Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
• Matthew 18:21-35 (NRSV)21 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”
• Peter though he was being generous by suggesting seven times as the Pharisees taught to forgive those who offend you three times
• 22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
• Notice something right away which came up earlier in the Parable of the Coin in the fish’s mouth
• Remember in the Parable of the Coin in the fish’s mouth Jesus said the sons of the Kingdom are free
• We turned to Col 2:14 to see what this term “free” meant
• Colossians 2:14 (NLT) He cancelled the record that contained the charges against us. He took it and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ’s cross.
• When Jesus went to the cross “record keeping” went out of business – he nailed the charge sheet the law levelled against mankind to the cross and cancelled them out
• Now Jesus may have done away with record keeping, but what exactly are the Pharisees and Peter doing in regard to forgiveness
• The Pharisees and Peter were record keepers when it came to keeping track of other’s sins
• The Pharisees kept track up to three times and Peter up to 7 times
• What Jesus says in response is to forget about record keeping – “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times
• What he is saying is, “throw the record-keeping book away! You have to be willing to forgive indefinitely if need be”
• Later Paul says virtually the same thing in that famous chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13:5 (NLT) Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged.
Jesus came to do away with the whole record keeping, performance based religious nonsense
• Know why?
• First, it doesn’t work because it is impossible to repay the debt of sin
• We are fooling ourselves if we somehow think we can be accepted on our own performance
• And second, it promotes an atmosphere of one upmanship or judging similar to what we just read about between Peter and the Pharisees - “well I forgive a person 7 times”
And now in the same vein He then goes on to tell this parable about the unforgiving servant
• In it He shows what He does with record keeping and what He does with those who want to retain it!
• 23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents (This is an astronomical amount like 10 million dollars which could never be paid back) was brought to him and as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made.
• So here too we see a record keeping King who demands payment of the debt
• But this king is a bit of a softie, an easy touch
• 26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.
• Fortunately for us God is a God of Grace as well as a God of Justice and reacting from His heart rather than His head He totally forgives the debt
• But notice another important principle. The servant had to do nothing more than ask for grace in order to receive grace - just like the thief on the cross
• It wasn’t as though the king took him up on his offer to repay the debt – in fact it must have been all the King could do not to burst out laughing about the preposterous offer of the servant to repay it – how could a servant repay 10 million dollars?
• A debt by the way which represents our sins and is just as unpayable as this debt was so we should forget about balancing the books by our own good works
• Unfortunately many Christians still believe we will go to heaven if our good works cancel out our bad ones
• Then there are others who believe the rules change after our baptism
• We all recognise that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 (NKJV) but now after baptism we have to start earning our way
• No, the rules do not change! While we were sinners and while we are sons, Christ also died for us!
• The King cancels the debt for reasons entirely internal to Himself not because of anything this servant did or anything we can do
• He does away with the whole bookkeeping business - Heb 10:17 even tells us He forgets the debt even existed
• So we see in the first part of this parable what God does with the record keeping business – he ditches it by nailing it to the cross - with one exception – which we will now look at
This part addresses what He does with those who insist on maintaining the record keeping business
• 28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; (Ten bucks) and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’
• This guy cannot image a world without accountants and record keepers – “I got a lucky break from that dumb king, but I’m not going to be such a soft touch”
• He wanted to maintain the old ways of doing things
• In other words he wasn’t willing to die to the old lifestyle of bookkeeping that characterised his former life and adopt the new lifestyle of nailing debt to the cross
• He had absolutely no appreciation of the cost it had been to the king of letting Him off the hook – it had cost Him 10 million dollars or in the case of our sins - the life of His Son
• Just because he was let off the hook didn’t mean someone hadn’t suffered the loss of 10 million dollars
• A price was paid. And a price is paid every time someone forgives someone else
• The debt or loss does not just disappear. It is absorbed and paid for by the forgiver
• And that is precisely why neither the servant, nor we can ever repay the debt we owe God. No amount of good works is ever going to make up for the death of the Son of God
• In fact forgiveness is not really forgiveness unless we are willing to accept the loss
• The Christian mother who forgives the axe wielding murderer who killed her son does not get her son back – she has to accept the loss otherwise reconciliation is not possible
• We don’t forgive just for the sake of forgiveness. We forgive with the intention of reconciliation
• And the message for us it that we to have to be willing to die to our old recordkeeping lifestyle otherwise we cannot enjoy the new resurrected life where debt is nailed to the cross
• 29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’
• We see exactly the same plea for leniency as we saw earlier, but notice the response
• 30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt.
• He insisted on operating by the old rules
• 31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place.
• These fellow servants are outraged at this violation of grace so they report his behaviour to the King
• 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’
• I cancelled a 10 million debt for you and yet and you failed to cancel a 10 dollar one? Are you nuts?
And this is where we come back to the exception I mentioned earlier – the old lifestyle of record keeping is done away with and nailed to the cross with one exception – and that exception is reserved for those who insist on maintaining them
• “Okay”, the king says, “If you want to play by those old set of rules, we’ll play by them, and we’ll start by applying them to your situation!”
• This is reminiscent of what Jesus said in Matthew 7:2 (NCV) 2 You will be judged in the same way that you judge others, and the amount you give to others will be given to you.
• 34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.
• You want record keeping, I’ll give you record keeping! Right up till you pay the last cent!
• Or in the case of salvation – you will pay the price for your debt of sin - in Hellfire
• It was precisely his failure to get out of the bookkeeping business that drew the condemnation
• We can voluntarily choose to die graciously to the old lifestyle ourselves or we will be handed over to the torturers who will inflict on us the death we refused to chose of ourselves
• And the Parable ends with a warning to every one of us to ditch the old lifestyle of record keeping and adopt the new lifestyle of nailing debt to the cross
• 35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
So this parable of Grace could also be labelled a Parable of Judgment long before we get to the so called Parables of Judgement
• But it also makes clear the basis on which anyone will be finally accepted or condemned
• It doesn’t matter what our debt is, if we owe 10 million or 10 cents, the amount is immaterial
• Our degree of debt or the degree of our sins is never an obstacle to the grace that raises the dead
• As soon as we accept the grace offered by Jesus Christ and die to our old lifestyle those debts will die with us
• they will be nailed to the cross of Jesus Christ
• but if we refuse to die to the old lifestyle and refuse to let the grace of Jesus Christ flow through us we cut ourselves off from that same grace that saves us
• in heaven there are no good guys, only forgiven sinners – a bunch of failures who have accepted the grace offered to them by Jesus Christ and died to their old way of living
• In hell too there are no good guys just forgiven sinners – Jesus’ death is enough to pardon the worst axe wielding murderer
• The issue is not goodness and badness
• The difference between heaven and hell is that in heaven the forgiveness is accepted and passed along, while in hell, forgiveness is rejected and blocked
• In heaven the death of the king is welcomed and regarded as the doorway to a new life in the resurrection
• In hell the death of the king is rejected and the old lifestyle of the bookkeeper is insisted on and becomes the pointless torture it always was
• The only thing that can keep us out of the joy of the resurrection is to join the unforgiving servant in his refusal to die
• Fortunately for us there is no longer a need to live under the impossible demands of the law, we live instead under the gracious covering of our Lord Jesus Christ – We are no longer under law but under grace (Rom 6:14)
• All we have to do is to die to accept it and we join the heavenly party!
