Bumper Stickers usually convey a great deal of truth: “The more people I meet the more I like my dog”.
• No doubt, many people have had bad experiences with other people.
• It seems that many people have been burned; disappointed.
When Jesus was asked the greatest commandment; he replied, “Love the lord your God…” and then he added the second, which is to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-38).
• Loving God is one thing; loving a neighbour can sometimes be a real challenge, especially when you’ve been hurt.
• But loving one another is so important to Jesus that in Matthew 18 Jesus gave his disciples some instruction on how to deal with someone who does you wrong. He doesn’t want things to go unresolved.
• “If a brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.” (Mat 18:15).
• That’s the first step. Note, that Jesus didn’t say that you go and call all your friends and start talking about whoever it is that wronged you. He said, “go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.”
ILLUSTRATION: GETTING HISTORICAL
At a convention with their wives, two businessmen who had been roommates in college crossed paths. They sat in the lobby all night talking. They knew they would be in trouble with their wives.
• The next day they happened to see each other. "What did your wife think?"
• "I walked in the door and my wife got historical."
• "Don’t you mean hysterical?”
• "No, historical. She told me everything I ever did wrong."
Well Peter comes along. Good old Peter; always wanting to stick his nose into something; always having something to say. He always need to be just one step ahead of everyone else.
• Peter wants to show just how generous he is so he asks a question in vs. 21 and suggests the answer:
• “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times? (v 21).
Now, I don’t know if you noticed this or not, but notice that Peter didn’t even consider the possibility that he might sin against someone else.
• His only thought was what would happen if someone sinned against him!
• Isn’t that just the way it is? We always figure that we’re the one whose been wronged.
• And Peter, I think wanting to impress Jesus, suggested forgiving seven times. That really is impressive, considering the fact that the law only required that you forgive three times.
• I’m sure Peter was expecting a pat on the back for suggesting 7 times.
Jesus had a better idea – and to make his point, Jesus told a parable. [READ 22-35]
Here was a man who owed 10,000 talents. Now I’m not sure how we can translate that into current dollars, especially since our dollar keeps going up and down – but one thing for certain, this was more money than someone could ever hope to make in their lifetime. I mean, there was no way this guy was going to be able to pay it back. It was beyond imagination. Think millions.
• Well, it didn’t require a genius to recognize that this man was in a heap of trouble.
• It’s an awful feeling to be in debt – and this guy was way in over his head – and for whatever reason, the king, to whom the man owed the money, wanted to settle the account.
• The man with this debt was brought in and since he couldn’t pay the debt, the king was going to liquidate whatever he had, including his wife and children.
The servant recognized the depth of the trouble.
• He didn’t deny his debt, he didn’t try to explain it away, he didn’t blame it on the bad stock market, he didn’t make any excuses – which was a good thing because there was nothing he could say that would get him out of the jam he was in.
• He did the only thing he could; he fell on his knees and begged for more time.
Unbelievably, the king took pity on him and granted him a full pardon. Can you imagine that?
• The whole debt was cancelled and the man was free to go home! Unbelievable.
The servant has just been freed, the greatest load in the entire world has just been released off his back, and what does he do?
• He goes and finds someone that owes him a small amount, a few dollars, and demands payment.
• He literally held him by the neck, and threatened him.
• When this second guy didn’t have any money at all, the first rushes him off to prison.
It must have been a small community because word of what happened got around to the king and the king was not impressed.
• He calls the servant back in and has a few words for him.
• “You wicked servant” he said, “I cancelled 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?”
• And with that, the unmerciful servant was sentenced to prison where he wouldn’t see the light of day again.
And then Jesus makes the point of the parable painfully clear in verse 35, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
• In other words, Once you’ve been forgiven, you better make sure you forgive those around you.
• If a man receives pardon from God, he has the obligation to extend pardon to his brother.
This idea is not something new.
• "Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy" (Matthew 5:7).
• "Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:12).
• Both these verses show how we need to forgive others if we hope to have God forgive us.
If God were to forgive you in the same way you forgive others, where would that put you?
• The truth is that God will forgive us the same way we forgive others.
Forgiveness is a decision we need to make. It is not a feeling. It is not necessarily rational or logical. It has little to do with whether a person deserves it or not, or even if they’ve asked for it or not.
• Forgiveness has to do with my decision to extend grace and mercy – even when or especially when it is not deserved.
• Why? Because we have been the recipients of forgiveness ourselves.
But there’s something else here I don’t want us to miss: This parable not only teaches us how important it is for us to forgive others; it also teaches us the magnitude of God’s grace towards us.
• Think of it. The king in the parable is God. The servants are you and I. And we have a debt that we can never repay. It’s called sin. And we’ve all sinned. And the wages of sin is death.
• But God, in his great mercy, in his great love for us, sent Jesus to die for our sins, and to release us from our debt.
The really sad thing is that so many don’t even recognize their debt.
• So many people deny the reality of sin. They go around whistling in the dark trying to convince themselves that everything is OK, when in their heart they know they are walking away from God.
• You know if the servant had denied his debt, he would never have been given grace. He did the only thing he could – he admitted his need.
• And likewise, the Bible says, in 1 John 1:9; "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness"
• God wants to release us from our debt. God’s grace is unlimited. There is no sin that God cannot forgive.
• It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve done.
• God’s love is greater still.
• He wants to forgive you. He will forgive you. But you must ask him to.
Forgiveness is not just something we talk about – it must become a reality.
Illustration: Dog in Concrete
I heard about a man who really loved dogs. He devoted his life to them he read about them, studied them, and even gave talks about them to other dog lovers. One day he decided to pour a new sidewalk in front of his house. His neighbor watched from his window as he smoothed out the last square foot of cement.
Just then, a large dog appeared and walked through the fresh cement, leaving paw prints behind. The man muttered something under his breath and smoothed out the damage.
He then went inside to get some twine so he could put up a fence around the sidewalk. But, when he got back outside, he discovered some more dog tracks in his fresh cement. He smoothed out the cement and put up the fence.
He then went into the house. Five minutes later he looked outside and saw some more paw prints. He was really mad now. He got out his trowel and smoothed the cement one more time. As he got back to his porch, the dog reappeared and sat right in the middle of the sidewalk.
He went inside, grabbed his gun and shot the dog dead. The neighbor rushed over and said, “Why did you do that? I thought you loved dogs.” The man thought for a minute and said, “I do, I do like dogs. But that’s in the abstract. I hate dogs in the concrete.”
That’s how many of us feel about our theme for this morning. We love to hear about forgiveness in the abstract, but when it hits close to home, we hate it in the concrete.
Just as He’s forgiven you; he wants you to forgive those who have hurt you.
• Is there someone who has hurt you in the past, and you have not forgiven them?
• Is there someone who you need to ask forgiveness from?
I encourage you today;
• Seek the forgiveness that God has offered you.
• Seek forgiveness from those who you have wronged.
• Forgive those who have sinned against you.
• Only then will you be truly free to be the man or woman God wants you to be.
