Tough Sayings of Jesus: The Forgiven Forgive

Dr. Michael Cabell, Evangelism Team Leader of the KBC, leads us through a tough saying of Jesus and shows us as followers of Christ we forgive because we have been forgiven. Matthew 18:21-35

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Um, and as a dad, so my kids are, let me think, 17, 18, and 20 years old. And so we're at this just this incredibly fun stage uh with our kids. And I was thinking back of some of the things you tell your kids as a dad uh through through the years. Like, um, like here's one. Um, no, you can't keep the stray cat in your bedroom. Like some of you dads may have actually uttered those words. Or this one, the ice cream truck only plays music when it's out of ice cream. Hey, here's the really funny thing. I can I say this? Okay, she gave me, she didn't say no. I told my daughter that this morning. She goes, Is that is that true? Is that true? Yes, it is true. Um uh hey, but some things as a dad, you tell your kids, you tell them because it's important for them to hear, but it's painful sometimes for them to hear. Right? Like, like, uh darling, I don't know why you're going through this situation, but I know the Lord's gonna use it for his glory. Or maybe it's something like, yeah, I don't care what the other parents do, God called us to live differently. This morning I was at the hotel and I witnessed a dad, a father, and a son interacting, and the father said, Here's what he said. He sat down at the little breakfast table and he said, I just don't like this. I just don't like this. And he looks at his son and he said, You know, there's a 2% chance that you're gonna play college athletics, but there's a 100% chance you're gonna stand before Jesus one day. And I don't know what all went into that conversation, but that was a dad telling his son something that was probably difficult to hear. Well, in our passage this morning, we're gonna be in Matthew chapter 18. I invite you to turn there, uh, if you would. Matthew chapter 18, we're going to hear Jesus say some really difficult words. In fact, one of the toughest sayings that Jesus ever uttered, in my opinion, is found here in Matthew chapter 18 because our life experience seems so contradictory to this and so difficult to grasp what Jesus is asking us to do. So we're gonna be in Matthew chapter 18 uh this morning. And as you find your way there, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Ask him to speak to our hearts as we open his word. Father, I thank you for your goodness and your grace, Father. You are so wonderful to us. We're so thankful for King Jesus. Lord, we're thankful that we have you as our Father. Thank you, Lord. A loving, caring, trustworthy, direct, good Father. Lord, we praise you for that. And I pray, God, as we open up your word, you would speak to our hearts, Lord, helping the simple to be your messenger to communicate your message to your people for your glory's sake. In the name of Christ our King, we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, here's how Matthew 18. We're gonna look at verses 21 uh and following. Uh I'll just read a couple verses at a time. But in this this moment, Jesus says, one of the most jaw-dropping, stop you and your track statements that he could have said to many of us. And here's what he said. Then Peter came up to him and said, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times? And Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. I mean, what are you saying, Jesus? I mean, you've had people hurt you, likely. You've likely had people wrong you, sin against you, and hear Jesus saying that we are to forgive people when they sin against us. I mean, have you ever had somebody hurt you? I mean, perhaps for some of you, Father's Day is challenging because of the hurt that a father brought to you. Or perhaps it was a former coworker, or perhaps it was even one of your children. Has someone hurt you? You know, I can remember back when I was in middle school. Um, there was this girl in my middle school class, her name was Teresa. Teresa was about this tall, um, was very round, uh, was from the uh poor side of town and struggled academically. Teresa would have been an easy target for people to make fun of. But she realized if she could get everyone else laughing at someone else, then they would not be laughing at her. And so her target in middle school was yours truly. I can remember in science class, I remember distinctly, this is embarrassing, but I'm gonna say that. I was wearing this red sweatsuit, and I walk into the class and she says, Hey, look, it's the Kool-Aid man. Some of you in my generation get that, right? And she was she was overcoming in her ridicule of me, so much so that my friends didn't really want to hang out with me because they were afraid that she would make fun of them as well. And so during breaks in class, I would just go straight to my next class. I wouldn't hang out with friends. Teresa made my life literally miserable. Even in high school, when I was an athlete and had a lot more friends, I would avoid her in the hallway because I was so afraid she was going to ridicule me. When I was in my early 20s, I did a class on counseling, and part of the class is you went through counseling, and the counselor helped me uh understand that one of the reasons I lack self-confidence as an early 20s something was because of what I experienced as a middle schooler at the hands of Teresa. Let me just say, when I was in middle school, I hated Teresa. Now, some of you may be saying, hey, that's a cute little story, but you've dealing with a lot greater pain from someone else. Some of you understand why King Louis XII of France said this: nothing smells as sweet as the dead body of your enemy. I mean, you know what it's like to be wrong. That's why when Jesus says this, that we're to forgive people seven times or 77 times or 70 times seven, it seems so, so outlandish. Does he really expect me to forgive people? Well, because Jesus knew this is such a difficult thing for us to understand, he tells a story. He tells a parable, and here's the parable he starts to tell. Verse 23 and following. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought out to him who owed him 10,000 talents. 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. Now, this man owes 10,000 talents. To give you a picture of how much money that is, the Roman government every year would take tax money in Judea, Edomia, Samaria, that region of the Middle East. Their total tax revenue for the year was 900 talents. This man owes 11 times the amount of the total Roman tax revenue for that region of the world. One commentator said this: that it would take the man working every single day, paying every single penny he owed on his debt for 250,000 years to pay off this debt. This servant owed a debt that it was impossible to pay. Story continues. Verse 26. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything. Out of pity for him, the master of the servant released him and forgave him the debt. He was forgiven his debt. Imagine this. The man owes an incalculable amount of money. He owes an amount of money that he could never ever repay. And yet, because he asked the master to be forgiven of the debt, the master offers this incredible forgiveness. If the story's starting to sound familiar, perhaps it should. Because don't you and I owe a debt that we can never repay? Don't you and I owe a debt because of our sin that if we worked every single day for 250,000 years, we can never repay our debt. See, here's the bad news. The bad news is that you and I are sinners. That's the bad news. The worst news is that we are separated from God. There's no way that we can pay the debt because of sin that we owe to God. In fact, eternity in hell does not even satisfy the payment that we owe. I heard one commentator say it this way: it's like you're standing in front of a dam that's 10,000 miles high and 10,000 miles wide, and all of a sudden the dam breaks and the water comes rushing towards you. There's no chance of survival. That's how it is with the debt that we owe God. But the good news is, the good news is that Jesus Christ paid our debt. The good news is that Jesus Christ is that is that one who paid the debt that we could never owe. He did that on the cross. We just took communion a few moments ago. And in communion, we remembered what Jesus did on the cross, where he gave his body, he gave his blood. Remember in the garden when Jesus is sweating drops of blood. And he we talk about the cup of wrath. We talk about the cup, and Jesus is saying, Lord, take this cup from me. What is he asking? We just drank the cup. What is he asking? Well, the cup in the Old Testament referred to the fury of God's wrath. Multiple times we see the cup related to the wrath of God. And so what Jesus is saying in the garden, Lord, is there any way for this to happen without your wrath coming upon me? And when God said this is the only way, Jesus drank the wrath of God, every last drop on the cross and turned the cup over and said, It is finished. That's what Jesus did for us. And here's the best news. The good news is Jesus was a ransom for our sin. The best news is we can choose to follow him. Today, today, in our service, you have a chance to say, I want to follow Jesus. The beautiful thing is we owe a debt we can never repay, but we have a gracious Father who has forgiven our sin if we ask him to become our Lord. Brothers and sisters, we've been forgiven. Well, the story continues, verse 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. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master what had taken place. Now let me give you a comparison. This man, so the man has just been forgiven 10,000 talents. It would take 250,000 years to pay this off. He has someone else who owes him a hundred deneri. A deneri was a day's wages. This man owes him a hundred days' wages. He owed 250,000 years worth of wages, and this man owes him a hundred deneri, a hundred days' wages. I mean, he should have forgiven the man. I mean, he had just been forgiven greatly. But his response is not to forgive. His response, he starts to choke the man and says, Give me back what you owe me. And then he had him go thrown into prison so he could work off this debt, his family thrown into prison so that he could receive back. And so the people will seeing this, become very concerned. It says they're greatly distressed. They went and told the master. So here's how the master responds in verse 32. Then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. Master's saying this, I forgave you greatly, you should forgive greatly. Amen. We forgive because we have been forgiven. The parable Jesus tells of the unmerciful servant is because you've been forgiven greatly, you're to forgive other people greatly. Now that's difficult to hear sometimes. Because you've had someone like Teresa in your life who wronged you, who hurt you. Several years ago, many years ago, my wife and I, uh, her name's Carrie, we were on a mission trip to uh uh Poland. And part of the trip is we were traveling around the uh country looking at different sites where we can maybe bring a future team to Poland. And there we visited the um on one of the trips, we had a chance to go visit the Auschwitz concentration camp. I was miserable. We walk into camp and in wrought iron above the camp entrance are the words Albik moch free. In German it says work brings freedom, but anyone who was put into that concentration camp knew that work would never bring their freedom. We saw rooms full of eyeglasses and shoes and things that had been taken from the bodies of the Jewish people who had been killed there in that concentration camp during World War II. We went into the the bunk rooms, was a picture like a four by eight sheet of plywood, a bunk bed stacked about four high, and about five or six people would sleep on each of those beds. You had to they had to turn sideways. There was a picture, they would turn sideways and cram together. Their emaciated bodies could fit five or six on a single four by eight sheet of plywood. The fleas, the rats, things were just horrendous. They showed us the starvation cells, which were these small, probably three foot by three foot cells where you could not sit, you all you could stand. It was just big enough for you to stand up. You couldn't lay down, you would die of exhaustion or die of starvation. They showed us the firing squad wall outside, still had the bullet holes in where folks were killed. And then the gas chamber. The recreated gas chamber. You walked into this room, it looked like you would imagine a locker room at a uh large athletic complex with shower heads coming out. But the sad thing was when they were told, take off your clothes, go in for a shower, there was not water that came from those shower heads, it was toxic cyanide gas. And next to the gas chamber was the crematorium where those bodies were burned. It was a horrendous sight. My life would never be the same without it. Since then. Fast forward a couple years later, I was working as a uh college campus minister in Indiana, and I met a lady from Terre Haute, Indiana, who was a realtor, and she told me that um she was from Romania and she had uh lived in Poland for a time. So, oh, I just got back from a mission trip or a trip in Poland. I said, and we're talking about, and I said, mentioned about the Auschwitz concentration camp. I said, and she said, Oh, I know it well. I used to live there. Eva Korr and her twin sister Miriam. Uh her family was captured, her Jewish family was captured, they were put on cattle cars, they were taken to the Birkenau Auschwitz concentration camps. Her parents were ripped away from her, and her and her twin sister Miriam were taken to Auschwitz to be part of Dr. Joseph Mengla's twin studies. He believed he could produce a uh superior race by researching twins, doing experiments on them. So three times a uh three days a week, they would inject uh um uh medicine into their arms, not medicine, they would expect um experimental treatments into their arms. They when a when a woman would die, they would take it to an autopsy. And so Miriam and Eva, Miriam would have been the bigger test case, and they would keep Eva alive. In case Miriam died, they can compare the bodies with the autopsy. Horrible, horrendous things. Praise be to God. When they were about 10 years old, the concentration camp was liberated and Eva walked out. But her sister Miriam would die shortly thereafter. Her kidneys quit growing at eight years old because of the experiments, and she could not survive. Here's what captured me about Eva Corps. She had had horrendous things happen to her. I mean, unhuman things happen to her. And yet she told a story, and she wrote in her book this that on January the 27th, 1995, at the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, she invited a former Nazi doctor who worked at Auschwitz to join her there by the rooms of the crematorium, and she read a document of forgiveness. She said, as I did that, I felt a burden of pain was lifted from me. I was no longer in the grip of pain and hate. I was finally free. Some survivors don't want to let go of the pain, she wrote, but I believe in every fiber in my being that every human being has the right to live without the pain of the past. It seems that we need to honor the victims, but I can no longer live with this pain, so I choose to forgive. And immediately I felt a burden of pain was lifted from my shoulder, that I was no longer a victim of Auschwitz, that I was no longer a prisoner in my tragic past, that when I forgave, I finally became free. Brothers and sisters, if Eva Korr can forgive these evil Nazi doctors for what they did to her and her family, then who are we to withhold forgiveness from someone else? Greater still, if God can forgive us for this uncalculable debt that we owe him, who are we to withhold forgiveness from someone who has sinned against us? In Philippians chapter 4, Paul would write these words be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. We are no more like God, more, we are never more like God than when we forgive other people. Remember, we forgive because we've been forgiven. Amen? We forgive because we have been forgiven. We live in a culture that cares little about forgiveness. We want someone wrongs us, we want to wrong them back. But we must realize that the greatest sin that someone commits is not against us, but against God. Remember when David committed the great sin against Bathsheba and Uriah and has Uriah ordered to be killed in Psalm chapter 51. He writes the Psalm, and in the Psalm he's confessing his sin and he says, Against you, Lord, against you have I sinned. David realizes that while he sinned against Uriah, the greatest sin is against God. And if God can forgive someone, then perhaps we can forgive someone. You know, there's a lot of misconceptions about forgiveness. Here's what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness does not mean that we justify someone's actions. Forgiveness does not mean that we trust that the passing of time makes things better. Forgiveness does not mean that we deny being hurt. Here are four things that forgiveness is. I want you to write these down. Four things that forgiveness is. First of all, forgiveness is a repeated action. Forgiveness is a repeated action. Based on a misunderstanding from the book of Amos, one rabbi taught that you should only forgive someone three times. And so when Peter asked Jesus, Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother? Seven times, Peter is saying, he's showing his growing faith. He's saying, I should I forgive him twice as much as what the rabbis say we should forgive. But Jesus said that there's no limit to our forgiveness, that it should be a repeated action. He's saying, don't assume that you can count how many times you can offer forgiveness. When I was a pastor, I had an incredible financial secretary. Absolutely incredible. I could go into her office and I could say, um, we bought a projector six or seven years ago. I'm trying to figure out how much we paid for it. Like very little information. And in about 12 seconds, she'd open up that file cabinet and she'd go through the files and she'd be able to pull out something and show me, here's what we paid for it, and here's you know the whole the whole deal. She was incredible at record keeping. Incredible at record keeping. The problem is some of you are as well. Because for some of us, when we see somebody, we open up that file cabinet in our mind, and we quickly go and pull out that's what they did to me. That's what she said. That's what he did. That's the way they treated my kids. That's the way they they they what they took from me. Jesus is saying that for a Christian, we have short memories that forgiveness is a repeated action. You may hear the old story about a husband and wife coming. Meet with their pastor, and the husband says, You know, every time my wife and I get into a fight, she gets historical. And the pastor says, Don't you mean hysterical? He goes, No, I mean historical. She remembers everything I've ever done. Like, some of you live that, right? Secondly, we release the right to revenge. We release the right to revenge. A mother ran into her kid's bedroom when she hears her seven-year-old son crying, and there she sees her two-year-old bent over, pulling the hair of her seven-year-old. And she reaches down, prize the little two-year-old hands off her son's hair, and says, Oh, sorry, son, she doesn't know that hurts. Well, she walks down the hallway and now she hears her two-year-old screaming and she runs back in the room, and now her seven-year-old smiles and says, She knows now. Like when someone wrongs us, we want to seek revenge, right? If you hurt me, I want to hurt you back. But when we when we understand the concept of forgiveness that Jesus taught, it means that we release the right to revenge. That God venges his mind, says the Lord, that God will ultimately hold them accountable. Third, we remove bitterness. We remove bitterness. Not forgiving someone, get this. Not forgiving someone is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die. Not forgiving someone is like you drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die. Here's what I've learned. I was talking with a friend who had been harmed many years ago, and he has been bitter about it for at least 20 years, at least. And I told him, I said, friend, could it be that the bitterness you have in your heart is causing you more pain than the original action that was committed against you? Bitterness makes us bitter. And sometimes because we've harbored those feelings for so long, the pain that we're inflicting on ourselves is worse than the pain that the original person ever experienced. Several years ago, um, I took my family to the movies uh to see uh to see um the movie Unbroken. So you've seen the movie Unbroken, you know, the story of Louis Zamperini. So we're there at the, we go to the movies, and there were two parts of the movies. I'm not a like big public crier, but there's two parts that made me just want to cry. I mean, I did cry. Um the first part was, I'm getting emotion now just thinking about it. The first part was when the lady at the ticket booth said five tickets would be $86. That was the first part that made me want to cry. All right? I have a witness. Hey, but the second part was when I saw how Louis Zamperini had been treated, if you don't know the story, he survived a, I mean, incredible story of survival, lived, look, was on a life raft from a plane crash, gets picked up by this Japanese soldiers, gets put into this work camp, and this guy named the bird made his life miserable. Miserable. And they didn't show this in the movie so much, but in the book. Louis comes back home to the United States, he's finally set free. Comes back home to the United States, and he becomes an alcoholic because of just the pain that what happened to him in that prison camp, particularly because of the bird. But he attended a, someone invited him to come to a Billy Graham Crusade. And at that Billy Graham Crusade, Louis Zamparino became a Christian, started to follow Jesus as Lord and Savior. And through his growth, he became convinced that he needed to forgive this man who made his life so miserable in this prison camp. And so he goes back to Japan seeking out, trying to find this man. He would write in He would write in his journal, he said this, I think the hardest thing in life is to forgive. Hate is itself destructive. If you hate someone, you're not hurting the person you hate, you're hurting yourself. Healing, I'm sorry, forgiveness is healing. Forgiveness is healing. Some of you are thinking right now, well, this guest preacher has no idea what I've been through. If he knew my story, he would know that I've got every right to be bitter. And the truth is, I'm sorry what's happened to you. I grieve what's happened to you. I wish it did not happen. But I don't want you to live in pain any longer because of something you're inflicting upon yourself. And could it be that forgiving that person would set you free like it did for Louise Amparini? Fourth, we restore the relationship when possible. We restore the relationship when possible. This brings forgiveness full circle. That's how the Lord works with us. That we've sinned against God. We've been separated from God. Because God forgives us, it restores the relationship. We become his children. We will spend eternity with him. Now, ideally, in our personal relationships with people, that when they sin against us and when they ask forgiveness, and once we offer forgiveness, our relationship can be restored. Now, sometimes that's not possible. Sometimes the person has passed away. Sometimes it would cause greater harm if you were to restore the relationship. Sometimes they will not join you in restoring the relationship. So this is not a definitive thing, but it is an aspirational thing that we restore the relationship when possible. The ultimate thing is this God wants to forgive you of your debt to him. And once he forgives you, he wants you to forgive others. We forgive because we have been forgiven. We forgive because we have been forgiven. I was engaged to be married, and my wife Carrie and I were volunteering at a soup kitchen in my hometown. Perhaps you have one of those here in your area where people will come during the day and get a free meal. Usually people from very difficult backgrounds, they did not have the funds to purchase their own food. And so this was a Christian ministry that every single day, five days a week, would offer free lunch for people in a difficult part of town. And so my wife and I were engaged to be married, and we were serving, volunteering, at this soup kitchen in my hometown. And it was a cafeteria, picture a cafeteria line. People would get a tray, they would go down the line, and there was a selection of items they could choose from. I was in charge of dipping the mashed potatoes. I remember that clearly. And I love mashed potatoes, and so I was giving them like a huge help into mashed potatoes. My wife's standing here beside me, she's in charge of the green beans, I'm doing the mashed potatoes, and I look up, and across the way from me is Teresa. In that moment, I had three thoughts. First, I wanted to take that spoonful of mashed potatoes and just throw them upside her face. That's what I wanted to do. That was my flesh talking. Secondly, I wanted to stand up on a chair and say, hey everybody, look at Teresa. Teresa doesn't even you all big and bad now. Who's the Kool-Aid man? You want some Kool-Aid, Teresa? Like I wanted to just ridicule her in front of everybody. And then third, I wanted to go hide. Because I was afraid that still 15 years later, that she was going to ridicule me like she did in middle school in front of my fiance. And maybe if she said the things, the hurtful things she said to me in my past, maybe my fiance wouldn't want to marry me. Maybe she would be like, oh wow, this is what people think of you. Like, I wanted to just shirk into the back room and hide, and Teresa left. But I'm hoping that she doesn't recognize me. I scoop the mashed potatoes on her tray, and she goes on with the other clients to a seat to eat her meal. We finished serving at the soup kitchen, and I'm in the dining room mopping the floor. I've got the chairs pulled up on the tables. I'm mopping. And I hear my name. Is that you, Michael? And I turn and there I see Teresa. Yeah, it's me. I don't know if you remember me. Teresa, how could I forget you? It's awful nice what y'all did for us today. You're welcome, Teresa. The Lord asked us to serve and love others, and that's what we wanted to do. It's our privilege. I used to be pretty mean to you in middle school, didn't I? Teresa, you have no idea the damage you caused me in middle school. Well, I just want you to know that I'm really sorry for that. And I'd like to ask you to forgive me. And in that moment, 15 years of hatred for that woman. Literal hatred fell off my shoulders. As the Lord prompted me to say and feel, Teresa, I forgive you. You see, forgiveness is not about the guilty being punished. Forgiveness is about the innocent extending mercy. And perhaps the Lord brought to you this morning to your mind someone that you need to say, Yes. I forgive you. We forgive because we have been forgiven. Let's pray, shall we? Father, we give you glory and praise. It's to your name. Lord, forgiving others is not an easy task. Lord, it's impossible, really, apart from you. Because you give us a heart of forgiving others because of what you've done in our own hearts. I pray now, Father, that you will bring to our mind our need for forgiveness. Lord, anyone here today who has not yet accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, Lord, I pray you would prompt them that today they would be forgiven of their sin. And Lord, for those of us who are forgiven, Lord, I pray that you would bring to our minds someone that we need to extend grace, compassion, and forgiveness to, Lord, not because we want to, not because we're even able to, Lord, but because your Holy Spirit is at work in our life and cause us to do that, Father. Speak to us now. In the name of Christ our King, we pray. Amen.