INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• I do not know about you but it is not very comfortable trying to shed some light on the dark emotions we deal with in life.
• Guess what? It does not get any easier today.
• I know I spoken a lot about the things that people do to us that can make it very challenging to live out our faith. Today’s dark emotion is no different.
• We can get so hurt at times that being able to forgive others can be difficult. If we allow a spirit of unforgiveness to go unchecked in our life, it can do a lot damage to us.
• A spirit of unforgiveness can cause us to really end up living a sour life.
• We ALL face the dark emotions we have been examining but the real issue for us is HOW DO WE DEAL WITH UNFORGIVENESS.
• How do we deal with this emotion so that we do not harbor a spirit of unforgiveness?
• Today we are going to open the Word of God to Matthew 18:21-35.
• This passage is one of Jesus parables entitled by many, The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.
• Let us being our journey in Matthew 18:21-22.
• SLIDE #2
• Matthew 18:21–22 (ESV) 21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
I. A question we all wrestle with and a decision to make.
• The question of whether to offer forgiveness to another person is a question we all wrestle with.
• This is nothing new.
• During Jesus day people wrestled with the same question. As a matter of fact, the teachers of the Law had an answer to the question.
• You MUST forgive a person 3 times according to them.
• On the 4th time of offense, no forgiveness we required.
• Using references in the book of Amos (see 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13; cf. Job 33:29), the rabbis had taken a repeated statement by God against neighboring enemies of Israel and made it into a universal rule for limiting God’s forgiveness and, by extension, also man’s.
• If God forgives men only three times, they wrongly reasoned, it is unnecessary and even presumptuous for men to forgive each other more times than that.
• The question is how many times are we called to forgive another person? Peter was trying to come across as rather magnanimous by asking about seven times.
• What is your number? I know folks with whom the answer is one. Cross me once and you are never forgiven.
• The one or no chance crowd rationalize that they are protecting themselves from further hurt by giving a person one chance or less.
• Let me ask you this, how many times do you want to be forgiven?
• Let us look at Jesus answer to Peter.
• Jesus says seventy times 7, or 70, 7 times. So 490 times!
• So to be a good Christian you MUST offer forgiveness to another person only 490 times!
• WHAT! 490 TIMES!
• Is the number important to Jesus? Was 490 the point? NO! Jesus is saying that we should ALWAYS be willing and ready to extend forgiveness to those who wrong us.
• Told you it was not easy.
• Rather than keeping track of the number of times we grant forgiveness, Jesus calls his followers to a basic mindset that is ever open to forgiveness and reconciliation.
• We will see this in the parable that Jesus shares with Peter.
• We have a tendency to want revenge or we want to be able to harbor the hurt, anger, and ill-feelings toward the one who hurts us.
• We have examined this subject before, unforgiveness really does not hurt the one who hurt us, it hurts US! We will examine that thought a bit later.
• I know it is hard to think of being hurt and then forgiving more than once, but remember we are called to do what is spiritually best for other people.
• "Keep on forgiving endlessly; don’t carry a grudge" is what Jesus was saying.
• Let’s turn to verses 23-27
• SLIDE #4
• Matthew 18:23–27 (ESV) 23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
• SLIDE #5
II. We all need to experience forgiveness.
• Jesus tries to illustrate His point with this parable.
• WE have a king who is trying to collect on the debts that he is owed. Brought before him is a man who owes a WHOLE lot of money.
• This man was in a desperate position. He was going to lose all he had and his family was going to be sold into slavery for the overwhelming debt he owed. GOOD THING WE DO NOT DO THAT TODAY.
• This man was in deep trouble, so what did he do, he BEGGED the king for time to pay back the money. Notice the man is not asking for the loan to be forgiven but rather he is pleading for time to pay it all back.
• He thought the economy would get better.
• This was a common practice in the ancient world. If you could not pay your debts, you and your family became slaves.
• Now we all have a debt we cannot pay, it is the debt that sin costs us. When we commit our first sin against God, we need forgiveness.
• If I wrong you, I need forgiveness. There is not a single one of us who does not need to be forgiven.
• One of the things that can help us to not harbor a spirit of unforgiveness is to realize the need we have to be forgiven.
• Back to the parable, the man was pleading for time to pay back the debt. The King knew this man could never repay it all; it was like one of us begging to have time to pay off the national debt!
• The king did something astonishing. He FORGAVE THE DEBT! He did not just give him more time. The master extended grace, which is undeserved or unmerited favor.
• The master wrote off the debt. The word “forgive” means to dismiss absolutely from thought.
• Now this does not mean the master was going to give the man any more money, he just released his RIGHT to retribution over the non-payment of the money.
• There have been many times in my life where I needed forgiveness. Anyone who is married any length of time knows this.
• What a GREAT feeling! I cannot imagine how I would feel if Chase bank called me Monday and told me that they forgave my mortgage! WOW!
• The man is forgiven; he got a WAY bigger blessing than he ever in his wildest dreams thought of getting.
• Now the story ends, he lives with his family happily ever after! He is going to look for someone else to bless now! Let’s see
• SLIDE #6
• Matthew 18:28–30 (ESV) 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.
• SLIDE #7
III. We ought to give others what we have received from God.
• REALLY! WHAT? DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?
• One hundred denarii was about 100 days’ worth of wages. In contrast the servant had been forgiven a half million times as much.
• The debt in comparison was a very paltry sum. So after the newfound forgiveness the servant went out hunting for the guy who owed him money.
• I am sure he went to forgive him. The scene gets pretty nasty and he ends up having the man tossed into jail for the money owed.
• Now we need to understand that the forgiven servant was within his rights to do what he did to the man who owed him the 100 denarii.
• In the same way when someone hurts us, we do have the right to be angry, the right to demand restitution.
• When we are tempted to allow a spirit of unforgiveness to overtake us we need to remember the great forgiveness God has given to us so that we can spend eternity with Him!
• When we know how good it feels to be forgiven we should want to offer that same blessing to others.
• Do we want God to hold us in “prison” until we can pay our debt, by the way a debt we can never pay?
• SLIDE #8
• Matthew 18:31–35 (ESV) 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
• SLIDE #9
IV. Unforgiveness will destroy YOU in the end.
• Well, the other servants saw what happened and they reported it to the master. When the master heard what happened, he summoned the ungrateful servant to his palace.
• The master chastised the servant and told him he should have shown the same level of compassion that was given to him.
• So the unforgiving servant was pocked away for the rest of his days.
• Jesus gives us a warning in verse 35.
• 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
• Look at what else Jesus says in Matthew 6:14-15
• SLIDE #10
• Matthew 6:14–15 (ESV) 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
• We can see this is something that very serious to God. This is something we MUST be able to do.
• I know for some you think it is impossible, but it is not.
• These verses can be scary. They also give us hope. HOPE?
• Yes, hope. This is something that is so important to God that He will help us to be able to do what we do not think we do. He can help us to truly forgive others.
• I will tell you also that if you let the Holy Spirit help you to be a forgiving person, you will a much more joyful person. The burden of anger and hurt will no longer enslave you!
• Having an unforgiving spirit will hurt you in the end because it blocks God’s ability to forgive you and it will enslave you in this life in many ways.
CONCLUSION
• These emotions are called dark emotions for a reason. They are no fun to bring to light.
• But when we bring them to light by shining the light of the Gospel on them, we can experience true freedom in Christ like never before.
• Are you struggling with handling unforgiveness? Let me ask you a final question.
• Has that spirit enhanced your life, has it made your life better?
• How about trying something different!
