The Forgiving Life Matthew 18:21-35

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To know one's eternal destiny is the big question in one's life.
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Are you saved or not? Everyone will either spend eternity in heaven or eternity in hell.
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And the big question is, are you saved? Once one identifies as a
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Christian, there are certain marks that show whether or not a person is true or not.
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The letter of 1 John is a great gift to us. 1 John 5 .13 tells us why the letter was written.
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He says, I write these things so that you may know that you have eternal life.
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The point of the letter is to say you can have confidence that you have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
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You can have confidence that your name is written in heaven. That you will dwell with God one day in His presence.
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The letter of 1 John gives four marks that show the genuineness of one's faith.
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Number one is this. You have correct doctrine. As 1 John 4 .3
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says, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
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Another mark is a deep love for the people of God. Christians are to love all people, yes, but especially those fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
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As 1 John 3 .14 says, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.
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Loving fellow Christians is a clear mark of true, saving faith. The third mark is that you see fruit in your life.
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As 1 John 3 .24 says, whoever keeps his commandments abides in God.
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And the fourth and final mark is the other side of the coin. A Christian not only loves and pursues righteousness, but hates his or her sin.
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A believer does sin, yes, but has a strong desire to not remain in sin.
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As 1 John 3 .9 says, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning.
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Another way to say that is no one born of God is comfortable living in sin. You don't want to stay in it.
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You want to be done with it. And one day, you will be done with it in glory.
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These are clear marks of true faith that Scripture describes, and every person is wise to examine if this describes you.
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One of the ways a believer practices righteousness is by not withholding forgiveness from others.
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It is the worldly person who refuses to forgive, but it is the one who is keenly aware of the weight of one's sin who is willing to forgive when sinned against.
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This morning as we continue our sermon series through Matthew, Jesus is going to talk about forgiveness and the importance of forgiveness being present in a believer's life.
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So at this time, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew 18. We'll be looking at verses 21 -35.
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And if you're using one of those red Bibles, it's on page 979.
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And the sermon is titled this, The Forgiving Life. And because this is a longer text,
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I'm not going to read the text today. We will go through it verse by verse.
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But here's our big idea. What this sermon is calling you to do.
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Pursue forgiveness as the transformed person that you are. Pursue forgiveness as the transformed person that you are.
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And we will see two ways how as we go through this. But before we jump in, let me give you a little recap of where we were one
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Sunday ago. We looked at the passage where Jesus focuses on the importance of purity within the church.
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One of the ways the church is pure is by making sure an unrepentant sinner does not remain in the fold.
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A church is a place for sinners, yes, but it is a place for repentance sinners. If one sins seriously against someone else and remains in unrepentance, then the members of the church need to act.
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The first action is for the person who was sinned against to show the other his or her fault. If the person refuses to repent, then one or two other eyewitnesses are brought in.
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And if the person refuses to repent, then the whole church is brought in. And if the person still refuses to repent, then the person is excommunicated from the flock.
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This is known as church discipline. And the goal of this is not only the purity of the church, but actually to help the person out.
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You want this person to truly be saved. And if the person is truly repentant, then the person is truly saved.
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So Jesus gives us these instructions to follow in this we must follow to be a healthy church.
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As the church operates in this way, even as the world might criticize, God is pleased as the text says, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.
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So we are in charge as a church to make sure the church is pure and heaven is watching.
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Now we're gonna begin by reading verse 21 of our text. Let me read this at this time.
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Then Peter came up and said to him, to Jesus that is,
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Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?
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Okay, we'll stop right there. As we saw in the previous text, Jesus explains the steps that need to be taken if there is unrepentance within the local body.
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This leads Peter to ask Jesus the question, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?
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And then he puts a number to it. Seven. He says to him, as many as seven times?
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Now so often in Matthew, we have seen the negative influence of the Jewish leaders over the whole
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Jewish population, including the disciples. One example we have seen over and over again is the false expectation that Jews had for the
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Messiah. They believed that the Messiah would come in power, drive out their enemies, the
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Romans, and then reign forever over the people of Israel and over the earth.
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They did not have a concept for a suffering Messiah, even though the Old Testament was very clear that there would be a suffering
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Messiah. The Jewish tradition also had many silly laws. One of those laws is that one only had to forgive someone three times.
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And once the third time passed, forgiveness would be taken off the table. They got this from misrepresenting
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Amos 1. In Amos 1 .3, the Lord delivered this judgment on Damascus.
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He said, for three transgressions of Damascus and for four, I will not revoke the punishment because they have threshed
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Gilead with threshing sledges of iron. What the Jewish rabbis thought this passage was saying was that God allowed a few transgressions before finally bringing judgment and that the people were to do the same.
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But that's not what it's saying. This judgment came for numerous sins, not just three or four, and Damascus and cities like it continued to do evil and eventually
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God brings judgment when a nation continues to bring evil. Not only that, but people are not
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God. People are not the ones who bring judgment. That is God's job.
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People are to forgive and leave the judgment to Him. So Peter was influenced by this errant teaching believing that forgiving another should be limited to only a handful of times and then you don't need to forgive.
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Done. As he asked this question, how many times should one forgive another? He thinks he is being generous.
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The Jewish leaders said three times. I'm saying seven. But Peter's not being nearly as generous as he thinks he is.
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This is how Jesus responds to him in verse 22. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times.
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Now our translation in the English Standard Version says 77 times. Another possible way to translate the
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Greek text is seven times 70. Anybody know what seven times 70 is?
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490. Very good. Now you might look at this and say, is this a literal number where we have to keep track of how many times we forgive someone and if someone sins against us this many times, then we don't need to forgive anymore.
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The answer is of course no. This number is figurative. What Jesus is saying is that if someone sins against you, then you need to keep forgiving that person.
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The forgiveness does not stop. There's no limit on forgiving another.
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Think of this in marriage. I mean, you're going to get past 490 at some point, aren't you? But God calls husband and wife to continually forgive one another.
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1 Corinthians 13 says that love is not resentful. Another way to say resentful is that when you love someone, it means that you do not hold grudges against that person, but you forgive the wrong and by God's grace, you are forgiven when you have wronged another.
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Forgiveness is a must for a relationship to have any health. You will wrong people and you will be wronged, but in order for a relationship to be in a good place, forgiveness must be present.
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Now you might ask, how does forgiveness work? It's more complicated than you think.
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Can you forgive someone without hearing a confession from the one who wronged you? The answer is yes and no.
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Let me explain. In Ephesians 4, verses 31 and 32, the Apostle Paul wrote, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.
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Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you. So the call here is to forgive always.
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Forgiveness should always be on the table for the Christian once offended. This means that you are willing and ready to forgive once the person confesses.
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And even if the person never confesses, it is never okay to hold bitterness.
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Bitterness is this constant anger that you hold toward another person.
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And if we're honest, bitterness can be a struggle. How do we prevent bitterness from developing in our hearts toward others?
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Mark 11 .35 tells us what to do. This is what Jesus said in the
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Gospel of Mark. And whenever you stand praying, forgive. If you have anything against anyone, so that your
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Father also who is in heaven may forgive you and your trespasses. What Jesus is telling us to do in that verse from Mark is to pray for people that you are tempted to be bitter toward.
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And as you pray, the bitterness in your heart will subside. Think of that person in your life who has wronged you and it hurts.
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Jesus tells you not to hold bitterness. When someone wrongs you, you will have righteous anger.
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You should have righteous anger. Not all anger is bad. But you cannot let that righteous anger turn into bitterness where you despise the person.
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In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul wrote, be angry and do not sin. So righteous anger, yes.
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Sinful anger, no. You should always be ready and willing to forgive.
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What you can control, you need to control. As Romans 12 .18 says, if possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all people.
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A couple of years back, someone really hurt me and others that I love. I had a hard time with it and even received some counseling about how to handle it.
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At first, I struggled with bitterness, but by God's grace, I do not hold bitterness anymore.
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I prayed for this person when I thought of him and the bitterness went away. I have never heard a confession, but on my end, my hands are clean.
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All you can do is what you can control. Focus on your part by having a forgiving spirit and not holding bitterness.
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But here's an important point to make. Forgiveness and the reconciliation that follows does not officially take place unless there is a confession from the offender.
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When confession takes place, and then you say, I forgive you, this is when the relationship is officially repaired.
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This is how it works with our relationship with God. The Apostle Peter urged us here in Acts 2 .38,
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repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
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You cannot have a relationship with God where He forgives you unless you confess, unless you repent.
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In order for the relationship to be officially repaired, there needs to be a confession followed by the declaration that this person has been forgiven.
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If you have a person who continually sins against another but will never confess, how can the relationship be mended?
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It can't. When a sinner never truly confesses one's sins before God, he or she cannot have a relationship with God.
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God holds forgiveness out to anyone in the world. Jesus said in John 8 .24, unless you believe that I am
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He, you will die in your sins. Unless people repent, one is not forgiven and one's future is hell.
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The only way to receive forgiveness and entrance into heaven is through true repentance. It is then that God considers you forgiven.
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God calls every believer to be one who follows Him and always forgives. There is no limit on how many times you forgive someone.
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It should be a regular pattern in a believer's life. The hope and prayer should be not only possessing a heart of forgiveness toward others, what you can control, but also that when someone wrongs you, this person admits it and then the relationship is officially repaired and you move on.
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Pursue forgiveness as the transformed person that you are. And the first way how is by placing no limit on how often you forgive.
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The second way how you are to pursue forgiveness as the transformed person that you are is by realizing the enormous debt that you have been forgiven in Christ.
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As Jesus explains the necessity of forgiveness for a believer, He describes how forgiveness is tied with your salvation.
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And He uses an illustration to do so. I'm gonna begin reading this illustration in verses 23 through 25.
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As Jesus says here, therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.
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When he began to settle, one was brought 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 in payments to be made.
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What we see in this illustration is Jesus describe a king and his servants.
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What we read here is that the king wished to settle accounts. This is likely collecting taxation since the king is the one with whom the taxes ultimately end up.
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It is likely that these servants were tax collectors who worked for the king and even though they were tax collectors, they themselves had to pay taxes.
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At the time when the taxes were collected, one of the servants was brought to him who owed him 10 ,000 talents.
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This is an enormous amount of money. According to author Jerry Bridges, a talent was 6 ,000 denarii.
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A denarii was a day's wage. A servant who owed the equivalent of 200 ,000 years of wages for the typical laborer.
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Six billion dollars. That would be about six to eight billion dollars in our present day labor market.
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Jesus sometimes used hyperbole to make his point and this was one of those occasions.
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Okay, so the servant owes the king six to eight billion. This man who owes this amount of money obviously can't pay it.
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And so the king ordered his servant to be sold into slavery along with his wife and children and all that he had and he also needed to pay what he could.
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And let's see how the servant responded in verse 26. So the servant fell on his knees imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything.
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The servant did not want he and his family to be sold so he begs the king asking him to be patient and telling him that he will pay even though paying it back is not realistic.
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And as the king sees the remorse of the man, it is incredible how he responds. He says this in verse 27.
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And out of the pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
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Okay, so what we see here is that the king forgives him as he sees his apparent remorse.
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He owed him something that he could never repay and the king forgives him. Just like that, debt is gone.
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As you think about debt, it should sound familiar to everyone in this room. We're all American citizens.
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We live in a country that is about $30 trillion in debt. How do you pay off $30 trillion in debt?
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And the answer is you don't. Because our leadership has done such a poor job economically over the years.
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This country will always have issues economically because this debt will always be hanging over our nation.
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Not only does every American citizen understand debt, but every Christian understands debt, but in a much different way.
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Not in a gloomy way, but in a thankful, joyful way. The debt of a believer in Christ is a debt that has been dealt with.
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Every follower of Christ in this room had a debt that you could never repay.
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And that debt is your sin before a holy God. Look at your life, and my life.
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Think of how many sins you've committed in your life. It's too many to count. Millions of sins.
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We have a debt that we could never repay. On your own, there's nothing that you can do to be forgiven.
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Can you imagine someone standing before God at the judgment, and Jesus asks the person, why should
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I let you into my kingdom? And the person says, because I'm a good person. Jesus will just laugh, like really?
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Because I have a whole list of things you've done. Throughout your life. You have a debt that you can never repay.
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There's nothing that you can do to be forgiven. All you can do is plead and say,
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Lord, forgive me for my enormous debt of sin. And God deals with it. He erases it.
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As Colossians 2, verses 13 and 14 says, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
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God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.
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This, He set it aside, nailing it to the cross. Can I hear an amen?
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I don't normally do that, but sometimes it's just, let's do it, okay. So this is what the king does to his servant in this illustration.
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He forgives his debt in full. And this is what God does to us in Christ.
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Christ faced God's justice on the cross. And by believing in Him, God forgives our record of debt and the punishment that awaits us is canceled.
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It's like hearing the verdict. As a criminal, life in prison, death penalty.
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And then they tell you, you know what? We've decided to cancel the debt. You can go free.
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That's what it's like. Because if that doesn't happen, the future that awaits the person is an eternal prison in hell.
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After the master has pity on his servant and forgives him this enormous debt, the servant leaves.
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And the servant does something incredibly foolish. Let's see this in verse 28. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.
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And seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, pay what you owe.
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So as we see, the servant who was just forgiven found another servant who also worked for this king who happened to owe this servant money.
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And what verse 28 tells us is that the servant owed him a hundred denarii.
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Okay, what was the previous amount that we saw? 6 ,000 talents.
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And then here we see 100 denarii. That's it.
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Not a big amount. A hundred denarii in American dollars is about 15 to $20 ,000.
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Okay, if the average amount that people make is 50 ,000 or so a year, so it's maybe a little bit less than half of people's income in a year.
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Now let's remember what the king just forgave this man, demanding payment from his fellow servant. The servant owed the king $6 billion.
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And the debt was completely canceled. But now his fellow servant owes him far less, and yet the text says at the end of verse 28 that he seized him, he began to choke him, saying, pay what you owe.
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And as he seizes him and chokes him, verse 29 tells us the response of the servant who owed him. This is gonna sound familiar.
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So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him. Have patience with me, and I will pay you.
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Sound familiar? We see hypocrisy here.
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What the servant says is the same thing that the other servant said earlier to the king. And in that case, the king thought he saw real remorse, and so he forgave him.
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But the servant responded much differently than the king, and he seized the remorse of the one who owed him.
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This is what he says. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay all the debts.
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And what was gonna happen to him, but he's forgiven, happens to his fellow servant.
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He's thrown in prison. Instead of treating him with grace and forgiving him the debt, he treats him harshly.
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He wants to get paid, and he's going to put him in prison until he gets paid. These were not the only two servants around as we read this account.
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There were eyewitnesses to this horrible scene. And verse 31 tells us these eyewitnesses 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.
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Uh -oh, someone's in trouble. They're troubled by what they see.
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As fellow servants, they probably knew the enormous debt that this man was forgiven. They are deeply troubled by how cruelly he treated his fellow servants.
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They are so troubled that they feel the need to tell their master, the king.
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This happens in workplaces when harm is done. Someone gets mistreated. Other employees see it. What do they do?
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They tell it to management. They tell it to the owner. You see that happen. And this is what these people do. As the master hears from them what has taken place, verse 32 through 34 tells us what the master will do.
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Then his master summoned him, the unforgiving servant that is, and said to him, you wicked servant,
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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?
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And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt.
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So we see here, he says, I forgave you? Why aren't you forgiving him? And I forgave you a much greater debt than this man had against you.
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And in anger, he delivers him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. When it says jailers, the
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Greek literally means torturers. He delivered him to the torturers. This $6 billion debt, he would have to repay in full.
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And of course, he can't pay that. But what is the king really after?
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He would remove this torture once he forgave his fellow servants. That's what he wants.
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In other words, by forgiving his fellow servant, his debt against him, the king would not have to discipline him for his lack of forgiveness.
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What is Jesus getting after here? Both believers and unbelievers can be unforgiving.
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Unbelievers will regularly be unforgiving. They are unforgiving because they have not experienced the great forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
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They have not received the transformation that comes from the Holy Spirit. When you have been forgiven much, you are willing to forgive.
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It is also true that typically, unbelievers like those who are good to them and despise those who treat them poorly.
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During Richard Nixon's administration, he had an enemies list. People who weren't good to him were put on the list.
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People who were good to him were not on the list. And don't people do that? These are the people
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I like. These are the people I don't like. The people I like, I love. The people I don't like,
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I hate. A lot of people operate like that. I don't talk to these people anymore.
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You know people like that? But Scripture says in Matthew 5 .44, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
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Scripture tells us not to be bitter toward anyone, even our enemies. Unbelievers do not have the
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Holy Spirit working in their lives, leading them to forgive. So an unbeliever will easily withhold forgiveness from someone who has offended him or her in some way.
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There is so much bitterness in this world because unbelievers do not like to forgive.
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It's a cutthroat world. And what Jesus says to the unbeliever in verse 35 is this, the one who does not forgive will not be forgiven.
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As he says here, so also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.
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The torture that this person will face is eternal punishment in hell. As Revelation 20 .15
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says, if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
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The people in the lake of fire will be people who were not forgiven. And one evidence they were not forgiven is that they would not forgive other people.
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Remember, there's fruit in a believer's life. There's evidence that you're saved. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
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The old has gone. The new has come. Hell will be full of people who refused to forgive.
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But what about believers? Believers can sometimes behave like unbelievers. Whenever we sin, we behave like an unbeliever.
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One of the ways believers behave like unbelievers is through unforgiveness. It's easy to say you hurt me, so I'm not going to forgive you.
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To be sinned against hurts, but some sins hurt more than others. I have a friend right now who committed an egregious sin that hurt many people.
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The sin is so heinous that he committed a crime and is spending some time in prison. And I communicate with him fairly regularly.
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And what he tells me is that his family will not forgive him. And he prays that someday they will.
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And I don't want to minimize the hurt that sin causes, especially very severe sins, but there must be forgiveness from the believer.
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We are to be different from the world. Believers forgive. When Jesus is on the cross,
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Father, forgive them. These people are spitting on Him. These are the people who put a spear in His side.
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These are the people who put the nails in His hands. These are the people who whipped Him with those cords.
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And He prays, Father, forgive them. That's a little bit different than what you hear, isn't it, in the world? And we're supposed to be like Jesus, aren't we?
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When believers withhold forgiveness, there are consequences from God. He loves us too much to leave us in that place.
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He said, with holding resentment... Actually, let me back up here. James 2 .13
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says, "'For judgment is without mercy "'to one who has shown no mercy.'"
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He disciplines His people when we don't forgive. A first century
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Christian theologian, Augustine, had an interesting quote. He said, holding resentment is like drinking poison and dying a slow death.
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As Matthew 5 .7 says, "'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.'" It's a miserable experience.
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It's not only miserable personally to withhold forgiveness because of the anger that you hold in your heart that wears on a person.
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People die an early death because of anger. Do you understand that? Not only does that happen, but also,
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God brings discipline. He'll send hardships your way of different kinds. There are consequences.
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And this is not judgment when He sends discipline, but it is discipline. That is painful. What God is calling everyone in this room to do is to be a forgiving person.
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The reason you are forgiving is because you know how much you have been forgiven in Christ. As Ephesians 5 .32
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says, forgiving one another is God in Christ forgave you.
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God produces in you the fruit of grace where you are eager to forgive others.
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You love the person by forgiving and it is God's design that you will have healthy relationships with others.
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If you don't forgive, think of how damaging your relationships are going to be. It's just going to be bitterness and anger and resentment and conflict for years.
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Jesus is saying, forgive. Move on from that. Follow me. Do what I do.
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Understand how much you've been forgiven. You had a debt that you could never repay. And yet someone else commits a sin against you that is far less than what you did against me.
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Forgive that person. Even the most heinous sins are less than what we have done against the
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Holy God, sinning against Him. So this is a hard truth to swallow, but it is a truth we must embrace if we want to follow
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Christ. So pursue forgiveness as the transformed person that you are.
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And in this text, we've seen two ways how. First, by placing no limit on how often you forgive.
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And second, by realizing the enormous debt that you have been forgiven in Christ. One mark of a true believer is that you forgive.
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We are not saved by forgiving people. That would be works righteousness. We're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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However, forgiveness is a fruit that will be shown in the life of a believer.
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It should be the aim of every believer to grow in grace, to be quick to forgive, and not fall into the trap of unforgiveness and the damage that comes from it.
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When we don't forgive, we make it really hard on ourselves. When God is saying, you're free. The truth will set you free and you'll be free indeed.
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You don't have to live like that. You don't have to live like the world. You can be free. And this is the message
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He wants each of us to hear this morning. Now, next Sunday, Jesus is going to be asked a question about divorce and remarriage.
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All these tough topics, right? Back to back, right? And the answer He gives is not what the
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Jewish people and the disciples had been told, once again. So we'll be looking at this next Sunday. But this time, let's bow our heads in prayer.
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Father in heaven, life is about the cross and what
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Jesus has done on our behalf and the future He has planned for us as He reigns with us.
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And the plans, Lord, that You have through Your Son are wonderful.
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And You want us, Lord, in this journey through life, as we live in this fallen world, You want us to look different from the world.
37:17
And one of the ways we look different is by being a person who forgives. So Lord, we can't do this on our own.
37:23
We need Your help. Help us to be a church that forgives others, whether with someone in this congregation or whether outside.
37:34
Help us to be those, Lord, who say, you know what, I forgive you because I have been forgiven much in Christ.