Good morning. If you were here last week, you know that Ramsey finished off our 12-week series on discipleship. Discipleship was ordinary people learning to live their everyday life like Jesus. Just because we are done with the series doesn’t mean that we stop learning what it is to live like Jesus. What we are planning to do this year is to continue to explore the topic of what it looks like to live like Jesus. Seeing as this is the first Sunday in December and I have a couple Sundays to fill before our Cantata and the Christmas Eve service, I thought I would spend a couple weeks talking about two topics that seem to fit the season: giving and forgiving. As we know, giving and forgiving, at least from the Christian perspective, is rooted in the love of God that manifested through God sending his son Jesus to die on the cross for us. Most of you are familiar with John 3:16 that says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Obviously in this passage we see God’s giving nature, and even though the word is not mentioned, we also see his forgiving nature. We know that because of Christ’s death on the cross we have been forgiven of our sins. If we have received the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ we have been forgiven of our sins and consequently can obtain eternal life. But even though I think that we all understand what that is about, there are two things that are very difficult for Christians to do: give and forgive. In fact, I can’t think of two more difficult things for a Christian to do.
Although I don’t have a lot of time to prove that to you, let’s say I suddenly said that starting January 3 every member of the church would have to tithe 10% of their income from whatever source. I suspect that some would be quite comfortable with that. Others I would probably feel a little bit of pushback. Some people might even leave the church because, after all, who are we to tell you what to do with your money. Another example would be let’s say starting in January I would say that if you are a member of this church you are required to email, contact, send a card, or a phone call to every person who has ever offended you in your life and say the three words I forgive you. I might feel a little bit of pushback there too. A certain amount of pushback is normal, I think if you have a lot of pushback going on inside your heart, it is really symptomatic of a couple things. For one, it is symptomatic of maybe you just don’t know your Bible very well. You can’t read the Bible without seeing that the Bible and Christianity are all about giving and forgiving. Worse than that, it demonstrates a small heart. A heart that has failed to understand the magnitude of God’s loving grace and kindness and generosity and forgiveness towards us. What I would like to do over the next two weeks I just address these two topics of giving and forgiving. Not in an attempt to make you uncomfortable but really to help you see the biblical basis for giving and forgiving and make the call as far as what God might have you do with that.
Today, we are going to start with the topic of forgiving. To do that we are going to look at a parable that some of you are familiar with. The parable of the unmerciful servant that is found in Matthew 18:21-35. (Scripture read here.) A little bit of background on this. If we were to back up in this chapter, we would see earlier in Matthew 18 that Jesus is taking some time to explain to his disciples how to deal with somebody that offends you. We commonly refer to it as the Matthew 18 principle. It is quite simple. When somebody offends you, rather than talking about it behind that person’s back, you go to the person and say you offended me. If the person agrees, they say they are sorry, and it is done with. If the person doesn’t listen to you or doesn’t agree, bring a second person and try to convince them and it is over with. It is a great principle. When it is working in the church, it is phenomenal. But unfortunately, we are all guilty of violating that many times. When somebody offends us, instead of going directly and talking to that person, what happens is we talk to everybody else about it, and then that causes problems in the church. I am just as guilty as the next person. That is the Matthew 18 principle, and that is the background. Jesus has finished talking about that and Peter does what he often does. When Jesus gets done talking, he raises his hand and asks him a question. In this case, he asks him a question that really Peter decides to give the answer to himself. He says “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Keep in mind in the Jewish tradition, I guess a person wasn’t required to forgive another person more than three times. By Peter suggesting seven times, he is thinking I am really generous. As Jesus often does, rather than commending Peter, he raises the bar a little bit. Jesus goes on to say “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Some of you may have in your Bible if you are reading from the King James Version or New American Standard, it might say seventy times seventy, which would be 490 times. Whatever the case, 77 or 490 is a lot of times to forgive somebody. When Jesus says this, he is not suggesting that somehow Peter should keep an account of how many times he has forgiven somebody and when he hits the 490 or 77, he can just say I am done. I am off the hook. What Jesus is saying is in the kingdom of God, you don’t hold grudges. It doesn’t work. You keep no records of wrong.
It is a principle that even Paul talks about in Corinthians. The love passage in Corinthians. Some of you might have used it in your own wedding. It says “Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no records of wrongs.” That is so beautiful. A lot of people use it in their ceremonies, but unfortunately, we forget what we say in the ceremony. This is a good reminder that forgiveness begins at the home. Jesus goes on to further explore this concept of forgiveness and he tells a kingdom parable. As I have talked about several times, a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly-type moral. A kingdom parable is something special because it tends to give a glimpse into the kingdom of God that is unfolding. That Jesus is basically announcing. When Jesus says “the kingdom of God is like”, he is basically saying to his followers that it is time to pay attention because I am about to give you a clue to what the kingdom of God is like. What characterizes the kingdom. In this particular parable, he is demonstrating that the kingdom of God is characterized by forgiveness. It is part of the culture. It is part of the whole environment. The kingdom is about forgiveness. This is not bad news. This is good news. As we will see later, when you live a life characterized by forgiveness, it not only frees other people up of the prison of unforgiveness, it frees your mind up from the torture of unforgiveness.
He tells a story about this king who is calling his servants back in to settle accounts. Keep in mind, when he is talking about servants, he is talking about slaves. But he is not talking about slaves who are really bad off. Some of these slaves lived better than the common folk. Most of the common folk lived as peasant farmers, but some of the slaves did very well. In fact, they might even have made a little bit of income on the side. The kings often would take these servants and assign them regions to collect taxes. Then they would collect these taxes and over time they would turn that money back in and they would get to keep a small percentage of that. The story goes that as the king began to make the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to him. “Since he was not able to pay, the mastered ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.” Now 10,000 talents are believed to be the equivalent of several million dollars. Some suggest up to a modern-day equivalent of $10,000,000. Or equivalent to 60 million day wages. An astronomical amount of money. It would be unrealistic that any king would allow a servant to owe that much money. Jesus knew this. The disciples knew this. But Jesus is just doing what he often does, which is using a rhetorical device known as hyperbole, which is just another way of saying an exaggeration, to just make his point. The facts here are quite simple. You have this guy who owed this incredible amount of debt. Consequently, he was not able to make payment for it. So this king decides to put his whole family on the auction block to see what he can get for them to pay off some of the debt. As the story continues, the man is so stressed out about it, he gets on his knees and he begs please have patience with me. “I will pay back everything.” Just begging and pleading to the king. Then we get this weird twist of fate. The king, the servant’s master, took pity on the man, canceled the debt, and let him go. Imagine Jesus telling the story and all these people listening to that. They are just sitting there like wow. He let the debt go. It would be like we own $10,000,000 to somebody and all of a sudden they said canceled. How would you feel? This is an amazing thing. This is great news for the servant.
Even though it was great news for the servant and the servant was probably very pleased to have that debt canceled, he was not willing to extend that to the guy who owed him money. The passage goes on to say “He found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me,’ he demanded.” To put it in perspective, while 10,000 talents is equivalent of a few million dollars, a hundred denarii is equivalent to about $16. Can you see the big contrast there? $10,000,000 versus $16. A hundred denarii would be like ten days wages verses 60 million days wages. A phenomenal contrast. So much so that you would think the servant would be willing to forgive that $16 debt, but he is not. He grabs a hold of the guy and puts a chokehold on him and demands payment from him. The guy used similar words and said have patience with me. I promise I will pay it all back. But what did the unmerciful servant do? It says “Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.” It is likely, if he is in prison, he cannot even pay the debt. Well, the other servants hear about this and they are all quite upset and distraught about it. So they go back and tell the master. The master is obviously upset. He goes on to say “’You wicked servant. I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger, his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.”
That is pretty much the end of the story. It is a sad ending to a sad story. As Jesus’ parables are often difficult to understand, this one is pretty straightforward. It is about forgiveness. You have one guy who owed millions of dollars to the king. The king let him off and released him free. Another servant owed $16 to that guy and instead of letting him off, he put him in jail. Just a weird contrast there. So the listeners back then and us today are sitting back saying what could that unmerciful servant be thinking? What is wrong with that guy? But with only a little bit of reflection, we could quickly see that what is wrong with that guy is wrong with many Christians today. We just fail to understand the magnitude of God’s love and forgiveness towards us. We don’t reflect on it. If we would reflect on it, we would see that we are all in need of forgiveness. Just think about it. If you can go back to your earliest childhood and every day and year and just think about all the sins. Think about the white lies or the non-white lies, the issues of gossip and hatred and prejudice and issues of gluttony and addictions. Then you can get into some of the stronger sins such as lust or infidelity or hatred or bitterness or pride. Think about all that stuff. If we are honest with ourselves, we could all say God let us off the hook quite a bit. We all are sinners and fall short of the glory of God. Consequently, we are all in need of God’s mercy. We have to understand that. I don’t know if we don’t understand it or we just have short memories. When somebody else offends us, we forget about all that grace and mercy that has been given to us. What happens is we hold other people in a prison of unforgiveness. In doing so, we basically end up torturing ourselves and allowing ourselves to remain in a sort of prison. These are facts that are easily overlooked in the story. In fact, there is a pastor named Jack Hayford. I was blessed to be taught by him several years ago. He wrote a book called The Key to Everything. In that book, he suggests that there are three important things that we should get out of this particular passage. He says there is a problem, a penalty, and a pronouncement. The problem is very easy to miss. The problem is that the servant who owed the $16 is still in prison at the end of the story. You would think if this is a merciful king, when he saw what the wicked servant did he would say I am going to let this guy out of prison. He only owed $16. But there is no indication that that king let that servant out of prison. That could just be an insignificant detail that is somehow missed or it could be Jesus’ subtle way of suggesting that maybe God doesn’t always get involved in the situations between two Christians. Maybe he stays out of it for a while. Maybe he expects the Christians to be mature enough to initiate reconciliation. Is that a possibility? Maybe God keeps out of it. We have all been in situations where maybe we have offended somebody. Maybe situations where we know we have offended somebody and we go back to the person and apologize. We want to maintain that relationship. How do you feel when that person says maybe I will forgive you? You are seeking that forgiveness and that person is not giving it to you, so you are kept in this prison. A prison of unforgiveness. There are a lot of examples I could give, but one came to mind when I was writing this sermon. Some of you know that I have what is called foot-in-mouth disease. Occasionally, I say something I regret. A few years ago, I said something I regretted. At the moment, I didn’t regret it. I didn’t even think it really offended the person, but found out later it was deeply offensive to the person and the family. When I figured it out, because I hadn’t heard from the person, I started thinking maybe I did offend the person, so I tried to email, call, and follow up with this person to have a conversation just to be able to say I am sorry. All the calls and attempts were pretty much ignored. For several months, I was in this prison of unforgiveness. Then one day, the person shows up in my office, and she says Chuck, I forgive you. I have no right to hold back forgiveness to you. The damage was still probably there, but at that moment when she forgave me and we hugged, I think a little healing began. I was released from the prison, and she was released a little bit. I think the healing process started. My point is that we all have the ability to hold people in a prison of unforgiveness. We hold the keys to letting that person out. It can be a small thing. It can be a large thing. But we have to decide. God is waiting for us to decide whether or not we are going to free the person from this prison. If we are not willing to, we should probably always ask the question: Is this person’s need for forgiveness, no matter whether it is something that happened on the boulevard or a family situation or whatever, any greater than my need for forgiveness from God? If you are honest with yourself, it is not. You cannot make a case that it is. That is what Jesus is saying here. You need to initiate that forgiveness and that reconciliation.
So you have this problem, and then you have a penalty. The penalty is it goes on to say that the master, in his anger, turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. This torture is not necessarily the guy on a rack in a torture chamber. What some suspect is that the servants and the king continually come around and harass him about this debt. Some would say this means that maybe if you don’t forgive somebody, you are going to burn in the fires of hell. Most don’t think this is what it means. It does mean some sort of a mental hell. A mental torture that can actually lead to some physical health issues. When I was doing the research for this passage, I found an article in Psychology Today that was all about forgiveness. It suggested that if somebody is unwilling to extend forgiveness to another person and harboring anger, bitterness, and resentment, over time that begins to affect the heart. As they continue to nourish that unforgiveness and bitterness and negative emotions, it does affect their mortality. They tend to die younger. It is very important that we don’t allow ourselves to be in that mental hell. Jack Hayford speaks to this when he says “The fact is that the structure of our human bodies and personalities were not created to bear the burden of unforgiveness. The body, heart, and mind emotions in part or in whole will crack under the weight of an abiding spirit of un-forgivingness.” When we refuse to forgive somebody, we pay the penalty ourselves. We allow ourselves to be tortured. What we have done is prevent the peace that comes through allowing the grace of God to come down into us fully to expand our heart and then give it out to others. If we don’t do that, we are not going to experience that peace.
So there is a problem and a penalty, but there is also a pronouncement. In the last line of this passage, Jesus says “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” These are strong words from Jesus. Jesus is taking this stuff very, very seriously. These words are so strong that this is a repetition of what he said earlier in the Lord’s Prayer. I know that most of you know the Lord’s Prayer, but I don’t know if you knew that the Lord’s Prayer comes out of the book of Matthew out of chapter 6, verses 9-13. This is how the passage reads: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts (trespasses, sins, the stuff that offends God), as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” We always put a nice little tag on the end of that. We say “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever, Hallelujah.” But we miss the next passage. The next passage is very familiar. “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Why don’t we just tack that one onto the end? We don’t like that one. You are going to get yours if you don’t let go of that unforgiveness. This just emphasizes that Jesus is serious about this stuff. Very serious about this stuff. Why is he serious? If we are intent about citizens of the kingdom of God and the kingdom of God is characterized by forgiveness, then we have to be forgiving people. There are no options. The option is not there. You cannot make a case that you don’t have to forgive. Contrary to what many people think, that is not bad news. That is good news. When you are able to live in a kingdom that is characterized by forgiveness or a life that is characterized by forgiveness, you not only free others from prison but free yourself from prison. I could go on and on because there is so much to say about that. I am sure there are questions twirling in your mind. What about this? What about this? That isn’t for me to figure out at this point. All I want you to understand is you are called to forgive. Before I close, I thought it would be helpful to have a real life example. Not just hear from me but hear from somebody who had to wrestle with the area of forgiveness with his ex-wife. A guy by the name of Jim.
(Jim speaking.) Good morning. My name is Jim. I am a finish carpenter and as a finish carpenter I need many tools to do my work. You need many tools to do life also. Back in 1996, my former wife, Elaine, began cheating on our marriage. Elaine was a strong-willed person, very driven, and career oriented and made the decision to end our relationship because she wanted a man who was strong-willed, driven, and as career oriented as she. At least she thought she did. As you can imagine, I was very angry, upset, hurt, and bitter with the betrayal and the ending of our marriage, especially since our young child was caught in the middle of the crossfire. In 2000, my present wife Sandy came into my life and I started going to church with her. My church life prior was sitting in the back of the church and basically sleeping for an hour and not being connected. Going to church with Sandy was different than any experience I had had before. The messages were hitting home and taking root in me. I was moved to tears almost every week. God was working in me. I felt it. As a result of going to church and other influences, I was able to forgive my former wife in less than one year and go from an angry, bitter, upset man to a forgiving former husband. You may ask yourselves how was I able to go from the bitter, angry, upset man to a loving former husband. With attending church and going to seminars, I was given the powerful tools that I had never been exposed to before. I was able to see everything we do in life has a cost and a payoff. I was able to see how much the unforgiveness was costing me. It was costing me peace of mind, joy, love, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Does that sound familiar out there at all? My unforgiveness was costing me the fruits of the spirit. The Holy Spirit cannot be present in me if unforgiveness was present. But unforgiveness wasn’t just costing me. It was costing all those around me. Sandy was impacted by it. She was unable to be unforgiving also. And my son was impacted. One example from my son was at his basketball games his mother would sit on one side of the court and Sandy and I would sit on the other. If he would shoot a hoop, he wouldn’t look either way because he lost no matter what. Not forgiving poisons you and everyone around you. Recognizing that unforgiveness was costing others got me to the point where I could call my former wife, Elaine, and share with her that I needed more than what we had at that time. Her response back was you are not getting any more money. Since we had joint custody of our son, Elaine was paying me child support since she made five times what I did at that point. My response back was it has nothing to do with the money, but I want a different relationship with her other than the angry one we had over the past few years. Her response back again was you are not getting any more money. After a few more minutes of trying to communicate that I wanted a different relationship and her repeating you are not getting any more money, I finally start crying because I was unable to get my message across to her. It had nothing to do with the money. Then she started crying. In that moment, the Holy Spirit lifted the weight off my shoulders because she finally got the message that I wanted a different relationship. Less than one year later, we were friends again where we were sitting side by side at our son’s sporting events. At one basketball game, he shot a hoop, and looked over to see all of us sitting together and cheering for him. The smile on his face told the whole thing. You would have thought he won the championship with that shot. By choosing to forgive the past, it allowed a new future for all of us. Little did I know at that time that Elaine would be diagnosed with stage IV lymphoma a few months later. Sandy became the caregiver for Elaine and took her to most of her appointments. This wasn’t easy for Sandy, but God gave her the strength to do so, so we could continue to become a whole family for our son. Elaine passed away in October of 2004. I was able to speak from a loving standpoint at her funeral as opposed to the bitter man just a year and a half prior. My forgiveness journey reinforces Chuck’s message: you have to forgive seventy times seven. Forgiving Elaine was not easy. It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen with me making the choice of forgiving the first time. Then remaking that decision every time Elaine tried to push my buttons until she understood our relationship was different. I am a living example of the definition of forgiveness, which is setting a prisoner free only to find out you are the prisoner. So you too can be set free. Who in your life do you need to forgive?
(Chuck speaking.) Just a powerful picture of forgiveness. In closing, it is clear that we are called to forgive, but it is also clear that it is not easy. It is like a discipline. Forgiveness is a spiritual discipline. Something you need to practice. We talked about that a lot earlier in the series. What is a spiritual discipline? It is something you can do to enable you to do what you can’t do. You can practice forgiveness in very small ways throughout your week and day as you are at home with conversations with your kids and your spouse. There are many opportunities to practice forgiveness in very small ways so that you can actually build up to some of the bigger things. It is tough. That is why it is so important to have a community, a gathering of people. Small groups. Close Christian friends. Those environments allow you to work through these issues of forgiveness. You get to practice on each other in those types of situations. The bottom line is forgiveness is a very, very messy process. The good news is that we serve a God who understands that. So much so that he sent his Son into the world to offer the world forgiveness of sins and he got nailed on the cross. We also know that God honored that. In Philippians 2:8 it says “Christ humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.” The result is that “God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name above all names, that in the name of Jesus Christ every knee would bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” When we make the attempt in the midst of the messiness and humble ourselves and seek that reconciliation and take the risk that it might not even work out, God will honor us. He will exalt us to a high place because he knows that unlike the merciful servant, we get it. We understand the phenomenal grace, the magnitude of God’s love that has been poured out to each of us and our willingness to extend that love to others.
