True Love Reigns Sermon Iii: True Love Forgives - As Needed, As Prescribed Series

TRUE LOVE FORGIVES - AS NEEDED . . . AS PRESCRIBED

How often have you gone to see a doctor and come away with a prescribed medication to be taken as needed? Thirty days later you go back to the pharmacy for a refill. You repeat the process for the rest of your life because that particular med is for maintenance of your physical and emotional well-being.

We spend much of our lives doing what the doctor tells us to do - if we want to maintain the highest attainable level of health for living life to the fullest extent permitted by our physical condition and personal situation. To that end, we follow the advice of a physician in whom we trust.

Similarly, if we aim to maintain the highest level of spiritual health possible, in order to keep from living out our days in misery, we ought to heed the advice of our Great Physician whose remedies were given to us in parabolic prescriptions.

Today we focus on one such prescribed remedy many folks find so costly and so hard to swallow that we become hesitant to follow through on it, if not resistant to it. In His parable of the unmerciful servant, Jesus used the teaching technique of exaggeration to make His point that, where love reigns, forgiveness is practiced as needed, but with one caveat: as prescribed – Matthew 18:21-35 . . .

A client of mine was prescribed a medication to be taken four times a day - as needed. About half way through the month, he ran out of it, then implored me to intervene on his behalf to get the doctor to refill it earlier than the permissible date.

My client’s problem was that he had taken the med “as needed” in his sight not “as prescribed” by the doctor. Don’t you suppose some folks choose to misinterpret the doctor’s orders on purpose, to suit oneself?

Prior to this particular parable, Jesus had been talking to his disciples about making things right with friends they might be at odds with. Peter was not satisfied with Jesus’ remedy, so he tried to influence Jesus to come up with a mathematical formula to be applied to any uncomfortable situation which required reconciliation.

Peter wanted a number . . . a limit . . . a point at which he could draw a line “in the sand” and say, “Okay, that’s it. I’m done with you. Our friendship is over. You go your way and I’ll go mine.” Peter even thought he would be magnanimous and suggest, not “three times” as he had been taught by the rabbis, but double that number plus one for good measure – seven times – to forgive someone!

Uh-oh! Time to employ the technique of exaggeration! Peter is trying to put a number on doing the right thing . . . limit his Christian responsibility . . . get his physician to prescribe a less rigorous regimen for making amends with friends.

Jesus could have said to Peter something like I might say: The way I feel about it is - God forgave me when I repented of my sin and received Jesus Christ into my life as Lord and Savior. I am therefore a “sinner saved by grace” (“saint”).

As a forgiven child of God, I forgive those who sin against me, whether they repent or not. This qualifies me to ask God to forgive me my trespasses.

Whether or not God forgives me this time depends on my truthfulness . . . my trustworthiness . . . my transparency. For, you see, God knows whether or not, in my heart, I am forgiving or unforgiving.

A forgiving heart is what God wants for each one of us who belong to the Family of God.

Instead of being academic with Peter and the other disciples by engaging in a theological exposition on forgiveness, Jesus told a parable in which he contrasted the forgiving heart with the unforgiving heart.

The servant who received mercy in spite of a debt that could never be paid was the recipient of an act of grace – a totally undeserved pardon.

Yet, when the recipient of his master’s “unmerited favor” had a chance to act gracefully himself toward a friend indebted to him, he botched it so badly - extracting a “pound of flesh” from his friend, whose debt amounted to almost nothing compared to the debt for which he himself had been forgiven - that the news of his ungrateful act of revenge made its way through the grape vine until it reached the king who was so infuriated he forfeited the unmerciful servant’s pardon, allowing him to wallow in misery of his own making.

The moral of the story is that our merciful God does not take lightly to His children acting as if their personal comfort, peace of mind, enjoyment, happiness, freedom is all that matters. No!