Matthew 18:21-35 The Necessity of Forgiveness

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Good morning everybody and welcome to Recast Church.

I'm Don Filsack, I'm the lead pastor here. And it is glad, I am glad, not it is glad,

I am glad, it is a glad thing for us to gather together this week and it's a privilege.

Obviously one that we didn't get to experience for a couple of months and so every chance that we have to get together again is just a joy in my heart.

I want to point out to, most of us know this, but I like to keep it in front of us. Recast is an acronym for our core values.

It's a little bit of a double meaning to it. It's the idea of the disciples fishing all night and catching nothing and they,

Jesus comes to them on the shoreline and says, recast the nets to the other side. So they do something different that Jesus asked them to do and they catch a haul and he says, no longer are you going to be fishing for fish, you're going to be fishing for men.

And so that's part of that, but then it also happens to be an acronym, replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.

And those are our core values here. And the core value of truth is the one that keeps us coming back to God's word every week.

It is, if you haven't been to recast before, it's something that stands out a little bit unique and that is that we are going to always tackle a section of scripture anytime that we gather together.

We're going to be walking through books of the Bible and taking that on paragraph by paragraph, verse by verse, and sometimes chapter by chapter.

But we believe that the scriptures as revealed in the, comprising the 66 books, comprising the

Old and the New Testaments are accurate and a faithful guide into three crucial areas, into other areas as well, but these are three crucial areas that we turn to scriptures for.

That is to know who God is. That's fundamental. And then to know who we are in the reality of what humanity was made to be, and what we're supposed to be, and what we actually are, and that kind of ties in a little bit with the brokenness of the world around us and our own brokenness.

And then most importantly it shows, I guess I can't say most importantly because those two are foundational, but further it shows us how

God has moved to reconcile broken humanity with himself. And so our passage this morning is a radical passage about part of that healing, part of that thing that he's trying to fix in us, and really use us in terms of the society and the culture around us.

Our passage has caused some people to hang their head and walk away. They read this passage and they say, this is too difficult.

There is no way. And I would suggest to you that anybody who would do that is accurate to this degree. You cannot do what this passage is calling you to do in and of yourself.

You must have a supernatural change in your heart to be able to follow this. And others have read this passage and added to it so many caveats and exceptions to the words of Jesus here in our text that it gets clouded in confusion, and eventually the main point gets washed away in all of the exceptions.

Oh, you don't have to do this, and you don't have to obey this in this instance, or this instance, or this instance.

The text is about a shocking and scandalous word. And so let me just ask you to honestly raise your hand if you have ever had to, here's the word, forgive someone.

Raise your hand if you've ever had to forgive somebody. Keep your hand up if there's somebody you ought to be forgiving now.

I think that pretty much is all of us, right? Like at the end of the day, there are probably unresolved issues relationally in every single human life.

So the scandalous word that we're talking about here today is forgiveness. And although at face value it might not sound like a scandalous word, some of you have had to put it in practice in a way that has felt scandalous.

How could I forgive that person? So you can put yourself in the position of listening to this text and letting

God speak into you this morning. The first two verses serve as an excellent introduction to the topic.

Jesus has just told his followers how we are to pursue someone who goes astray from the flock into sin.

That's kind of the bulk of chapter 18. And we talked about that over the last couple of weeks. You can go back and listen to those on the podcast and kind of see where we've been.

And at each stage of church accountability, Jesus said if the person caught in sin, if you go to them and you confront them and you say, hey, what you did was sin and it hurt and it was painful, and they confess it and they take it as caution and they repent, then you have won back your brother and sister in Jesus Christ.

A glorious thing has happened. But Peter has a logical question for us to consider this morning, and it's a question that I think many of us, when we hear that, if you go to somebody, they've sinned, and then they repent and they confess, then you receive them back.

It's a logical question. So how many times should I forgive? Jewish tradition had a three strikes and you're out.

That was the tradition of the time when Jesus was talking about this, when this was written by Matthew.

You were given three times to come and apologize, to confess, and then the fourth time, you were not to forgive them.

You were to put them out. You're done with them. Fourth time, it's over. So Peter, knowing

Jesus and his radical ways, suggests more than double, more than double the going rate, more than double the tradition.

I truly believe that Peter thinks he's being over -the -top generous with his suggestion in this passage that we're about to read of seven.

How many times should I forgive my brother who sins against me? Culture says three. Jesus, I know you're not going to settle on culture, so how about seven?

But Jesus shocks him with a corrective response here in the text. I don't say, says Jesus, I don't say seven, but, and the word but could be translated far from that.

I don't say seven, but far from that, I tell you, 77 times. And compared to a custom of three, how many of you think 77 is a pretty huge jump?

But to keep us from thinking that Jesus is just encouraging a more detailed, longer spreadsheet, your spreadsheet has three rows, and once they've filled in those three rows, you're done with them.

Now, oh, no, no, Jesus is saying, you've got to add more to it. You've got to get 74 more lines on your chart, and then you're okay.

That's not what he's encouraging. He's not encouraging more accounting, longer -term accounting, and math equations to determine when to stop forgiving.

As a matter of fact, if you feel compelled to dig deeper into the specific number, like Jesus was in our text,

I mean, Peter was in our text, if you're asking to know how many times must

I forgive someone who asks for it, then sit tight as we read this, because one scholar,

I think by the end of this, we're going to at least all agree with this scholar named R .T. France that I read this week.

In his commentary, he says, if you're counting, you are not forgiving, according to Jesus.

If you're counting, you are not forgiving. So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew 18, verses 21 through 35.

A little bit longer text, but again, recast. This is God's holy and precious word, a word that is seeking to change you.

It's seeking to change us. It's not just kind of like, yeah, these are some good words from a good teacher. This is a word that when adopted, when understood what the calling is here, it can radically change and alter the course of your life.

So let's listen in. Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times.

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. And 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 and payment to be made.

So the servant fell on his knees, 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. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii and seized him and began to choke him, saying, pay what you owe.

So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you.

He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. And when his fellow servant 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 you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt.

So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for a text that I would guess is pretty timely to all of us.

At any given point, I need this message. There is forgiveness that I need to seek and there's forgiveness

I need to give because we all live in a fallen world. And so this is a very imminently practical message to all of us in terms of what you're calling us to be and what you're calling us to do.

I pray that you would open our eyes to the glory and the reality of what we have been forgiven. And from that place of having been forgiven, such an amazing load of debt that was on our shoulders through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

I pray that we would worship you with glad hearts, with joy -filled hearts, and with hearts that are transformed towards our brothers and sisters around us and towards the culture around us, that we would be transformed by the love we have received and the grace and the mercy and the forgiveness we have received, that that would transform us into a forgiving and gracious and loving people.

And I pray that that reality would settle on each and every heart here. There's no accidents and you have brought people here to hear this message today and I pray that it would have impact.

And I thank you for the opportunity we have to worship you in spirit and in truth right now in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen. And thanks for the prayer, Spencer. And also thanks to David for leading in Dave Bunt's absence too.

Just glad we've got guys who can step in like that. Get comfortable and keep your Bibles open in Matthew 18, 21 through 35.

So you can kind of see, and especially a text this long, so you can see that I'm kind of following the flow of the text as we're working our way through.

But let me just start by identifying what probably those of you who have kicked around the Bible for a while know, and that's

Peter was pretty brash, wasn't he? Peter was a direct individual. But often what we find is that in his brashness, he's very quick to ask a question, very quick to put his foot in his mouth, and very quick to put himself out there.

But that's helpful to me. I don't know if it is for you. I mean, he's the guy in class who raises his hand and asks the question that everybody was wondering but nobody wanted to ask, right?

So he's just raising his hand. He's just got it out there going, well, what about this? And the question that he's asking here in Jesus' class, as Jesus is teaching about the way that we're supposed to interact with one another in the church, the way we love one another by even pursuing one another when we see one of the sheep or one of our friends, one of our brothers and sisters in Christ begin to wander away from the faith, what do we do?

And he says, so Jesus, you're telling us to confront sin and to win back those who go astray.

About that, says Peter, so how many times is it reasonable to do that? How many times is it reasonable to pursue them before we just let them go their own way?

Would we just maybe, at the end of the day, if they say they're sorry, how many times should we accept that apology?

Maybe seven, says Peter. But Jesus corrects him, and he uses a story to, so he corrects him first, and then he uses a story to kind of mega -correct him.

Jesus is unsatisfied with Peter's numbers, so what he chooses to do is add some numbers of his own.

And he gives us the key to understanding right up front. We are talking about the kingdom of heaven, he says.

The kingdom of heaven is like this. In other words, the kingdom of God. We're going to learn something here today, this morning, in this text, about the way that God views forgiveness here.

That's the point, and I think at the end of the day, that really is what Peter was asking. It really genuinely was, how do you want your followers to do this forgiveness thing?

And he at least assumed that it was more than three strikes and you're out, like I said, was common in his culture.

But the story begins. Jesus weaves a parable, like he often did to try to teach and to try to bring truth to his followers.

And so he tells a story, and he says, there was a king who wanted to settle accounts with those who serve him. And we don't know,

I mean, if you're a king and you have all kinds of servants, there's everywhere from governors that are levying taxes to all kinds of people who would serve the king.

And so we need not think of lowly servant. Obviously, these were servants that were entrusted with much, right? You'll see that by the numbers that are here.

They might've been governors who were levying taxes, but it doesn't really matter much at the end of the day. It's a parable, and as such, it's seeking to get across the primary point.

And Jesus can use whatever illustration he wants in this context. He's telling a story, not a true story, just a story. But in verse 24, one of his servants, one of the king's servants is brought before him.

Now, even that phrase brought before him, we'll get there here in a second, but that's significant. The implications is that the guy didn't come on his own legs.

He didn't come on his own free will. And here's, I think, part of the reason why in the story that Jesus would highlight that or use that word he was brought before him because he owes him 10 ,000 talents.

Okay, you're all supposed to go, oh my goodness, when you say that. He owes him 10 ,000 talents. Let's practice. Everybody is gonna give me a little bit of astonishment when

I say that. He owed him 10 ,000 talents. What? What? I mean, this is crazy.

This is a spit out your coffee kind of number. Like, what? One talent, one talent alone is 20 years of wages.

There you go. Now you understand why you ought to be astonished by this number. One talent is 20 years wages.

Do the math and figure out how many years is 10 ,000 talents. It's a ludicrous amount.

It's actually, a talent is not a coin. They didn't have a coin that large. It's not like, or printed money.

Like, hey, here's a bazillion dollar bill or something like that. It wasn't like that.

It's actually a weight. It's a weight of silver. It amounts to about 75 pounds of silver.

This is as ludicrous as some of the numbers that many of us are familiar with. Numbers like zillions, or bazillions, or bajillions, or brazillions.

But whatever it is, it's a large amount, okay? It's a lot of dollars, a lot in currency, right? In modern currency, some have said that this is upwards of 20 plus billion dollars.

Just if you were to take that amount and the equivalent there and bring it into our modern currency, it's a crazy debt.

Can you imagine being in debt for 20 billion dollars? That's the image you're supposed to have. You're supposed to feel that.

You're supposed to think that through. You're supposed to be, like, shocked by this. We're suddenly talking about numbers bigger than three, or seven, or even 77, aren't we?

We're talking about a substantial debt here, and Jesus is using that, and he's escalating to these ludicrous amounts for more than just mere drama.

It's to identify where we are at, or where we have been. So what does a person do when they're in debt to someone for a bazillion dollars?

What do you do? Well, I would suggest tremble in fear. That's a good start.

They have to be brought, the servant has to be brought to the place of accounting, as I said before.

And the king orders the man, and he can't make a count. Obviously, he doesn't have the money. And so the king orders the man and his entire family to be sold as punishment.

There was no way the king was gonna get back what was owed to him in this context. But this faithless servant, who obviously has squandered the wealth of his master, is to be severely punished with his whole household.

But the servant, as many of us can imagine, falls flat on his face and pleads.

Please don't let this punishment fall upon me. Give me, what does he ask for? Give me more time.

Please be patient. And then he says this ludicrous statement, a statement that maybe has been on the lips of us in the context in which

Jesus is saying it. I'll pay it all back. Everything I owe you.

Just give me more time. I'll pay it all back, and out of pity, the word in the

English Standard Version is pity. I like the word compassion better, and it's an equal translation. But at the end of the day, the word that's used there for pity is moved in his heart.

It is the king whose heart moves. It is the king who, it looks at this person, blubbering in front of them.

I cannot imagine that there's not supposed to be implied some kind of desperation in the voice of this servant, maybe even tears, fear, and pleading.

Please, oh, please be patient with me. Please, oh, please give me time. And moved in his heart of compassion, the master of that servant.

A couple of simple phrases here that have just eternal weight of significance.

He released him, and he forgave him the debt. Just like that.

Do you guys recognize undeserved kindness when you see it? Do you recognize undeserved mercy when you see it?

This is undeserved kindness. This is unmerited grace. This is forgiveness that could never be earned.

And even despite the way that the servant wanted to try to pay off a debt that he could never pay back in a thousand lifetimes, the good king, notice in the text, he gives him more than he asks for, doesn't he?

This is a good king. This is a kind and generous and gracious king. How many of you want to serve under a guy like that?

He is extremely generous. You see, the servant asked for patience and time, but what did he get?

He got forgiveness and amazing grace. But now in verses 28 through 31, we see that the amazing grace and mercy, that had no impact on the life of this servant.

He has been forgiven so much that you would think he would be radically changed for life, right? He's been forgiven an astronomical debt, but instead, he went out and found a peer, a fellow servant, a guy that's kind of at his social level who owed him probably just a little south of 20 grand.

And he roughed him up a bit. It says in the text, I mean, it's pretty graphic. He grabbed him by the throat. He's choking this guy out for 20 grand.

And when his fellow servant pleaded with him, and it's intentional that he uses almost the identical same phrase as the servant had before the king, but now he's in the driver's seat.

And his fellow servant pleaded with him to have patience, not even with the ignorant statement,

I'll pay everything back. Just please be merciful to me. I'll do my best. And the wicked servant refused and had the guy who owed him locked up in debtor's prison, which was a common thing in ancient times.

And how many of you, it's ever been confusing to you, if you're familiar with this passage, how in the world does somebody go to debtor's prison and pay off their debt?

Has that ever been confusing to you? Locking somebody up for debt doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but here's the way it worked in the culture.

How many of you, if your father, mother, brother, sister, best friend were locked up, might pony up some money to get them out?

That's how it worked. So the idea is if you want your dad, you want your mom, you want your brother, you want your sister, you want your family, you want your friend, you want your neighbor, you want this person that you love to get free, then you give money up till the $20 ,000 is paid and then he gets to go free.

So that's the way that this whole debtor's prison thing worked, just to clarify. But the very wicked action from this servant got back to the king.

This isn't gonna go well. He calls him back into his presence and he says, you wicked servant.

You wicked servant. In verse 32 he says, I forgave you, and the emphasis in the

Greek language in this sentence is on the word all. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.

And then a rhetorical question that assumes a positive answer. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant even as, even in the same way that I had mercy on you?

And that wicked servant was turned over to the jailers until his debt was covered, which we know a debt like that could never be covered.

It could never be covered. And then we bring it back to the point of forgiveness.

Jesus hasn't been telling an economic story here. He's been telling a story about forgiveness. The heavenly father is the king in the story.

And this is the economy of his kingdom. You are in trouble if you cannot forgive one of your brothers or sisters who pleads with you for mercy.

Why? Because you have been forgiven so. And further

Jesus is calling us to forgiveness from our hearts. Look with me at verse 35 here at the very end of chapter 18.

So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

Not from your lips. A warm and genuine forgiveness is expected here from those who have been set free from such an extreme debt.

Not lip service, but a restoration of relationship to those who would seek our forgiveness.

And I want to point out to you in the context even if they were confronted. We have this weird notion in our culture that if a person confesses before they're caught that they're better.

But how many of you know that somebody can genuinely repent even after they've been caught in sin? Did you know that that's possible?

I mean that's the whole nature of chapter 18. If somebody has offended you and sinned against you go to them and talk with them about it.

And occasionally they will repent. They'll say, I was wrong, I'm sorry. And you've won back your brother or your sister.

But yeah, sometimes they have to be confronted first. But go back and see the previous two sermons for how to deal with one who will not repent and apologize when confronted.

That's a different story, that's a different scenario. That's not what we're talking about here. We live in a culture where the assumption is that just we ought to forgive regardless.

And we're going to get there here in the notes in just a moment. But anyone who tells me that I cannot forgive that person, whoever, fill in the blank, for what they have done, will be met with this parable.

I've used this parable in my office many times. This is a good reason to review the weight of sin that God has canceled for you.

This is a good point for you to review how much you have been forgiven.

And to consider his forgiveness as a model for how we forgive anyone who repents when they're confronted.

If you have, I don't have time to get into all the details this morning about forgiveness. Forgiveness is a very confusing, a confusing idea in the church that at the end of the day is so wrapped up and tangled with pop psychology and all kinds of quips and things that you've learned that you ought to unlearn about forgiveness.

There's a book that I highly recommend. I would love it if everybody here would get a copy. And if you can't, if you can't find a copy or you can't buy a copy,

I would get one for you. But it's by Christopher Braun. Chris Braun is his name, B -R -A -U -N.

It's called Unpacking Forgiveness. I think it's the most biblical and helpful book that I've ever read on the subject of forgiveness.

If you get to the end of this message and you find unforgiveness in your heart, obviously stick with the words of Jesus here, first and foremost.

They are the most vital and most valuable. But I found Christopher Braun's Unpacking Forgiveness to be extremely helpful in my understanding of this subject.

And it helped me to understand the necessary step of repentance and confession in forgiveness. The notion that we just forgive people who are not sorry is unbiblical and unhelpful.

That's not the way that it works. You notice in the story, what do they do? I mean, literally, the guy pleads, please forgive me, please help.

I need your help here. It's the asking that releases that. Jesus isn't saying, by the way, you need to forgive people who are unrepentant despite what pop psychology tells you.

Forgive them for your sake is the most secular and unhelpful category when it comes to forgiveness.

We're often told, just forgive them because it's for your benefit. And I think that at the end of the day, that precludes the relationship that needs to somehow be connected with.

A heart that recognizes the amazing debt God has released from us makes us able to forgive what can never be as heavy as that debt that was on our shoulders.

So let's wrap up our time by going back over the story with a more careful consideration of the story Jesus is telling us about his kingdom.

There are seven brief observations that also hopefully will lead to some applications in your life. The first is, it's found in verse 23, there will be a settling of accounts.

Jesus takes that for granted and it's right there in the middle of his story and it's all throughout the New Testament. We see that clearly spelled out and this can motivate all kinds of applications but one that I'd like to point out is the fact that there's going to be a reckoning of accounts.

We have a debt of sin before a holy God, right? And all of us will face him in judgment. All of humanity will face him in judgment.

So consider what this implies for your unsaved friends, for your unsaved family members, for coworkers, for neighbors around you.

Our task is to encourage others around us to run to God for mercy. Everyone that you've ever met without Christ has a crazy high debt over them just as we once did.

And only in as much as we are connected to Christ and his sacrifice for us is that debt lifted. Bring that message to others.

The second thing, our debt is more than we can pay, verse 24. We are not able to work this one off.

As much as we like to fix stuff, as much as we like to take care of ourselves, it is extremely necessary for us to come face to face with the insurmountable debt of our sin before a holy and righteous

God. Jesus could have used a reasonable number in his text. It was just a story.

But he picked an unattainable number to show the utter foolishness of any thought that we could ever pay it back.

We need his forgiveness. We need his mercy and grace or we will be buried under the weight of our sin.

So the second thing was, our debt is more than we can pay. The third thing we see here is in verse 25.

We deserve punishment. Again, a given in the text. The king would be right to cast us away and to sell us off for the debt that we owed, that really we've incurred through our sin.

We have mismanaged the life that God has given to us. We have squandered abilities. We have even at stages and points in our lives given our time and energy to the enemy of our king.

Treason would be the right word over our lives. We are guilty under a weight of sin against a holy

God. And every human stands worthy of condemnation before the one who has the right to settle accounts.

We deserve punishment, the third thing. The fourth thing, we are often misguided into our own thoughts that we can pay our own debt.

You'll see that in verse 26. The servant pleaded for more time so he could pay off a debt that would take him thousands of years to pay off.

Do you see the futility in that? How many of you raise your hand if you think that just seems silly? Like at the end of the day, just give me a little more time, just a little more time.

He's not, what's a little time gonna do? Probably just rack up more debt. How often do we do this, church?

Do we think we can do enough good to impress him? Do we think we can scratch the surface of this debt by doing a few kind things?

But we know that the mechanism of our salvation is that our debt was paid for by Jesus. Praise God.

He took the debt of our sin on himself so that by faith and trust in his sacrificial substitution for us, we can be set free from the burden of that unreasonably crushing debt.

Nobody can pay back that debt but Jesus Christ himself. But so many try.

Let's be a people who are in awe of the sacrifice because we know how utterly incapable we are of paying for it.

And that breeds joy and life and hope and love and peace in a heart that knows that it has been set free.

Fifth, we don't need more time to get it right. What we need is forgiveness.

Without a savior, we will be left with that debt on our shoulders but God our savior has shown to forgive the debt of his servant in this parable.

He released him and forgave the debt. And my question to all of you this morning is do you feel that relief?

The man or woman of pride has a hard time accepting help. Has a hard time even accepting the reality that they need help.

Why do you think that the man in the illustration of Jesus is suggesting an extended payment plan? Jesus knows how the human heart works and that's why, remember

Jesus making up a story about humans and how he knows our hearts has us trying to pay it on our own.

Verse 27 is meant to bring to us a genuine humility. We need God to provide for us mercy that we cannot earn and we need an amazing and unmerited, unearned, undeserved grace.

The sixth thing, the way of salvation changes the way we relate to others.

And I'm not saying it ought to change the way. If it is truly understood, if you have come through the door of the forgiveness that you have in Jesus Christ, then it will,

Jesus is saying here, it will change the way you interact with one another. That's really the bulk of this thing.

28 through 34 is this second to the last one. The way of salvation changes the way we relate to each other.

The way we treat each other will be radically transformed if we have come through the awesome grace and forgiveness of God.

It is clear that the king expects a loving, kind, gentle, and even quick attitude of forgiveness in his kingdom.

Why? Because we follow his king. And when we understand the exorbitant debt that our sin represents and how

Jesus paid for that on the cross, we become defined as a people. One of the definitions of a

Christian is a person who is intimately acquainted with forgiveness, saturated with forgiveness, defined maybe even by forgiveness, motivated by forgiveness, empowered by forgiveness, set free by forgiveness.

And finally, and let's let this be a warning to all of us, unforgiveness from a follower, a person who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ, must always be a red flag in your life, not a yellow flag, not an orange flag, but a red flag.

It's significant. Jesus is saying that you really should have no reason to believe that you are forgiven by the king if you cannot forgive somebody who is asking you for it.

That's a hard word. That's a hard thing to say. Let me be clear that I know that so many exceptions are coming to your mind.

Maybe you've even tuned out into exceptions this morning. What about abuse? What about domestic violence?

Or the drunk driver who took the life of my loved one? Or on and on, and I cannot for a moment speak into every situation of hurt and pain and harm that is here.

And as small as this gathering is, I'm confident that we could spend the rest of the day rehearsing hurts and pains that are hard for us to take this passage and apply.

And what I'm gonna say is that I can't get it. Christopher Braun can get into some of the nuances in that book.

I can't do that here. But I can say this, and here's the end. Life is messy.

I'm gonna ask you to reengage with me for a second and raise your hand if you agree. Is life messy? It is.

And the question that I have for you this morning, is Jesus ignorant of that when he talks about forgiveness in such a radical, extreme way?

Is he unfamiliar with your particular plight? Is your particular scenario or situation or the hurt you receive from dad or mom or whatever or a spouse or somebody who should have loved you and they hurt you and they betrayed you?

I think I've heard that word betrayal before. I don't believe that Jesus is unfamiliar for even a little bit of your pain.

As a matter of fact, I would go the other direction and say, Jesus is intimately acquainted with your grief.

Intimately acquainted with your hardship. Intimately acquainted with the need to forgive somebody who is hurting you.

He who was nailed to the cross and mocked and ridiculed and shamed in that place.

Oh, did he show us how to do it? What did he utter there from the cross?

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Jesus has practiced what he preached.

He's not asking you to do something that he's not willing to do himself, but he did it for us.

And he didn't model it for us in a sanitized way, in an easy way, in a way that makes it kind of like, well, he's kind of kid -loving forgiveness here.

Yeah, that's cute. Of course, he can forgive somebody who stole his matchbox cars. He modeled it with thorns broken off against his skull.

He modeled it as each breath drew more shallow. I don't picture it easy to say, physically easy to say,

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. He modeled it with torn tendons and ligaments.

And he endured that all. Why? For the love of you and me.

To forgive us, to forgive like Christ, that's a radical call, a wrestling kind of call.

A call that at the end of the day, I believe is a what you long for kind of thing is let us off the hook with all kinds of exceptions right now,

Don. I think that our hearts long for that. But am

I not the exception? Is my circumstance not the one by which I don't have to forgive?

But all I can offer you is that Jesus is calling us to radical forgiveness kind of call this morning.

And it seems utterly appropriate that the next thing that we do, church, is take communion together as those who are forgiven by his body broken for us and his blood shed for us.

So during this next song, I'm gonna ask David to come up. And during this next song, if you've asked Jesus Christ to save you and to pay your debt for you, then remember how he did that by taking the cracker to remember his body that was broken for us and take the juice to remember his blood that was shed for us.

And then recast, I know you're shuffling around and things are moving, but just please tune your ears in for just this last couple sentences.

And then really the call is for us to go out from here with renewed gladness.

Gladness, not a heavy heart, but a gladness over the amazing grace that has been given to us. And equally, let's leave with the challenge to be a people of radical forgiveness.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your grace and mercy. I didn't deserve it, and I can relate so well to that extent of burden, that extent of debt, that 10 ,000 talents that I could never work off in many, many lifetimes just to be forgiven by you.

I pray that that reality would settle on your people here. And if there's anyone here who has not experienced that radical and glorious forgiveness, that maybe today would be a day where they would boldly come up and just talk with me about how they could start a relationship with you where they could be forgiven and have that debt lifted off their shoulders.

But Father, for those of us who have experienced that, I pray that that would just have a radical impact in the way that we view what you're calling us to this morning.

I pray that today might be the start of something really powerful in our community just because we understand and get this call to a radical forgiveness because we've been forgiven so much.