Good to be with you today.
And if you are visiting, as mentioned, my name is Pastor Ryan, uh one of the the pastors here at Impact, and uh excited to could to be continuing this series that we kicked off last week.
Uh Pastor James did a great job opening up.
Uh, we've called the series Solid Ground, and this is our our family series for this year.
Uh, and excited to to just let the Lord do what I know only He can do over the weeks ahead as we go through the great Sermon on the Mount that Jesus preached.
Uh that's why it's great, because it came from Jesus in Matthew chapters five through seven.
So if you have your Bibles, you can open to Matthew chapter five.
Quick question: Does anybody here have a family?
All right.
Great.
Then this series is for you.
And if you have a family, then I can also assume you are familiar with conflict.
Yeah?
Right?
Because anybody who lives with others and shares life with them, conflict is inevitable.
One of my favorite things as we go through pre-marriage counseling with young couples who are about to become husband and wife.
One of my favorite things is coming in and walking them through potential conflict that they're going to face.
It also cracks me up when I will actually meet with couples who are so Twitter painted, so in love, and nothing that their loved one will ever do could ever be wrong.
And I'll ask them, all right, well, tell me about an argument you guys have had.
And I've actually had couples tell me, well, we've never had an argument.
And in that moment, I just say, you need to leave.
I've got nothing for you right now.
So go find something to fight about, and then let's come back and talk through it.
We have seasons where we begin feeling, oh, they're not going to do anything wrong ever.
It's going to be so amazing.
And we're just going to live happily ever after.
But as we're in family relationships, living them out, as the storms in life come, it exposes the foundation that our families and our homes are built upon.
And this is what Pastor James opened up with last week as we talked about this little parable Jesus gives us at the end of this Sermon on the Mount.
Between the wise and the foolish builders.
You guys remember this?
It was a week ago.
Do you guys remember this?
Okay.
Wise and foolish builders and how the storms inevitably come.
We can't do anything to keep the storms away.
But what we can do is make sure our home and our family relationships are built upon solid ground, built upon the rock.
And what is the rock?
It is obedience to the teachings of Jesus.
Guys, I know some of you here today are going through it, man.
And every storm that has ever come your way into your family has wreaked havoc on those relationships.
It has added tension and conflict and stress into your marriage, your parenting, your sibling relationships, your relationship with parents, and you're just stressed out constantly, trying to figure out how to fix things.
Usually that means trying to fix your spouse.
And here's how I can make things better with them because clearly they're the problem.
I'm fine.
Right?
And we go about it our way, doing everything we know how to make things better, but it doesn't get better, does it?
It just gets worse.
And year after year, we see our house crumbling and we don't know what to do.
The problem isn't necessarily the house, it's the foundation.
That we are not living in obedience to the teachings of Jesus, specifically the teachings of the great sermon on the mount, right?
That's when he told the parable of the wise and foolish builder after telling us all of these things of how to live in a kingdom way, how to experience interpersonal relationships, the way that he has designed them to be experienced.
So are we going to build our families on that foundation?
Today, we're going to be talking about anger and conflict.
You know, I asked if you had a family.
Anybody here ever been angry with someone in your family?
Three of you.
Great.
Those three of you, this is for you today.
Rest of us, feel free to go grab some in and out.
I don't know what we're doing in.
I could even ask how many of you have ever been angry with a person you're sitting next to.
How many are angry with them right now?
As for many of us, anger is our family baseline, isn't it?
It's just kind of our norm at this point.
We are constantly hurt, constantly disappointed, consistently feeling mistreated, underappreciated, which leads to built-up and pent-up anger.
And that anger may build up to a point where we blow a gasket and just lose it on everybody and start yelling and screaming and doing whatever we do when we're angry.
Maybe it's just the silent killer of becoming cold and callous and shutting down.
Or maybe that anger continues to boil beneath the surface and becomes this seething thing that slowly releases through bitterness and resentment and biting sarcasm.
Whatever it may be, it damages intimacy, doesn't it?
It breaches trust and erodes that foundation of trust that is necessary to healthy relationships.
And it contributes even to generational trauma within our families.
Studies consistently show that kids who are exposed to intense parental anger are at higher risk for developing anxiety and depression and even aggressive behaviors themselves.
Anger has a very damaging effect even on us as individuals.
Prolonged exposure to the stress hormones that accompany anger, they've shown destroys neurons in the areas of the brain associated with judgment, short-term memory, and even a weakened immune system.
So anger can be an incredibly self-destructive and family-destroying thing.
Now, by nature, anger is an emotion of protection, isn't it?
It's about self-preservation.
It equips me to fight against any kind of threat that may be coming my way, fight against injustice or mistreatment or danger.
It's a natural defense mechanism that really floods my system with adrenaline and cortisol and the things that hyper uh make me hyper-vigilant and even strengthen me to be able to battle against whatever I need to fight against to protect myself and preserve myself.
Anger also has triggers, things that we develop over the years based on past hurts and past disappointments, where something becomes identified as a threat.
And we may have a trigger where we feel like we overreact in certain situations.
Can I encourage you guys today?
There's no such thing as an overreaction.
Did you know that?
So when you see your spouse overreacting, never say, Why are you overreacting?
That trigger only points to something bigger that they're reacting to.
And it's about understanding what that may be.
Yeah, just recently to be a little vulnerable here, my wife, Tracy and I, we got into a little bit of an argument and it didn't start that way.
Funny how that happens, isn't it?
We were kind of joking around about stuff, and we were kind of recognizing about, you know, our kids, they're older now and they're coming back home from college, and now I'm back in my routine of constantly flipping off lights and making sure that we're saving on electricity and making sure the showers aren't running too long, so I don't drown in debt just from the water bill.
So we're talking about all these things, and one of the things that got brought up was how a toilet seat will or the lid will occasionally be left up.
And I'm like, yeah.
I'm like, aren't you glad that I don't do that?
And she goes, Well, sometimes you do.
Innocent comment.
I was ready for war.
Something happened in me, and it was so weird.
I got angry that she would dare accuse me of leaving the top lid of the toilet up.
Because I remember reading something years ago about fecal matter when the toilet flushes, and I'm like, that's disgusting.
So I close that thing every time and flush and run out of there.
So I knew I never left it up.
And she dare accuse me?
I got so mad.
It's ridiculous.
I had to pray through this.
I ended the conversation because I'm not going to fight about a toilet lid.
But I was like, Lord, what is going on?
What was this trigger pointing to, revealing in me?
And here's what the Lord showed me.
Early on in our marriage, I did a lot worse than leave toilet lids up.
I wasn't helpful.
I wasn't contributing.
I wasn't supporting my wife and different areas that she needed support in.
And so I felt like I was failing as a husband and even as a dad.
And it was these feelings of insecurity that I had to work through and let the grace of God shape, transform, change me into the husband and father that I knew he wanted me to be.
And so when this comment came my way, there was this lie that got triggered that tapped into those feelings of inadequacy.
That I was failing as a husband again.
And my wife noticed I wasn't putting the lid down all the time.
Instead of stepping back and understanding who I am as a man and as a husband and a father has very little to nothing to do with my toilet lid habits.
That was the enemy trying to trigger and stir something in me to create conflict.
Right?
So anger is a natural thing that sometimes we don't even understand why we react and feel the anger that we feel.
But it's always tied to something.
Matthew chapter 5.
Can we just look together at what Jesus has to say about anger?
And guys, let me do this.
Before we read, can I just pray for us?
Because as we talk about this, we can talk all day long and we can leave here and continue to go, yeah, you know what?
The anger thing, that's real.
And we look at our spouse going, you shouldn't be so angry.
This message is for you, but it's for every one of us in here today.
Lord Jesus, I want to recognize those filters and those potential triggers here this morning.
I want to recognize too, as you know, how easily we can just close ourselves off, be unwilling to allow your spirit to do the work in us, to bring the freedom to us that we need.
And so I pray, Spirit of God, that you will do your work today.
That you will give us the grace we need to open ourselves to you, open our hearts to you, as ugly and dark and and as miserable as that anger we've been holding on to may seem.
That you give us the strength we need to face it today, to acknowledge it, and Lord, most importantly, to surrender it to you.
Vengeance is yours, not ours.
And may it lead to freedom that brings health to our relationships and family.
So speak to us, Jesus, in your name.
Amen.
Matthew chapter 5.
Let me read verse 21, the words of Jesus.
You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.
Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council or the Sanhedrin, the Jewish governing body.
And whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.
Jesus comes out of the gate swinging, doesn't he?
Making sure that he's hitting head on what has been a destructive influence to the foundation of our families.
You've heard that it was said.
I love this juxtaposition that he's going to give us the next couple of weeks here.
You've heard it said to those of old, right?
Through the Ten Commandments, you shall not murder.
This was the sixth commandment of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.
This moral code of justice and what is right, meant to govern society.
I think it's important here as we read through the Sermon on the Mount to keep this in mind.
What Jesus is doing is not undoing the social laws of governance that God gave to his people.
Because there is justice in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Whoever is murdering is going to be liable for judgment.
There is justice in that that we need to preserve in society.
But guys, hear this.
If justice is what we are seeking in our marriage and family relationships, you will not have a healthy marriage and family.
Because healthy families in the kingdom of God are predicated upon and built upon grace and forgiveness.
And until we embrace that and understand that, we will be demanding justice and payment, equity from one another, and that's all our relationship will consist of.
Interpersonal relationships function on a different plane according to Christ.
He said, You have heard it said, you shall not murder.
But I say to you, in other words, he's about to show us a better way.
And what is the better way?
Everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.
Now you may have a translation of scripture based on different ancient manuscripts that adds two words, a little phrase here, where it says, Anyone who is angry with his brother without cause.
Anybody here have that?
There's different versions that include that.
Without cause.
Now, this goes back to some textual criticism conversation, but some of these ancient manuscripts included this phrase in it, right?
The Byzantine and some others that some of the other current translations translated from.
The ESV does not include that phrase.
It kind of comes from a compilation of different ancient texts.
And I'm grateful the earliest and most reliable manuscripts that we translate scripture from don't actually include this.
They would suggest that that phrase without cause was a scribal annotation.
It was inserted by a scribe translating the actual scripture and word of God.
So there's conversation about that.
But I'm grateful the ESV doesn't include it for a couple of reasons.
Here's why.
Number one, if the actual statement of Jesus was anyone who is angry with his brother or her brother without cause, we all of us would immediately excuse ourselves from any kind of conviction this statement would bring to our lives.
You know why?
Because every time we are angry in our own mind, it is with cause.
If we don't have a cause or a because you did this, we're not going to be angry.
Nobody just wakes up seething, hating everybody, and when they're like, what's wrong?
Nothing.
You didn't do anything.
I just hate you.
We always have a cause and a reason for our anger.
Our anger is never unrighteous.
We only suffer from apparently the Christian pandemic of righteous indignation.
Every time we're angry, it is righteous because we feel like we have a right to be angry because of what that person said or what he or she did to us.
And so we read these verses that follow, and we excuse ourselves or exclude ourselves from them because we have a cause.
But he also here another observation is that Jesus seems much less concerned with the cause of our anger and much more concerned with the effects of it.
Not anger itself, but even when you look at the whole of Scripture, what you see is that the problem for most of us isn't the natural self-protective response of anger.
It is what we do with that anger, how we respond in our anger that consistently seems to be the problem.
Let me give you an example.
Ephesians chapter 4, the apostle Paul writes this, verse 26.
Be angry.
You notice that he doesn't say don't be angry.
He says, be angry and do not what, guys, sin.
Do not let the sun go down on your anger.
Don't let it fester.
Don't let it seethe.
And give no opportunity to the devil.
Right.
So from Paul's perspective, the problem isn't necessarily our anger, but the sin that comes from it.
That we consistently give the devil, the enemy, an opportunity to use that anger to wreak more havoc, to amplify and maximize relational destruction.
That's the problem with our anger.
Think back to the civil rights movement of the 60s.
What we had in our country was dramatic injustice and racism.
And you had groups of people that were trying to deal with the problem, the attack and the threat of racism.
They wanted to undo Jim Crow laws and segregation and get our society where it needed to be because of the mistreatment of a whole people group of African Americans in our country.
And so we see different groups rise up.
Now there were two primary leaders that surfaced during that time.
One was Martin Luther King Jr., and the other was Malcolm X.
And they were both angry at the unrighteousness and the sin and the evils of this society.
They were both angry and rightly so.
Are we in agreement on that?
But how they chose to respond to that anger and that injustice is what made all the difference.
Malcolm X was about anger and violence, about meeting the violence of the oppressor with violence of the ourselves, themselves.
He was all about overthrow and political revolution.
And everybody who followed him was about the same.
But Reverend King had a different approach.
And it's where we get the statement that is so popular and everybody posts on his holiday.
The darkness can't drive out darkness.
Only light can do that.
Likewise, hate can't drive out hate.
Only love can do that.
And so he chose this path of peace, peaceful protest, of making these statements, sit-ins, willingly going to jail, suffering imprisonment, which stirred the hearts of our country and brought about change.
And it's why today, if you want to look at the effectiveness of which approach has greater effect, look no further than these two individuals.
Guys, you and I have never driven down a Malcolm X Boulevard.
We don't celebrate his holiday, do we?
How do we respond in our anger?
Being justified in your anger doesn't mean you're justified in your response.
James chapter 1, verse 19.
We read, know this, my beloved brothers.
Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak.
I think I need to say that one again.
Slow to speak, slow to anger.
For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
Guys, catch that?
That is an exclusive statement.
It's not the anger of man rarely produces or does not always produce the righteousness of God.
It does not produce the righteousness of God.
Guys, think about your angry responses within your family relationships.
They hurt you, they let you down, they do that thing you told them not to do over and over and over again, and they did it again.
And you respond in anger.
Does your response, has it ever, a single time in that family relationship, in that marriage relationship, has it ever brought about or produced the righteousness of God in your family?
If we're honest with the Lord and with ourselves, don't we have to go, absolutely not?
Noah's produced the opposite of that.
Just more discord, more anger, more malice and wrath.
And it manifests even in what we say.
Jesus says, whoever insults his brother, and the Greek here, the literal translation, is whoever says raka, raka was an ancient insult.
It means empty-headed or idiot.
Do not use this in a sentence today.
Like I know we're probably wanting to.
So whoever says idiot or empty-headed to his brother, whoever says you fool, the Greek word here for you fool is moros.
Does that sound familiar?
Where we get our English word for oh, you guys know this word.
Okay.
A moron, even a moral reprobate.
So raca attacks someone's intellect, moros attacks their moral character, their integrity, and who they are.
Anyone here feel like you've been born into a family of racas and moroses?
As angry hearts lead to angry words.
And there are so many families who have been devastated.
Stated.
So much destruction brought into family and marriage relationships because of harsh words spoken in a moment of anger and rage.
Has anyone here ever had something that you said in anger that you wished you hadn't said?
Maybe you've heard this statement before, and it's very true.
I don't know of a single person who has ever regretted in a moment of anger not saying something.
But oh how much we regret saying what we feel in that moment, don't we?
Because our defense mechanism is to just fight and swing in return without any regard for the damage that may be caused long term in that person that we love and care about.
We call others names, we say hurtful things that cut each other deeply.
We will yell and scream at our kids and rage on them.
We will call our spouse fool to their face, idiot, moron, moros, and we'll say it.
Well, if we don't say it, think it, and the look in our eyes says everything that they need to hear.
Or maybe we don't ever say it to them, at least not recently.
We've managed to get that under control.
We just say it about them to anyone who will listen.
If you've ever said something like this, I'm sure you've also had something said to you at some point.
Something said to you in anger that still hurts and stings to this day.
Something that maybe even reinforced an insecurity or a fear that you had about yourself.
You experienced that?
See, this is what the enemy of God, this is what the devil is so good at doing, guys, is he knows those areas of weakness and insecurity.
And what he'll do is in a moment of tension and conflict, he will stir up anger and allow that anger to be used to speak words like raka and moros.
And those words cut into an individual and they reinforce a lie that he wants us to believe about God and about ourselves.
And so that moment of a careless word that you speak, wanting to hurt this person that has hurt you, can dig so deep it stays with them and reinforces the lie about themselves the enemy wants them to believe.
Instead of the truth that brings freedom, that sets them free and allows them to live into the identity that God has given to them.
Ephesians chapter 4.
This is why Paul writes in verse 29 let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths.
Guess how much corrupting talk should come out of our mouths?
None.
No corrupting talk.
There's not a single asterisk in the Greek text.
Well, you don't understand what he said to me.
It doesn't matter.
Yeah, but I was just kidding.
I mean, they knew I'm just joking.
No, let no corrupting talk or unwholesome speech come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear.
Your words that you speak are doing one of two things and only one of two things.
They are building people up, or they are ripping them down and tearing them apart.
And shame on us for the people of God for coming here and worshiping with our mouths, the God and creator of all things, and singing his praises and adoring him, and at the same time ripping apart his image bears.
I mean, James talks about this, James chapter 3, verse 8.
But no human being contain the tongue.
It is a restless evil full of deadly poison.
With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
From the same mouth comes blessing and cursing.
My brothers, these things ought not to be so.
Because we cannot tear people apart to their face with other people, gossiping and slandering about them.
We cannot rip people apart and tear them down with our words and then come in here and offer our worship to the Lord and think it doesn't matter all the other stuff that we've been saying and doing.
We have to walk the way of Jesus.
And yet he still calls you to release the desire, the tendency to murder people with our mouths, to destroy and bring destruction to them and tear them down, hoping others see them as less as well, so that I can feel better about who I am.
We're called to repentance of our anger, our attitude, confessing our sin of resentment and bitterness to Jesus.
We're also called to do something pretty extraordinary.
Verse 23, check this out.
So if you are offering your gift at the altar, Jesus continues, and there remember that your brother has something against you.
Leave your gift there before the altar and go.
First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Come to terms quickly with your accuser, while you're going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge, to the guard, and you be put in prison.
Truly I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
So, what is the call of Christ when it comes to our family, when it comes to our relationships, when it comes to who we are as followers of Jesus?
He says, We are called to reconciliation.
Not to resentment, not to bitterness and anger toward those who have hurt us, but to reconciliation.
If we know someone in our family is angry with us, we're called to make it right.
As far as it is up to us to be at peace with all people.
Leave your gift at the altar and go do what God wants you to do so much more.
Reconcile with your brother, reconcile with your sister, reconcile with your husband, with your wife, with your parents, with your kids.
Otherwise, we may get dragged before a court and a judge and guard and prison.
Jesus' point here is pretty clear.
No matter how much we think reconciliation is going to cost us, and make no mistake, it's going to cost us, isn't it?
It'll cost us our pride.
It'll cost us the fear of risking actually taking ownership of what I've contributed to this conflict, even though in my mind it's about 2-3%.
And he or she did 97 to 98.
And so the fear is if I actually go to them and if I confess and repent and take ownership for my 2-3%, then they're going to think it's all my fault and they won't care and they're not going to change.
And that is a terrifying prospect.
So we hang on to our anger and we continue to try to punish them and keep them in this prison of our anger and resentment instead of letting it go.
It's scary, guys.
It's scary to entrust vengeance to the Lord, to whom it rightfully belongs.
It's terrifying to give your hurt to Jesus, the judge of all the earth, who will do right so much more than you.
To release that to him and let him bring justice and you love and show grace, that is terrifying.
And it's going to cost you.
But what Jesus makes clear here is the cost of reconciliation is nothing compared to the cost of resentment, compared to the destructive cost you are going to pay in your family relationships.
How can our hearts be free from anger?
This is so interesting to me.
I don't know if you guys caught the shift in focus from verses 21 and 22, and then when Jesus goes into verse 23 about reconciliation.
Right?
So he's saying to his followers, he's like, hey, don't be angry.
If you're angry, you're liable to judgment, right?
So don't be angry when people hurt you, offend you, disappoint you.
Do not be angry and murder them with your heart or your words.
And then he says, if you're offering your gift, if you come to worship and remember someone has something against you.
You guys see the shift?
There's a pivot of focus here.
Because the natural flow would be don't be angry against those who have hurt you.
If you come to worship and there remember someone has hurt you, go and reconcile and make sure they ask for forgiveness.
Isn't that the natural flow?
But Jesus doesn't do that.
He pivots and he connects the two very clearly when he says, so here is what you are to do.
Don't be angry.
Don't harbor murderous thoughts in your heart and in your mind.
If you are, here's how you handle it.
Here's what you do.
Go and if you are worshiping and you remember you've hurt someone else.
You have disappointed someone else.
You have said something or done something hurtful toward another person.
Go and reconcile with that person.
And how can you reconcile with someone that you've hurt?
You ask for their forgiveness.
You repent of that sin in order to bring the change necessary to bring you back into intimacy and relationship.
It's the only way.
And by the way, it's asking for forgiveness, which is a much more difficult thing than saying you're sorry or apologizing.
Isn't it?
So much easier just to go up to somebody if you know that you've heard them or said something wrong.
So much easier to say sorry.
I mean, think about your kids, parents, when they're little.
Hey, you apologize to your sister.
Do it right now, otherwise you're gonna be in time out.
Sorry.
So heartfelt.
Usually, I'm sorry is followed with the, but it's only because, and we boomerang it right back to them.
Point the finger back at them.
Whereas to ask someone to forgive you is a very different thing.
It requires true repentance, humbling yourself and putting your forgiveness in their hands to say, Will you forgive me for what I did to you?
We need to ask people to forgive us much more than we're apologizing.
I point out often, even the Greek word, right, in the original New Testament language for apology, it's apologia.
It literally translates as to defend or make a defense.
And that's what we do when we apologize.
I'm sorry, but this, but that, but you.
Right?
How do we reconcile?
We go and reconcile with those that we have hurt or wronged.
Jesus shifts the focus from our anger to those who are angry with us, which is a great reminder, guys, of a couple things.
Number one, we're only responsible for one person in every relational conflict.
Who is that person we're responsible for?
Me.
I am not responsible to ensure that this person that has hurt me or wounded me changes and does things the right way.
I can try.
In fact, most of us, we've spent our entire marriage life trying.
How's it working for you?
The best we can hope for is to effect some kind of behavioral modification or change, not the heart.
There's only one who can change the heart, and that is Jesus.
We need to submit to that, and we can't force another person to submit.
We can only submit to his work in ourselves.
Only submit to what he's wanting to do in each and every one of us.
Jesus doesn't say go and demand an apology from the person you're mad at.
He says, Do not be mad, do not be angry.
Instead, go and be reconciled with the person who's mad at you.
Free them from the burden of their offense and their anger.
Acknowledge humbly your sin against them without diluting or diminishing it, without minimizing the ugliness of it.
Call it what it is.
And again, these are connected.
So the thought here is if you're angry, if you're angry, here's what you do.
Make it a point to go and reconcile with anyone who is angry with you.
Well, that doesn't seem like the solution that we want to hear, does it?
If you're dealing with anger, Jesus says the first thing you need to do is think of everybody you have hurt, you have wronged, and never actually reconciled with.
Go and be reconciled to that person as much as it's up to you.
Ask them to forgive you for how you've contributed what you've done.
Why is this important?
Because as we are asking others to give us grace, it reminds us of our need for it.
It reminds us of our need to be forgiven.
That we've hurt others, we've wronged others, we've let people down and said and done some horrible, despicable, selfish things.
And so as we're asking them to forgive us for those things, how can we not then be but motivated to extend the same grace to those who have wronged us?
Ephesians 4, verse 31.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.
Instead, do what?
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.
As long as they ask for it and you feel they deserve it.
Did I read that incorrectly?
Forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.
Guys, that's why we forgive.
That's how we're free from anger is to recognize all that we have done to our holy, glorious Creator who loves us beyond anything we can comprehend, and yet we continually choose ourselves over Him.
We continually walk our own way.
We are deserving of the wrath of a holy God.
And yet, this holy God, in his grace and goodness, has chosen to forgive us.
How can we not then do anything but forgive those who have wronged us?
That's the basis for forgiveness, for letting go of our anger and resentment.
Let me close with this.
Matthew chapter 18.
Jesus reiterates this point.
He tells a story when Peter, the disciple, asks him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?
He says, Should I do it as many as seven times?
This was a big deal.
I mean, the rabbis at the time taught that you should forgive someone up to three times, three times.
So imagine Peter here being like, dude, I'm gonna be super holy.
Lord, how many should I forgive?
Not three.
Should I do like, I'm gonna double it and add one extra credit bonus point?
Seven times?
And Jesus responds and says, No, not seven times.
Seventy sevens time.
490.
And it's not about doing the math.
His point was, as many times as you are, your brother wrongs, forgive.
And this seems so undoable.
And so Jesus helps them understand how we do this.
Verse 23.
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 to him who owed him 10,000 talents.
That's roughly the equivalent of 200,000 years of wages.
Guys didn't even react to that.
200,000 years worth of wages.
One talent was 20 years of wages.
So when Jesus gave this sum, everybody listening at the time most assuredly kind of chuckled, went like, What?
Who could even rack up that much debt?
And that's kind of the point.
Since he could not pay, obviously, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made.
This is what he deserved.
And out of pity, I'm sorry.
So the servant fell on his knees, verse 26, imploring him, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.
And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
Two hundred thousand years worth of income of debt, this master forgave.
Who does the master represent in this parable?
God.
Who does the servant represent?
Us.
You got it.
Doesn't end here, verse 28.
But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.
This is roughly a hundred denarii, roughly the equivalent to three to four months of wages.
Three to four months.
Still a pretty decent sum, right?
If somebody owed me three to four months' worth of income, I'd probably want payment.
And seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, Pay what you owe.
He lost his temper very clearly.
So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me, and I will repay you.
He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.
Guys, isn't this what we do with people?
We lock them in a prison of our anger to punish them until they pay what they owe us.
To pay off the debt that you've incurred because of what you did to me, what you said to me, how you treated me.
And I'm going to make your life miserable, or I'm going to detach myself and be cold toward you until I feel like you have suffered sufficiently to pay the debt that you owe me.
Verse 31, when his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place.
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 not you 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, not just with your mouth, but from your heart.
So, guys, here's what we do: we take all of our righteous reasons for holding on to our bitterness and pouring our wrath out upon that family member who has cut and wounded us so deeply.
We take every one of those justifications and reasons and excuses and we hold them up to this.
And we realize we are angry because we are thinking about what they owe us and what has been done to us, and we have forgotten what we owed him.
What we do to him on a regular basis that he forgives and how blessed it is to know that our sins are not counted against us in the eyes of God.
And yet we go out and we choke people and we strangle, we throw them into prison and demand payment because of what you've done.
And guys, hear this, please.
What they did, despicable.
What they did, not okay.
You forgiving doesn't make it right, it makes it righteous by reminding yourself that what you've done is not okay.
What you've done is not right, and you've even done it toward other people, not just the Lord.
We gotta remind ourselves of how much grace we have received from Jesus so that we can then in turn count it joy when we have an opportunity to show others the same grace and to forgive those who have wronged us.
There is no other way to have a solid foundation for your family.
Guys, you will never experience familial health until you become an expert in forgiveness.
Can we stand together?
Lord, I feel it.
I know you do too.
I know you see the hurt, the tears that have been shed.
How many of us feel like we're holding on to anger, but Lord, it's holding on to us.
We are captives, and we need you to set us free today.
Lord, remind us of all that we've been forgiven of in you, Jesus.
Remind us of the debt we owed you that you didn't know, but we couldn't pay it, you paid it for us.
And so, Lord, may we take that and just look for every opportunity to show you our gratitude by forgiving every debt of wrong against us.
Set us free, Jesus.
May we submit to your Spirit's work in our lives.
And God, I pray you also give us that mindset to focus on those we have wronged.
That we leave here determined to pursue reconciliation with our spouse, with our kids, with our parents, with our siblings, with everybody around us, Lord.
To bring that to you as our offering and trusting vengeance to the only one who can exact it with justice.
Amen.