Parables: Keys to the Kingdom - The Unforgiving Servant

Matthew 18:21-35- Kirk Rupprecht 

Commonplace Church exists to glorify God, equip disciples & share the Good News of Jesus. Learn more at commonplacechurch.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:36

So silly. Alright, good morning, everybody. Ken, these glasses are for your purpose if you need them ever, alright? You have the same prescription as me. I'm pretty much blind, but um have about it. Let you do it. Alright, two quick things before we start. Uh first, welcome. Glad you guys are here. Um, first thing, right? Uh you guys are here morning weekend, okay? So if I had the authority to uh saint you gil, you would be sainted, but I don't have the authority. Um but it's it's pretty awesome that you're here. Um first real quick thing. Uh last week, if you if you were not uh here, uh all good, but I just wanted to um point this out. We are going into a season where there's just some really cool things happening. Um we're moving to a season of really now until summer, of just presence of Jesus, uh being um just generous with our uh the presence that God has given us and also just presence of one another. One of the ways we're doing that is even today through our potluck that we're having after service. And then from summer to fall, we're gonna throw parties, okay? So if you take there's more information here, we're gonna have a bunch of parties. Uh just I'm excited, all right? Uh, like I said, anybody has a pool, let me know. I'll be at that party um in the summer, not today, because it's terrible out. But let's get going. My name is Kirk, uh, the pastor here. Really grateful that we have the time together. Oh, my second thing was um my son just texted me that um him and him and all these the senior boys are usually here. They're all away for their prom weekend or whatever, but he's like, hey, we're watching the service, give me a shout-out. So, shout out to all the boys. Um, I've never given a shout-out before. That's pretty, pretty interesting. Where do you go from here? All right, so so as okay, as much as I don't have like the authority to make a saying say, I do have the authority, or we do have the authority, not me, but we do have the authority of the word of God. And so what we're gonna do today is we're gonna dive into a pretty heavy parable. You guys can read it, it's pretty it's it's pretty heavy. And so, listen, if you're checking out Completes, really glad you're here. Why we're going through the parables is simply this. We believe that through these parables, that God has given us, He has gifted us keys to understanding how to live as His disciples, how to live in the kingdom of God. And I want to just real quick point out this idea of the kingdom of God, right? Because a lot of times we're kind of like, well, what is that? It seems almost abstract at times. And what where we find ourselves in this reality of the kingdom of God is this we live in this what's called already, not yet. You may have heard that term before, but here's really what what what we're what we're stating. It's this when Jesus He came to earth, right, uh through his life as ministry, he ushered in this new reality, right? That was that was the here's the kingdom. And then Jesus, he makes it too clear to the disciples, like this is how we're we're gonna live, right? So this is the already, this is what is taking place. And yet then after his death and resurrection, right, as he ascends to heaven to the right hand of the Father, uh, well, now he instructs us that we're gonna be waiting till he returns, waiting till he comes again to bring the kingdom to its full and final fulfillment. So that's the the already not yet. The kingdom has been inaugurated, right? But it it has not yet been consummated. So we live in between this like two realities. I'll give you just uh maybe uh an example here. Imagine going to like a concert or or a movie, right? And so you've been let into the venue, whether it's a theater, whether it's a concert venue, that part is settled, right? That that's happening. But the show hasn't started yet. And so, in some ways, right, well, what do we do in that space? Well, a lot of times we just we kind of prepare for the show, right? If it's a concert, maybe we go out to the merch table, maybe look for a set list, right? If you're at a movie, maybe grab some popcorn, maybe wait for the trailers, right? Uh uh, but but the main event hasn't necessarily started, but yet we're we're living in that space of just waiting and in that moment of preparing. And so that's the same as the kingdom of God, where we're waiting, we're not idle, we're preparing. And so the question once again becomes well, how do we live in the meantime, in this already not yet? And that's what this series really is all about. We we want to just offer what does it look like to live in this time? That's what parables reveal. That they're in this sense, like helping us understand how kingdom people are here in this already part, but but but we're just still not yet. And so as we step into this parable today, this is a heavy one, as we as we talked about before. This is one of the teachings from Jesus that does this. It doesn't just inform us, um, it it really hits. This one hits. And and let's just lean into this one today, okay? And as as heavy as this parable might be, it I love that it's incredibly timely. See, Jesus speaks into something every single one of us here has experienced today throughout our lives, this idea of forgiveness. Whether it's uh needing to be forgiven or needing to forgive. So we we all understand this reality. And here's here's just the thing from a theological standpoint. This is why this term becomes just, I would say, so relevant for us today, right? This idea of forgiveness. It's timely. Because the Bible tells us this the Bible tells us we live in a world that has been stained by brokenness. That's sin. And brokenness shows up in real ways, right? At times we find ourselves maybe, I don't know, lying, cheating, deception, wounding one another. And at other times, we experience the same, right, from others, maybe being lied to, maybe betrayed, wounded, maybe emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually. And so we live in this reality, right? As people who who are already not yet, that that will inevitably face moments where we might need to ask forgiveness and we might need to extend forgiveness the same. And Jesus, I love, he fully understands the reality of our existence and he speaks directly into it. He gives us a key to the kingdom, and the key is this it's forgiveness. So, to help us frame what we're gonna see in this parable, I just want to give us a simple theme. It's it's uh straightforward, but I think it's powerful, and it's just this it's forgiven people, forgive people. Pretty straightforward. Write that down, right? Look, lock it in, whatever you want to do. But here's my hope today. Not that we would just understand that statement, right? But that we would actually live from that statement. We would for that forgiven people, yes, they also forgive people, not just knowledge, but in practice. So let's step in this parable. Here's how it begins. Jesus is approached with a question. It's a question from his guy, Peter, right? And now Peter just doesn't throw out like a random uh question here, right? He's actually responding to something that Jesus had just taught earlier. See, earlier in Matthew chapter 18, verses 15 through 20, Jesus lays out the process of dealing with sin within the community. What many churches maybe refer to as uh church rest a model for church restoration or things like church discipline. It's uh ultimately a pathway towards reconciliation. Uh what does it look like when someone does repent? What does it look like when someone refuses to repent? And so, in response to this teaching, Peter he starts thinking about this idea of forgiveness. And that leads him to ask Jesus a question. He says, Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say seven times, but seventy-seven times. So as Peter asks this question to Jesus, at first it might just seem, I don't know, maybe out of curiosity, right? This is maybe just a curious wondering of Peter. But here's the thing, as we dive into this context, we dive deeper, here's what Peter is really asking. When it comes to forgiveness, Peter, he's asking for a limit. He's looking for a measurable, like a quantifying answer. Right, Jesus, how many times do I actually have to forgive someone who keeps sinning against me? Like, when have I done enough? Now, now here's the thing the number he throws out, this number of seven, it's really important. Because it's not random. You see, in the Jewish tradition, even in their culture and their teaching, forgiveness offered through a legality space was from that number, from the number seven. And so what's incredible here is how Jesus responds. Because Jesus offers a way that is very uh it's gonna shift the whole conversation. Let me tell you how. Right? He says, not seven times, but he says seventy-seven times, or seven, seventy times seven, depending on what translation of the Bible you have. A number, though, that would immediately stir something in the minds of his listeners. It would have uh connected them back to another time in their history. And so here's where this other time takes place. It's a moment back in the book of Genesis. There's a man named Lamech, and he makes a declaration that's actually rooted in vengeance. Look, look what Lamech says. He says, I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is 77fold. So Lamech, he takes this idea of revenge and he does this, he escalates it, right? He multiplies retaliation. His vengeance is unlimited. But don't miss what Jesus does here. Jesus, he does something incredible. He takes that same number, right? Once used to describe limitless revenge, and he flips it, he changes it to describe this limitless forgiveness. Ultimately, for Jesus, this isn't about math here, right? This this isn't for the math folks who are like, all right, well, 539 times, right? Got it, right? That's that's that's what it calculates to. That's that's not what Jesus is after. What Jesus is after, he's saying this in the kingdom of God, forgiveness is not a tally, it's a posture. It's a posture. It's not about keeping count, it's about becoming the kind of person who forgives. Now, if we're honest, Peter's question, I know it hits me a little bit. It sounds kind of like us, right? When we approach some clear teachings of Jesus, how often are we seeking this from Jesus? We're seeking the limits, we're seeking the boundaries when it comes to how Jesus calls us to live. Right? It's this pondering of Jesus. Well, how far is too far, right? Maybe in a relationship, right? Where's the line before sin? Maybe with money, right? How much do I really have to give? With habits, right? Food, alcohol, whatever it might be. Like what is it it cross into when does it cross into is what's too much? Now, sure, there are some genuine questions, right? Desiring clarifications on boundaries, limits, but often, if we're just being real, we're kind of asking, what can I get away with? Right? How close can I get to that line without actually crossing it? How can I still hold on to what I want and also follow you, Jesus? That's the tension. And what typically lies underneath that question is something deeper, right? It's our desire to maintain control of what we want. It's this old fun phrase of having our cake and eating it too, if you will, right? Like, how far can we go in desiring the things we want without having to fully submit to his authority? And Jesus at this moment is gently but clearly redirecting the question. And it calls us to even have a shift maybe in our own posture. Like Jesus calls Peter and others towards something like instead of asking Jesus, how does this impact me? What might I lose? What do I have to give up? What if, what if we began asking, Jesus, how does this impact you? How does my obedience honor you? How does living from your design actually lead to something better than what I'm chasing? And you see the reframing of that type of question here, it's it's it's this it's Jesus, what do you desire from me? Not what do I desire for me? And when it comes to this question from Peter about forgiveness, Jesus doesn't give him a limit, right? He gives them a posture. It's a posture marked by grace, by mercy, by a willingness to extend forgiveness again and again and again. And what Jesus is about to do in this parable next is so incredible. He's gonna show us why, right? So Peter's response, Jesus wrote to Peter is this it's not about how much, it's about how to. It's about why. And the answer when it comes to forgiveness is this as often as we're called to, that's how. Because why? Oh, forgiven people, forgive people. Okay, so since Jesus opens his teaching with what feels like kind of a math problem, let's kind of follow his lead for a moment here. Let's look at this parable like an equation. So in verses 23-27, we're introduced to the first part of the equation. We have a king, and we also have a servant, and the king has extended a loan. The servant, he is the one who owes the debt. So so far it's pretty straightforward, okay? Now let's add the numbers here. The servant owes the king how many? 10,000 talents. Now, to understand how massive that is, right, we we need some context. So in that time, one talent was roughly equivalent to about 20 years of wages. Okay? So let's let's let's let's map that out for a second here. If someone worked for 60 years, right, a full lifetime of labor, they might earn about three talents total. Three. Now compare that to what the servant owes, right? 10,000 talents. So even if we subtract like what he could earn in a lifetime, he's still left with, I think, 9,997 talents? Math people, yeah? Okay. Uh which is another way of saying this. There's no possible way this man can repay this debt. It's it's not possible. It's completely overwhelming, it's insurmountable. But that's the point. Jesus is using what's called hyperbole here. Hyperbole is just intentional exaggeration to make something unmistakably clear. Like, like, for instance, when he says uh it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Right? He's not giving a literal scenario there, he's highlighting this impossibility. And that's what's happening here. Anyone listening to this parable in this moment would have immediately recognized this man's never getting out of this debt. It's not possible. Which sets up the next part of the equation, right? Because instead of demanding repayment, the king does something so shocking. Matthew 18, 27 says this, and out of pity for him, the master of his servant released him and forgave him debt. He sees the debt, he sees the servant, and what does he have? He has compassion. Right? He cancels the debt. Now the master doesn't do this, he doesn't reduce it, he doesn't put the servant on a payment plan. He does this, he completely forgives all of it. And now in this moment, Jesus is doing more than telling a story, he's revealing something, he's revealing the character of the king, and not just any king, but the one true king. The God his listeners would have immediately recognized. The God who describes himself in the book of Exodus, like this: the Lord, the Lord, a mercy God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. So this is the kind of king that we're dealing with here. It's a king who sees the impossible debt and he responds with mercy. A king who doesn't give us what we deserve. And instead, he offers forgiveness what we can never earn. And listen, that right there is the foundation of everything that follows. So for Jesus' audience, the king would have been made his that would have been so clear, right? They would have recognized exactly who Jesus was pointing to. This king. This king is God. So that means the role of the indebted servant is, well, not some random character. It's the listener. It's them. It's us. Jesus is holding up a mirror, and he's revealing the reality of our relationship with God. That we are the ones who have been shown mercy, grace, and ultimately this forgiveness for a debt that we could never repay. That for those who are willing to confess and repent of their sin, they seek and seek forgiveness, God's heart is not reluctant, it's ready, it's eager, it's full of mercy. Now, now, for anyone still wanting a number, a limit to forgiveness, Jesus, He does give them one, right? 10,000 talents. But it's not for the sake of defining some sort of like boundary. Here's what it's for it's for the sake of revealing a posture. God's posture, to show the depth, to show the weight, the magnitude of God's desire to forgive. Yet that's not the only part of the equation because the story continues. The servant, right, who just had an impossible, overwhelming debt, completely wiped out, cleaned, he finds someone else who owes him money, another servant. And this man owes him a hundred denarii, which, let's say, in comparison, is kind of a fraction of what he himself had owed. Now, now, listen, don't get twisted, like it's still a pretty like real debt, right? But compared to 10,000, it's it's almost like nothing. And so naturally, here's what the listener would be expecting like, all right, this guy just experienced unbelievable mercy, right? Surely he's about to extend that same mercy. Well, what happens instead is this he calls that debt in. He doesn't do it gently. The text tells us this. He says he seizes him, he chokes him, he demands repayment. And when the man can't pay, he has him thrown into prison. And the tone, the tone of the whole parable here, it shifts. Now, now I want to point something out here. Jesus is very intentional with the language he uses here. Seizes, chokes, imprisons. And the question is, why those words? I want to share why. Those words don't just describe what this man is doing to someone else. Here's what also they they show they describe what unforgiveness actually does to him. And the same is true for us today. Think about it. When we hold on to unforgiveness, we convince ourselves that we're holding someone else accountable, right? That person deserves this. They need to feel the weight of what they did. But what actually happens, well, don't we become consumed with that person? Don't their actions replay in our minds? Their words, they echo in our thoughts, their name just triggers something in our in our hearts, right? And what's taking place is that person, they start living rent-free in our heads, right? And our emotions, they get tied to offense. Our peace gets hijacked by their actions. And without even realizing it, we believe that person is in our captivity. But that's not actually the truth. The truth is we become the ones held in bondage. We're the ones imprisoned. And it's so important to point this out because that's exactly what the enemy of God and the enemy of God's people wants for us. Because God's desire for us is this: it's freedom, it's life, it's abundance. However, the enemy, he wants bondage. Right? He wants to convince us that withholding forgiveness, well, that gives us control. But in reality, it gives us the opposite. It places us in chains. It's one of the oldest lies in the book that holding on to offense will somehow bring relief. Right? When all it does, all it does is deepen the wound. And that's why this matters so much, because unforgiveness, it doesn't just uh affect them, it shapes us. And that's exactly why Paul writes this in 2 Corinthians, he says, anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so we would not be outwitted by Satan, for not ignorant of his designs. So Paul gives us such a clear warning for followers of Jesus, especially in the context of the church. In the second uh epistle of Corinthians, he essentially says this he says, Don't be outwitted by Satan, and specifically, don't be outwitted by him through withholding forgiveness to one another. Especially within the church. Because the enemy's strategy is clear. It's this. If he can get the people of God to turn on one another, to stir up offense, right? To get us to hold on to hurt instead of extending grace. His plan to distract, distract us from carrying out the mission of God, the message of God, it's working. Right? Here's Satan's play. To take God's people out who are called on mission. Those who are called to give the gospel message. Have them consumed by offense and unforgiveness. To stall and bind and distract them from what God desires for them. Maybe to help us in calling out this strategy is to do this. Maybe it's valuable to offer some realities of just the church itself. Now the hope is this isn't intentionally, right? There's not intentionality behind the experience. It's just the recognition of this, that the church is made up of people, and people do what? They sin. Now, yes, the people of God are also being saved and sanctifying through the grace of God, but also they still exist as people. Still people who at times fall short. So what that means is there will be moments when someone, someone says something wrong, does something careless, acts out of their flesh, and it impacts us, impacts you. And unfortunately, maybe even cause a wound or a hurt. Now, listen, the hope and the prayer is those moments are few and far between. And of course, those are not intentional, but the possibility is real. And I want to say this personally, even as your pastor, I am not above that reality. There will be moments when I fall short, when I miss something, or I say something poorly, or act in a way that isn't reflective of Christ. Now, my heart would never be to create any harm, misunderstanding, or to do so intentionally, maliciously, but the reality is I'm also still human, just as you are. And so is every other person in this room. And so the question is if isn't if the moments like that might come, the question is, well, what do we do as those moments do come? Because we have two options. We can walk in the way of God, the path of forgiveness, of grace, of restoration, or we can fall into the schemes of the enemy, holding on to a fence, allowing it to take root, slowly pulling us away from the mission God has called us to. Because here's the truth: unforgiveness within the church, it doesn't just affect individual relationships, it affects the whole community. It fractures unity, it redirects our focus, it dulls our witness. Yet God has given us a better way. And Paul, as a pastor in many churches, speaks directly into that way. And not just to them, but to also to us. But I receive mercy for this reason that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. I love this closing. To the King of Ages, immortal, invisible, only God be honor and glory forever and ever. So listen to Paul's words. He says, Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. Now think about that, right? Earlier said, I said I might fall short at times to this church. But look at Paul. He's not just speaking to one church, he's writing for all believers across all time. And he doesn't say, I was the worst. He says, I am. Now listen, Paul isn't trying to glorify the sin, he's not justifying it, he's not giving himself a pass, he's just simply acknowledging the reality that he was and still is a sinner in need of grace. And what he's bringing to light is this if that's true of him, it's true of all of us. Every single one of us, even church people, even pastors, we're all prone to the reality of sin. Yet, what I love about Paul, what he shares here, is he doesn't just stop there. He's not saying, hey, we're all sinners, deal with it. No, not at all. Right? Paul is doing something incredible. He's pointing us to something greater. It's grace. It's God's grace. Like that old hymn that says, Grace that's greater than all of our sin. Paul, he's acknowledging sin, but he's also highlighting something greater: mercy, grace, forgiveness of God offered to sinners who are willing to receive it. And I just want to circle back to our church for a moment here. At commonplace, yes, we absolutely need and we do take sin seriously. Sin is not small, sin destroys, it breaks relationships, it damages our emotional, mental, spiritual health. Ultimately, sin wants to do this. Sin wants to lead to death. And scripture calls us to flee from it, to turn our hearts and minds towards Christ. Yet many times in the church, we might get wrapped up with sin as the primary focus. And that's easy to, and then it's easy to lose sight of the rest of the story. Like if all we ever do is focus on sin, our sin, the sin of others, we can actually lose sight of the remaining picture. Now, listen, don't get me wrong, confession of our sin matters. And it should be practiced within the church. Even with those who are close to us, James tells us we confess our sins to one another that we might be healed. And so, yes, we need to bring sin into light. We need to address it. Yet there's a danger if sin is the only focus. If that's all we do, we miss something essential. We miss the gospel. We miss the reality that in Christ, sin has been forgiven once and for all. And we also miss the mission of God to go out and share the good news to the world around us. The message that Paul just declared, right? That Christ came to save sinners. And so my hope for us as a church is this: that we would be a place where sin is acknowledged, sin is dealt with, sin is confessed, but also a church that recognizes that's not where the story ends. We would also be a place where people are pointing to the forgiveness that's found in Christ. And here's how we begin to live that out. We model what has been shown to us through Christ. We model forgiveness. Now, we of course we don't hold the power to forgive sins in the ultimate sense, right? That belongs to God alone. However, when someone sins against us, here's what we do hold the power to we can extend forgiveness to that person. And why? Because if you're in Christ, you are someone whose debt has been wiped clean. And once again, forgiving people, forgive people. Look what Paul says in Ephesians. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ did what? Forgave you. And so sadly, as this equation, this parable comes to a close, many often choose the path of the unforgiving servant, where they're called to respond out of what they received. Instead, choose a path that keeps them imprisoned. Because that's exactly how this parable ends. You see, word gets back to the king about how this servant who was forgiven of an impossible debt of 10,000 talents, how he treated the one who owed him just a fraction. And here's what Jesus, how Jesus brings to the close. It says, You wicked servant, I forgave you all the debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy in your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in his anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all the debt. So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. This servant, right, his life does not reflect what he has received, what he was freely given. He was he freely then withholds from another. And what Jesus is exposing here is hypocrisy. It reminds me of a great quote from C.S. Lewis that says, To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. Now here's the challenge with viewing this parable like a math equation. The final result is devastating. The servant's account, once buried out of 10,000 talents, right? But then by the mercy of the king, his balance brought to zero, completely cleared. But that wasn't enough to do this. It wasn't enough to move that servant. He wasn't transformed by mercy, he wasn't gripped by grace, because if he had been, he would have responded like the king. So maybe the question we have to ask is, well, why? Why would someone who received that kind of forgiveness respond in an opposite way? And I don't have a perfect answer, but but I think I can offer us something. I I think it's this it seems like the servant never truly grasps the weight of his debt. He didn't fully understand what he had been forgiven, the magnitude, the cost, the mercy extended him. It didn't seem like it ever sank into his heart. Because here's the thing, when grace is truly understood, it changes you. And that's what Jesus is getting at. Because while this parable uses financial language, Jesus isn't ultimately talking about money. He's using it to point to something deeper. The unpayable debt that represents sin, our sin against God. A debt that begins accumulating from the very start of our lives. And scripture is clear about what that debt earns us. Romans tells us for the wages of sin is death, right? That's the calculation. That's what our debt deserves. Our debt, our sin isn't just an inconvenience, not just a payment plan, but it's death. And yet, once again, that's not the end of the equation. And what this servant failed to truly grasp was apart from the king's forgiveness, his rightful consequence for his debt, for his sin, it was that, it was death. If he had fully understand, understand what he was forgiven of, the depth of the offense against the holy God, the reality that sin leads to death, ultimately eternal separation from God, his response would have been different. Because that's that's what sin earns. Separation from a perfect, holy, loving God, what scripture just describes as hell. Yet through forgiveness, something incredible is offered, right? Not just a cleared account, but this a restored relationship with God, eternal life, yes, but a standing before God, and it's not based upon anything we could ever repay. It's solely based on his mercy, his grace, his love. And if that sinks in, if we actually grasp what we've been forgiven of, there's only one natural response: forgiveness. Forgiveness of others. Even extending it to those who've wronged us, even when they hurt us, even when it feels like it's undeserved, because we know we didn't deserve it either. Jesus captures this beautifully in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 7. There's a woman, and she's known for her sin. She comes in his presence and she doesn't bring a resume, she doesn't bring her accomplishments, she brings her brokenness. And in response, she pours out love, anointing Jesus, weeping at his feet, and yet there's others in the room who look down on her. They assume that they're the ones who belong. They think their self-righteousness is good enough. But she knows her need and she knows where forgiveness is found. And Jesus says this her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loves much. But he who is forgiven little forgives loves little. In other words, when we understand the depth of our forgiveness, it transforms the way we love and the way we can forgive. So once again, forgiven people, forgive people. So as we close, I want to I want to challenge us. And I want to just share a few important truths when it comes to forgiveness and what it requires. Now, here's here's the challenge. This is gonna be it's a challenge, right? It's challenging. Uh, if you're here today and you are a follower of Jesus, you've been forgiven. Let that sink in. Your debt of sin, past, present, future, paid in full on the cross. Jesus took your penalty, waged his sin, put it to death, declared you forgiven. And so if that's where you find yourself, here's the follow-up question: is there anyone in my life right now where instead of offering forgiveness, the forgiveness you received, you're withholding it? Maybe you've convinced yourself they don't deserve it. I'll hold on to this. It gives me control. I'm not letting them off the hook. But let me ask you, is there someone in your life right now who has placed you in the position of an unforgiving servant? Now, I'm not asking you to say their name out loud, don't worry. But just for a moment, be honest before God. Who is it? Maybe a spouse, a parent, child, sibling, friend, coworker, neighbor. Maybe it's someone from years ago, and that something still lingers. I I don't know who it is, but chances you you do, and clearly God does. And so just for a moment, I want to invite you to do something. From the reality of what you've been forgiven, offer forgiveness from your heart. And here's what that means. In doing so, you are releasing them. Not because they earned it, not because what they did was okay, but because you're choosing to no longer keep them imprisoned in the space of your mind and your heart. Because let's be honest, when we hold on to unforgiveness, that person takes up space. They live rent-free in our thoughts, they occupy our emotions. And when that space is, it becomes then filled with bitterness, resentment, replaying of the offense, and that space is no longer this. Just space for the things of God, for his peace, for his presence, for his kingdom. Maybe another word we can use for this is eviction. Right? It's time to evict the offense. Take back the space in your mind and heart where unforgiveness is occupied, and allow the space to be filled by the presence of God. And so here's the challenge: let this be a moment of forgiveness, of release, of eviction. And listen, forgiveness doesn't happen from sheer willpower. It happens when we invite the Spirit of God to step in, right? Think about it's from your heart. None of us are controlling our hearts right now, but we're all breathing. And so the same thing is with the Spirit of God needs to do the work. So here's what forgiveness, if we're finding it challenging to even think about this, right? Because many of us we've we've endured some things. There's been real harm. Maybe it's been abuse, violence, emotional wounds, deep betrayal. And so I understand the idea of forgiving that kind of pain. That's not easy. That struggle is real, it's valid. So let me though give some clarity about what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not pretending the harm never happened. Forgiveness is not excusing or justify what has been done. Forgiveness is not ignoring pain. Forgiveness does not mean that justice is unnecessary, right? God has established systems of justice. There are real consequences for real actions. There's these processes even for restoration. So when you forgive, you're not ignoring the wound, you're not minimizing the offense or bypassing what is right and just. And here's just another hard reality for some of us. Sometimes the person who caused the harm will never ask for forgiveness. In some cases, they're not even no longer here to ask for it. So, how do we forgive in those situations? Well, here's why forgiveness is still possible. Because forgiveness is not ultimately dependent on them, it's rooted in something deeper. Forgiveness is both a response and a realization. First, the response we forgive because we recognize that we too are people who have caused offense. First and foremost, to against God, but also to others. And we respond out of that reality that we have been forgiven. And then there's a realization forgiveness is not just about them, it's about freedom for us. Because unforgiveness binds us, it creates bitterness, resentments, it hardens our callous hearts. But Jesus invites us to something so different. He says, in him, there is life, and life to the fullness. There is freedom. And forgiveness is one of the ways in which we step into that freedom. When we release the person who's wronged us, when we let go of the offense, we're no longer carrying that weight. And we're entrusting it now to the one who is actually perfectly just, the one who always does what is right. Forgiveness does this. It allows God to be judged. It releases us from trying to be judge and jury. Because that's never what our role was to carry. Our role to be people who live as forgiven, and therefore forgiving others. That's what we receive in the gospel. Good news that Jesus saves us from what we deserve: death, separation from God. And instead, He does this, He takes our place, He carries our penalty. In return, He offers us completeness, full, complete, final. So my prayer as a church is this we would be known as people who forgive because we are people who have been forgiven. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for giving us just this key to live in your kingdom, Lord, through this parable. That, Lord, as we have been forgiven, God, you call us to extend the same to others. And I just pray right now, Lord, if we're just being honest and we've even identified that person we need to be extending forgiveness to, releasing, God. I just pray, God, that in that process you would remind us that it's through your spirit and that we would just turn to you, Lord. That ultimately, Lord, we are releasing, Lord, and we are moving towards freedom and space in our hearts that we can ultimately allow for you, Lord, you to be part of and you to be present in and you to just take over, Lord. So I just pray this morning, Lord. I just also pray this is a heavy topic, Lord. You know that many of us have been wounded deeply. And and I just thank you that your spirit is also called the comforter, Lord, that you comfort us, Lord, in these moments where we might feel real pain, where things might stir up, God. But would you comfort us, Lord, to the space where we can walk in freedom, true freedom, freedom that you've given to us. We love you, Jesus, and pray in your name. Amen.