidren, and how much they need to live with harsh consequences for bad decisions. Children and teens must learn how to deal with friends who are fickle. Do you keep on trying to develop a friendship with someone who has hurt your feelings? It can be hard to know how to act. Sometimes we have been hurt repeatedly by relatives who abused us rather than nurtured and loved us. What are we supposed to do then?
Jesus once told a story to his disciples about forgiveness. It’s found in Matthew 18 starting in verse 21. The setting is given as the following:
Peter comes up to Jesus and asked him “How many times should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”
Jesus chuckles and says, “No – try seventy times seven!”
Then, as if that wasn’t enough of a shocker, he tells the following story.
Let me tell you about the Kingdom of God. It is like a King who had lent out money to different people and then decided it was time to get his money back. One by one he called the debtors before him. One man was brought before him who had racked up an amazing amount of debt – about $10,000,000! The king told him, “Pay up!”, but the man couldn’t pay.
The king responded by saying, “Well I guess I’ll just have to sell you and your wife and your children into slavery so I can at least recoup some of my losses!”
At this the man got down on his knees and started to grovel, begging the king, “Please give me more time – I promise I’ll pay you back somehow!”
The king listened to his cries for mercy and actually picked the man up by the hand, pulled him to his feet, and said, “alright, alright, because you have begged for mercy you shall have it.” He then canceled the entire debt – just wrote it off – and allowed the man to go.
As the man was skipping down the road clicking his heels together at his good fortune, he happened to run into a fellow worker who had borrowed about a thousand dollars from him earlier that year. As soon as he saw this man, he went right up to him, grabbed him by the throat and told him “I need my money! Pay up!”
Well, this poor guy wasn’t prepared and said he needed more time to pay off the debt. “Just give me more time!” he pleaded, “and I’ll pay off every penny – I promise!”
Well, the first servant (the one who had been released from his debt by the king) dragged that second servant off to debtors prison and told him “Tell your family you’re staying here until I’m repaid what you owe me!”
Well, there were a few other servants who had seen this entire scene, starting with the King and ending at debtor’s prison. When they saw what this man had done, they went back to the king and reported to him what had happened.
This news didn’t go over very well with the king – he sent men to fetch this man for him. When they found him and brought him before the king, the king told him, “You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt simply because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy upon you?”
Then the king took that servant and threw HIM into debtors prison, even giving instructions for him to be tortured until his entire debt was paid.
The end.
Actually that wasn’t quite the end. Matthew records one more statement Jesus makes before he moves on. He says…
Matt. 18:35 (NLT) “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”
Obviously, forgiveness is extremely important to God. So important, that Jesus makes this incredibly strong statement about it. It makes us feel uncomfortable, doesn’t it? As for me I don’t really like this aspect of the story about a king who goes back on his word to forgive someone, especially when Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like that king.
It makes God not seem all that safe. I like to have him safe. So that I know exactly what to expect from him. Kind of like a tame lion. Oh yeah he has the power to kill me but he would never do it, right?
So then, I think to myself, “This parable seems a bit harsh – maybe if I put it together with some of the other lessons Jesus taught about forgiveness I’ll feel better.” So that’s what I did. Are you ready to hear the results of my search? Here they come in rapid fire…
Matt. 6:14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
Matt. 6:15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Mark 11:25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
Luke 6:34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full.
Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
Luke 6:36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Luke 6:37 ¶ “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Luke 17:3 So watch yourselves. ¶ “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.
Luke 17:4 If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”
Luke 17:5 ¶ The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
And when we hear these teachings of Jesus we say the same thing, “Lord help us! Increase our faith!” Because to forgive once is hard. To forgive twice is even more difficult. To forgive seventy times seven seems just downright foolish.
But there is no way around it. The clear teaching of scripture is that we, as people who have been forgiven of so much by God, are OBLIGATED to forgive others. It is also clear that God will extend to us the measure of mercy and forgiveness that we extend to others.
I think the main point Jesus was making in his story about the servants is that each one of us had a debt we could not pay off. Each one of us starts out as the first servant in the story. We have sinned over and over again, through the things we’ve done and the things we’ve failed to do. Time and again we have broken God’s laws and broken God’s heart, and each time this is like going further into debt to him.
God has every right to judge us according to that debt and to demand repayment for our sins. And guess what the repayment would be: death.
Rom. 6:23 (NIV) For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
For all of us, a day is coming when we will be called to account for our life and to somehow “settle accounts” with our King, God Almighty. The only way for us to be able to stand on that day is to take care of things NOW, by doing what the servant did: plead for mercy from God. Once you understand that you are in a hopeless debt toward God, with no way you could repay it – the only other option is to plead for mercy and ask for forgiveness of that debt.
The amazing thing is that God IS merciful. He does not treat us as our sins deserve, but has provided a way for our debts to Him to be erased. The one and only way he has provided is through the death of Jesus, and the shedding of His blood as a substitute for you and me.
Once we really get it through our head what Jesus did for us, and how God has forgiven us for everything we did that actually necessitated the execution of his beloved Son, we start to understand how much more we’ve been forgiven than God is asking us to forgive others.
People definitely can be hurtful. Some of us here today have been hurt very deeply and repeatedly by other people. But God instructs us to think of those hurts, those debts, as a small debt when compared to what God has forgiven us and set us free from.
CONCLUSION:
The parable of the unmerciful servant, as well as the other teachings of Jesus on forgiveness, make it clear there is no room in the Kingdom of God for unforgiving, unmerciful, bitter people. God requires of us that we forgive those who offend us.
And so I ask you, is there anyone you need to forgive? Is there someone you’ve been thinking about the whole time I’ve been talking. Forgiveness is your choice to let go of that hurt, to not allow yourself permission to go over it again in your mind. It is the choice to remember all that you’ve been forgiven, and to re-present the mercy and forgiveness of God with those who hurt you.
In just a moment we are going to remember the sacrifice of Jesus as we partake of the Lord’s Supper together.
• It is a time for all those who follow Jesus to remember the debt you owed God because of your sin, and the incredible, amazing grace that he showers upon all who come to him asking for mercy.
• It is a time to celebrate that though we owed him a debt we could not pay, he paid the debt he did not owe.
• But it is also a time to search our own hearts for any place that unforgiveness or bitterness is hiding out – and to give that over to Him to cast into the deepest sea.
• It is a time to confess our inability to forgive and to ask God to empower us to not just say the words, but to ACTUALLY forgive.
INSTRUCTIONS:
• Pray silently (no music).
• When music starts, ushers serve elements to people in chairs.
• After everyone is served, I’ll come to the front and we’ll partake together.
Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor
Matthew 19:21 (NLT) Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone[a] who sins against me? Seven times?”
22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven![b]
23 “Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. 24 In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars.[c] 25 He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.
26 “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ 27 Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.
28 “But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.[d] He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.
29 “His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. 30 But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.
31 “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 32 Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.
35 “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters[e] from your heart.”
