Sunday, April 24, PM

We'll be reading verses 23 through 35, continuing our series on the Kingdom of Heaven is like, the parables of the Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospel of Matthew. To better understand what goes on in chapter 25 of Matthew, when Jesus changes his subject matter from what would happen within his generation versus that which would happen throughout all the rest of his reign from the right hand of God.

So what is it like to live in the Kingdom of Heaven? And that's what we're examining. So there are several parables in chapter 13 of Matthew. We've looked at the first parable in chapter 25, the wise virgins and the foolish virgins.

And before we go to the next parable in Matthew 25 about the talents and those who are entrusted with various responsibilities, now we're going to go back to four other parables of the Kingdom in Matthew.

And the first one is in Matthew 18, the parable of the unforgiving servant. So, let's read verses 23 through 35. The master, after he had called him, said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me, should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you?

And this master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses.

All right, so the Kingdom of Heaven is like. What are the surprises, you think, in this parable? Some of Jesus' parables have surprises in them. We've seen that already in that the mustard seed grew into a tree, well that's not supposed to happen, when the woman who was going to prepare some dough to bake bread made enough to jump inside of, not me, what is she doing making that much bread?

There's surprises, there's surprises in some of these parables and we have surprises here. What are the surprises in this parable? So the amount of the debt, contrast, yes, well I'll tell you. How much is a denarii, by the way?

A day's wages. So the second man owed the forgiven servant one hundred days wages. Ten thousand talents is six million days wages. That's quite a contrast, isn't it? So a surprising amount of the debt.

Any other surprises? Yes. Say what? I can pay it back? That doesn't sound right. What else? Yeah, I suppose it's really the heart of the surprises is that the king forgave this servant ten thousand talents and it's just as surprising that he would not forgive his fellow servant one hundred denarii.

It's almost unfathomable. You know, when it comes to telling good stories, you want to tell stories usually that have some degree of verisimilitude, it actually, oh, this could actually have happened.

It seems real. This seems something that makes sense. There might be surprises in it and twists and turns, but at least I can see that it makes sense and it flows together and so on. This parable of Jesus, this parable of Jesus just simply does not work.

And he does that intentionally. Anyone forgiven six million days wages would be completely out of his mind to go then and choke a man and have a man arrested over the hundred days wages. Like, that doesn't make any sense.

Nobody would do that. Well that's the point Jesus is making. That's the point Jesus is making. What are the moral claims of the parable? What is being said as important and right versus that which is wrong?

What is good versus that which is not good? Yeah, so this is, this is the way you should operate, forgiveness, not this, okay? Right, so Jesus has an explanatory note at the end of the model prayer. If you do not forgive others their trespasses, my Heavenly Father will not forgive you your trespasses.

He's a good bookkeeper, right? The debt comes due and it's clearly not paid. Now it is surprising that this servant owed 10 ,000 talents. To put things in perspective, this king is going to settle accounts with his servants.

And these servants, of course, we're not thinking of someone here who's dressed in rags and comes in with a hoe, fresh from the garden, and the king says, where's my 10 ,000 talents? Not that level of servant.

This is the level of servant like Herod the Great would have been to Caesar of Rome. This is the kind of servant who would have had regional authorities for taxation. And that his job was to govern a region in the name of the king, for the glory of the king, and he was to collect the taxes of the region and then pay the debt to the king.

Now, of course, he may take some off the top for himself if he likes, if he can get it. But it's his responsibility to make sure that the debt of the king is paid. Whatever the king desires of that governor, of that servant.

He has not collected it. Now where did it go? We're not told. He would undoubtedly have had a grand household. He undoubtedly would have had lands and an estate of his own, servants of his own. He would have had stores of wealth himself, but he certainly didn't have 10 ,000 talents.

Apparently, he's not done his job. Apparently, things have not gone well. And he should have done his job, but he did not. And now it is time to pay the debt and he cannot. So the king is saying, okay, fine.

We will sell you and your wife and your children into slavery. And we're going to sell all that you have in your estate. I may not get 10 ,000 talents, but I'll get something as I liquidate my bad debt.

Now he says, have patience with me and I will pay you all. How's he going to do that? Well he's going to try to squeeze whatever he can out of his governance that he has been given. But who knows if he'll be successful with that at all.

Imagine the king's perspective about how that's going to work. That's not going to be good for this region at all. He's like, okay, I'm just going to forgive it all. He forgives the man his debt. Now he deserves to be sold into slavery.

He deserves to be punished. But he is forgiven. And then he goes out and he has his own servants who have their own roles of doing things. Maybe a tax collector or something that hasn't turned in his balance due in quite some time.

And he chokes this man. Pay me what you owe. When it's clear that he is unforgiving, while he has been forgiven, he is turned into the king and the king executes justice upon him. So what Jesus is saying, the kingdom of heaven is like what?

Those who are in right relationship with the king, acceptable to the king, good with the king are those whom he has forgiven. And these are those who forgive. How do we know who are the forgiven? Well they forgive.

That's what makes sense. It doesn't make sense that someone forgiven six million days wages would be out choking someone over a hundred days wages. That doesn't make any sense at all. And so Jesus is making a clarification that what does it mean to be in the kingdom of heaven?

It means that you are a part of a kingdom of the forgiven, a kingdom of those who forgive. So how does this parable relate to the surrounding context? What are some things as you scroll up and down on your phone or you flip back and forth in your Bible, what is the surrounding information, the surrounding texts to this parable that show us the significance of what Jesus is saying?

The brother sins against you, how do you resolve that? Yeah so things don't start off great in the chapter because the disciples are arguing about who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Now that gives some relevance to where Jesus begins to say what the kingdom of heaven is like and starts talking about the central principle of forgiveness, that the forgiven forgive.

It is not that the forgiven strive to see who is better, right? As if we're always on the cusp of promotion time and we're going to make sure that those in charge of promotion know the faults of our co-laborers and present ourselves as pristine so we get the advancement.

This is what the disciples are doing, look at my credentials, look what I can do, look how good I have done compared to others around me. I serve Jesus far better than they do. That mindset is not a kingdom mindset.

And that can only lead to strife, that can only lead to disharmony and disfellowship. Choking one another, right, that's not good. So in seminary, various stories came floating through about how churches didn't get along.

And in Southern Baptist life, you had the associational missionary or the director of missions or whoever who really didn't have any authority over any local church or anything but often would get dispatched in to troubleshoot issues.

So one of them was relating difficulties in the church and he said that he had to make a rule at a business meeting that he had never made for any other group and his rule was that when we have this business meeting there will be no throwing of hymnals.

So that's not kingdom, right, throwing hymnals. Now after the contesting of one another, who's the greatest, we have another story, another teaching. Jesus warns about offenses. He talks about not stumbling one another, doesn't he?

Instead of arguing who's the greatest, who's done more, who's got better credentials, who's record of service is better in the church, maybe you should be thinking about how not to stumble one another and harm one another.

And he says, verse 10, despise one of these little ones. What kind of mindset do you have towards one another? And think about the love of God for each one of the saints. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains and seek the one that is straying?

And if he should find it, assuredly I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. Even so, it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

That is the introduction to the instructions about church discipline. Someone is straying. Someone is going away from the faith. Someone is rebelling against the standard of God's word. And you see your brother sinning?

This is not your opportunity to say, I am much greater in the kingdom than that person is. This isn't a time to say, oh well, right off your loss. What's the heart of God on the matter as a shepherd goes after the one who strays and goes and seeks?

And then what does Jesus say? Go win your brother. How do you do that? Show him his sin. Seek to win your brother back. Now, you cannot engage in that kind of thinking and those kinds of actions if you are not forgiving as those who have been forgiven.

If your main concern is that justice be done, well, that's not going to work out well. Have we been shown the justice of God? We have been given the mercy of God. Christ is born the justice of God. Now Peter came to him, verse 21, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. Seventy-seven fold is the literal translation. His answer to Lamech, by the way, Lamech, descendant of Cain, says to Ada and Zillah, hear my voice, I have wounded a man for insulting me, I have killed a man for wounding me.

If Cain be avenged seven times, Lamech be avenged seventy-seven fold. That's the way of Cain, that's the way of no forgiveness, the way of those who are not of the children of God. Jesus says no forgiveness seventy-seven fold.

And okay, let's put it into numbers, shall we? The man in the story who choked the other guy over a hundred denarii, what if it was, you know, seventy-seven hundred denarii compared to six million denarii?

As those forgiven, forgive. Now forgiveness entails seeking to win the person who has offended you and reconciling with them and forgiving them. The following context, now what's the context that comes after the story and how is that relevant?

Marriage and divorce, that seems relevant to forgiveness. After he talks about forgiving, forgiving, forgiving, then the topic is, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? There are times I think Jesus sighed, we just talked about this, right?

So, as those who are forgiven, forgive. Let's think of it in this context, Colossians chapter 2, Colossians chapter 2, verse 13. This is helping us understand how it is that we are forgiven and then how are we to live.

Okay? Verse 13, Colossians 2, and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he is made alive together with him, together with Christ, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Primary writing material of the time, a papyrus scroll interwoven this way and this way, and there was a rough side to it and there was a smooth side to it, and you wrote on the smooth side. However, if you needed to reuse the scroll, you could take an instrument and scrape the ink off of the scroll.

And this is what Paul is saying that God has done concerning our guilt, our trespasses, our sins against God. He has taken that out of the way, he has erased everything on the scroll, and he's done this in a just fashion, having nailed it to the cross, Christ, who knew no sin, God made to be our sin, that we might become the righteous of God in him.

This is what it means to be in the kingdom, those who have been forgiven. In chapter 1, he says that we are to give thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints and the light.

He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. The word convey is a technical term used in Roman literature to talk about their extraordinary rendition of insurgents, that they would take a troublesome people group when they lived in an area who constantly caused problems, and they would physically transplant them to a whole other region to get them to calm down, to bring them fully in line in the empire.

And Paul is saying, we have been plucked up and transplanted in an entirely new kingdom, the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of forgiveness. So, this is the nature of the kingdom, as those who have been forgiven, and what is the life in this kingdom is one of forgiveness.

One of forgiveness. I will note that this is not a kingdom of permissiveness. Forgiveness is reconciliation to a standard. As you note in the passage about church discipline, the instructions are not to go to the one who is sinning and rejecting the word of God, and living lives of sin, and going to them and saying, God is your biggest fan no matter what you do, right?

And I totally get you, right? That is the version of Christianity that is being preached today. Notice that there is a standard here, a calling of one, a sacrificial laboring of the saint for the one who is straying, seeking to win them back, to see them reconciled to the flock, to the church, to God.

So, when we say forgiveness, we are talking about the biblical definition. I think that is a good clarification to make. Any thoughts or questions before we close? As those forgiven, we forgive. How else do all the nations gather up into Mount Zion and beat their swords into plowshares?

How else will Russians and Ukrainians take communion together around the Lord's table? How do Slavs and Albanians take communion together at the Lord's table? How do blacks and whites take communion together at the Lord's table?

As those who have been forgiven, we forgive, right? That is the nature of the kingdom.

Yes, yeah.

I think it is this point, a fullness, a plethora of forgiveness. Yeah, a hundred days versus six million days. Yeah, it is hard to wrap your head around 10 ,000 talents. All right, well, let us close by singing the doxology together.