The Unmerciful Servant

The Unmerciful Servant

Matthew 18:21-35

Good morning everyone, Please turn to Matthew 18:21-35

Next week during the month of June it will have been 5 years since Covid-19 struck America that caused everyone to be isolated in their homes and caused the church to quickly come up with a new way of doing church.

Some things have never gone back to what use to be normal.

June of 2020 was also the time that I got really sick from Covid-19 and spent 9 days in the hospital recovering.

I say all that to say that usually life’s pitfalls do not come with warnings-

There are many things that can take us off track…some we have control of and some we do not. I had no control of being sick and I had no control that life situations cause us to have to do life different.

But I do control how I will handle life situations- either with bitterness and hatred or with the power of God helping me to stay on track and stay in an attitude that would keep me moving forward instead of backwards.

This morning the text is about un-forgiveness and the power of forgiveness.

It will be either our pitfall or our discovery of God’s great mercy and strength.

We will look on both sides- when we do not forgive and the amazing discovery that is ours when we do forgive.

Matthew 18:21-35 read from Bible clearly

Funny thing about forgiveness- we all want it but we all do not want to give it.

When Peter approached Jesus and asked if seven times was enough times to forgive someone, He thought He was being generous.

Seven is the amount of times that Jewish custom said was a sufficient amount times to forgive someone. He thought he would show Jesus how well he knew Jewish law.

Jesus tripped him up by countering with 70x7. (you heard right) Jesus was really showing Peter that it is not the number of times, but that we have to forgive.

Jesus moves into a parable to show Peter what was expected. When we hear the parable we think the ungrateful man was a monster because he was forgiven so much and would not extend that forgiveness downstream to someone in his point of contact.

If the story was told today, it would be the same.

How many are not willing to forgive knowing how much that they have been forgiven?

How many want forgiveness but are not willing to extend forgiveness to someone else.

There are people today that cannot let anything go. If you do them wrong they never forget.

They live their whole lives looking under the microscope of other people faults and never looking what they themselves are doing to other people by their actions.

Hurting people hurt people- continually, everyday, on purpose and without mercy.

Wanting, even demanding forgiveness but never giving any.

I will never forgive him/her! You don’t know what they did to me!

Being a true Christian and a true believer of Jesus Christ has never been about being better than anyone else.

It is understanding what Christ did for us and being grateful.

Being a Christian has been about being different.

We know what Christ did for us and we cannot live our lives with un-forgiveness knowing what Christ did for us.

Lives are like a dash-

They have a starting point and an ending point.

The dash is the time between the two points.

All of us know when we were born, but none of know when we will die.

What we do with that time is what we will stand before God and give an account for.

King David long before he was King David was living his dash. He was not born rich, was not from famous parents, but even as a teenager was making an impact and a mark in life.

As a teenager, he was sent by his father to the battlefield to check on his older brothers. He was not going to fight, but to see if they were okay. While he was there, he saw injustice, saw a bully throwing his weight around and disrespecting his God, and no one believed God big enough to step in and defeat him. He, (David) was willing to get involved, step up to the plate, and right a wrong. (1 Sam 17)

The event, the battle of David and Goliath. We all heard the story of how he defeated the giant with a slingshot and a stone. Young David defeats Goliath the giant and Israel never forgot it.

Adult David years later is now King of Israel, living in a palace, the finest of everything, many wife’s, can have anything he wants, even things that he should not have.