How Many Times?

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:10

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

00:18

Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

00:25

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 18th chapter.

00:38

Peter came up and said to Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

00:45

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

00:53

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

00:59

When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.

01:05

And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had in that payment to be made.

01:14

So the servant fell on his knees imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything.

01:21

And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii and seized him and he began to choke him saying, pay what you owe.

01:38

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

01:43

He refused and he went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 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.

01:58

Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.

02:06

And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I have had mercy on you?

02:12

And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt.

02:19

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

02:25

This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Alright, hear the words of a psalm that we're all familiar with,

02:34

Psalm 103. And here's an important section, you may know these words, starting at verse 8.

02:41

Yahweh, the Lord, he is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

02:48

He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor does he repay us according to our iniquities.

03:00

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him.

03:07

And as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

03:13

Good gospel text if you think about it. And here's the thing, this is what we're all banking on, this is what we're hoping for as Christians, because each and every one of us, just like that fellow who, well, had to have the records brought in and found that he owed 10 ,000 talents to that king, you and I are that fellow.

03:34

We owe a lot to God. Sin is often described in terms of debt, and let me tell you, not a single one of us is able to begin to make payment on our sins.

03:45

And so we come to church every Sunday in the hope and the expectation given to us by the scriptures that God in Christ will forgive us of all of our sins.

03:57

Is that not what we expect to hear in the absolution? You'll note that when the absolution comes, I do not say, as I as a called and ordained servant of the word, forgive you some of your sins.

04:07

The ones that are not very seedy, well, that's a different story altogether, right? I don't say things like that.

04:13

I say I forgive you all of your sins, and the reason why is simple, because Christ has died for all of your sins, not some of them.

04:21

He forgives us all of them. And then you'll note in this psalm, I always would like to point this out, is that it gives two different directions.

04:28

As far as high as the heavens are above the earth, we got this vertical going on here, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him, and as far as the east is from the west, a horizontal plane, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

04:44

Note that makes the sign of the cross, I don't think it's an accident. But all of that being said, can any of us say that we have any sins against us?

04:55

No, we cannot when it comes to God. So my question for you is this, if God has forgiven you so great a debt, who are you to not forgive your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ when they sin against you?

05:09

And you're going to note something here, I know this for a fact because I pastor this church and I know you all personally,

05:16

I can say of every single one of you, you're all a rotten lot of sinners, and so is your pastor, right?

05:23

And so Peter asks an important question of Christ, and this is on the tail end of that Jesus giving instructions on what to do when your brother sins against you, right?

05:34

If he sins against you, you go to your brother privately, and if he repents, you've done your brother, if you don't, you bring two or three witnesses to establish the charge, and if you won't listen to them, then you bring it to the whole church, and if you won't listen to the whole church, then and only then do you treat him like a tax collector or a sinner by excommunicating him.

05:53

Well, if you kind of think of it this way, is that in the kingdom of God, no one is required to be forgiven.

06:00

If you don't want to be forgiven, you don't have to be forgiven. The problem is that you forfeit your citizenship in the kingdom of heaven if you don't want to be forgiven, if you don't want to repent.

06:08

But now the opposite kind of comes up, the flip side of it. Well, how, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

06:17

Kind of two parts of all of this, and I'm gonna note there, as long as you guys are breathing and you still have a sinful nature, you're gonna sin against each other.

06:24

That's gonna happen here, and how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister when he sins against me or she sins against me?

06:33

And then he gives out what he thinks is a generous number, as many as seven times. Well, the

06:38

Pharisees said three, you know, and it's one, two, three strikes you're out at the, right?

06:43

And so he's thinking, all right, I'll go higher than three. We'll take the seven days, six days of creation plus the day that God rested.

06:52

We'll throw it, that sounds like a good biblical number. I'll forgive my brother as many as seven times, and Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no.

07:00

I did not say to you seven times, but as many as seven times seven. In other words, what

07:06

Jesus basically said, every single time your brother or sister in Christ sins against you, you forgive them.

07:18

Full stop. And there's a reason for this. In fact, let me kind of put the reason out there right now.

07:26

In our Old Testament text, we have an account here where Yaakov, that's

07:32

Joseph's father, also known as Israel because God changed his name. He who wrestles with God and overcame.

07:39

He has died, okay? And so his brothers, if you remember how the story goes, his brothers sold

07:45

Joseph into slavery. And he went off into slavery in Egypt, and things went terribly for him at first because he ended up in a fellow's house, and then the boss's wife was, you know, had the hots for him, and he rebuffed all of her advances, and then ended up in prison for it.

08:04

Spent 13 years in an Egyptian prison of the ancient world, not exactly known for their great hygiene and good smells and things like this.

08:14

13 years, and if anybody could have followed that ancient

08:19

Klingon proverb, yeah, revenge is a dish best served cold, that would have been

08:25

Joseph, right? But did Joseph seek revenge? No, not at all.

08:32

In fact, Joseph came to realize that everything that he was made to suffer was for good.

08:38

His good as well as the good of his family, so that people can survive. But here's the thing, his brother is thinking, well, you know,

08:46

Joseph was just putting on a pretense, he was playing the big man, and now that dad is dead, he's gonna really give it to us, right?

08:54

And who would have, who could have faulted him for doing so, right? You know, that would have made a little bit of sense, wait for dad to die, and so they forge a message from dad from the grave, and they totally make this up whole cloth.

09:07

They send a message to Joseph saying, your father gave this command before he died, say to Joseph, please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you, and now please forgive the transgression of the servants of the

09:21

God of your father. Is any of this necessary? Answer, no, none of it is necessary because Joseph knows full well that he's already forgiven them, and that God knew what he was up to.

09:35

So Joseph wept upon hearing this. His brothers also came, and they fell down before him and said, behold, we are your slaves.

09:44

But Joseph said to them, do not fear, for am I in the place of God.

09:51

And that's where we have to recognize something, and that's this. If Christ has taken our sins and cast them as far as the east is from the west, you figure out how far away that is by the way.

10:02

How far is the east from the west? I know how far it is from the North Pole to the South Pole. We can kind of work that out mathematically, right?

10:09

But how far is the east is from the west? If God doesn't remember any of your sins, why on earth are you going to?

10:21

It doesn't make any sense when you start to put it that way because when you're doing so, you're putting yourself in the place of God.

10:28

I know that Jesus forgave you, but I'm not. I know better than Jesus. Oh, trust me brothers and sisters, if this is your attitude, you are standing on shaky ground because you have just usurped

10:43

Christ's forgiveness. And let me explain something to you. When we hear an absolution, when we hear that our sins are forgiven, it is not as if Jesus is some senile old grandpa running around handing out little lollipops and chocolate bars to his grandchildren and saying, oh

11:01

I forgive you, I forgive you, forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness, love, love, love, love, love, right? This is not how this operates at all.

11:08

Instead, every single absolution is a court verdict that comes from the judge himself, and have any of you ever noticed how absolutely, jealously judges protect their authority and their verdicts?

11:24

One of my favorite things to watch on TikToks is the group of people called Karens, and there's a whole set of TikTok videos that depict

11:33

Karens in court. Now, have you noticed that Karens have no respect for anybody, right?

11:39

Guess what? Karens have no respect for judges either. And so when they lip off to a judge and do the thing they do at the grocery store and out in public, it doesn't go well for them because the judge just flexes their authority and muscles and say,

11:55

I've seen several videos of these Karens being sent to jail. You're going to go to jail for 90 days for not recognizing my authority, for disrupting this court, and for dishonoring the bench.

12:13

So when you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters in Christ when they've sinned against you, you've become a

12:20

Karen. And you've said, Jesus, you don't know what you're doing. The gavel comes down.

12:28

I have declared that person by verdict of the fact I'm the judge. They are forgiven and innocent.

12:35

Who are you to overturn my verdict? In fact, when you consider what

12:45

Jesus says in our parable today, the person who does this forfeits their own forgiveness.

12:55

Let that one settle in. That's how dangerous this is. When you usurp

13:01

Christ and his judgment and you assert your own verdict over his, you are behaving just like the devil.

13:10

And this doesn't go well. So we read now, how many times should

13:17

I forgive? Seven times? No. Every single time. And this is the law portion of our sermon.

13:27

And hang on, because it ain't easy law. Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.

13:37

I'm gonna use the Greek term here, doulos, slave. Okay, let's keep in mind here, who's in charge, right?

13:44

Christ is King of Kings, Lord of Lords. We are merely servants, slaves of Christ, if you would.

13:52

So when he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.

13:58

Might as well be a bazillion dollars, good luck paying that thing off. Which kind of shows that this servant had some authority in this kingdom.

14:07

Authority over others that he would have a budget where he could run up a debt like this.

14:12

And here's the thing, given the way this is written out, the way Jesus tells this parable, it's kind of implying that had he not had this little come -to -Jesus meeting, no pun intended on that, that if he hadn't had this meeting with him, that this fellow would have been all too happy just going on racking up even more and more and more debt.

14:33

And so it was a mercy that he was confronted with his debt. And it's found that he has a ginormous debt.

14:41

This is your debt, this is my debt. And since he could not pay, and none of us can.

14:49

In fact, if all you had to do was pay for one transgression of God's holy law, you still couldn't do it.

14:59

It has to be done for us. And you'll note, how is our debt paid?

15:05

With the blood of Christ, who suffered and died so that you and I can be forgiven.

15:11

And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife, his children, all that he had, and that payment be made.

15:21

Can anyone fault the judge, the king, for basically saying, all right, sell him into slavery, and off he goes, him and his family and everybody else, and let's get what we can.

15:31

Okay, no one would have faulted him for doing this. But here's what happens next. The fellow falls on his knees, state of prayer, imploring him, have patience with me,

15:42

I will pay you everything. He acknowledges that he owes the debt, so he's not denying that he has it, he's not deflecting in this sense, but he's delusional if he thinks that he can pay it.

15:52

And here's the next bit. Out of pity, this king's splognizomai, in the

15:58

Greek, his guts were wrenched towards this fellow, and he had sheer pity for him.

16:04

The master of the servant released him and forgave him the debt, all of it.

16:11

In fact, Colossians 2 makes it clear that the record of debt that stood against you and I has been canceled by Christ.

16:19

That big old spreadsheet that's in our books that accounts for every single transgressions of God's holy law, that whole section has been ripped out and nailed to the cross.

16:31

And you'll note when it comes to our sin debt, somebody had to pay it, and Christ paid it for you and for I, and it's huge.

16:41

Now, in comparison, we do sin against each other. I know this because I pastor a church,

16:48

I live in a family, I've been around the block a few times, I have human interactions despite the fact that I'm an introvert and prefer just to be left alone, right?

16:57

All of that being said, we sin against each other. I've sinned against some of you, some of you have sinned against me,

17:03

I've seen you guys sin against each other, and you know what? It happens. And it's going to continue to happen until Jesus returns and we are finally raised from the dead and no longer have sin.

17:14

But here's the thing, in comparison, the sin that you have been forgiven compared to the sin that's been committed against you is trivial.

17:26

10 ,000 talents? A talent is a hundred pounds. 10 ,000 talents of gold would be a hundred pounds of gold multiplied by 10 ,000.

17:37

You figure out how much that is. And you'll note that the guy who comes up next, this fellow servant, owes a hundred denarii.

17:46

Now, a denarius, you will see this in next week's parable that Jesus tells, a denarius is basically one day's wage, all right?

17:55

So you take a hundred denarii, you've got basically three and a half months worth of wages.

18:03

That's not a lot, but it's not insignificant, right? And when people sin against you, they do actually sin against you, don't they?

18:13

They do. But in comparison to what you have been forgiven, what other people have sinned against you is trivial.

18:25

It doesn't even compare. It's the national debt compared to your car payment.

18:33

That's what we're talking about here, right? So you would think that it would be a lot, it'd be really easy to forgive, but it isn't.

18:41

And the reason why is because we're sinners too, right? And the reality is, is oftentimes as sinners, when we're sinned against, what do we want?

18:49

We want justice. We want that person to pay. How dare you do this and such to me, right?

18:56

But this is out of bounds in the church. Because note, when

19:02

Peter asked the question, how often will my brother sin against me?

19:08

He's not talking about blood siblings here, he's talking about blood -bought siblings, brothers and sisters in Christ.

19:16

So this fellow who's now had the national debt forgiven for him, literally just had the whole debt canceled, he should be singing praises to God Most High and out there being as generous as possible because he's been forgiven such a debt, an insurmountable debt that he had no chance of paying.

19:35

When he left, he found a fellow servant of his that owed him a hundred denarii, and listen to this, he seized him and began to choke him.

19:44

What kind of murderous behavior is that? Pay me what you owe me!

19:50

It's ugly to even figure out what this looked like, right? And choking somebody, that's an act of wanting to kill them, of murdering them.

20:00

Where's his love for those who are forgiven? It's nowhere to be seen, and that's the problem.

20:11

Pay what you owe. His fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, and here we have a great example of one of those things where you see this, we've seen this before, it's like déjà vu all over again, or vuja de, no, vuja de is when it never happened before, but déjà vu is when it's happened.

20:28

Never mind, you get what I'm saying. It's déjà vu all over again. Have patience with me, I will pay you.

20:33

And then with a hundred denarii, that's most likely the case. The fellow recognized that he owed the debt, had no problem saying that he'll pay it, and legitimately was able to pay it, but here's the problem.

20:47

Two important words. He refused, and that's the problem.

20:58

He refused. So when somebody sins against you here in this congregation, or in the wider body of Christ and they're

21:07

Christians, and they come to you and say, please forgive me, I've sinned against you, and you say, go pound sand,

21:16

I refuse to be reconciled to you, you are in deep danger at this point.

21:25

You do not have the freedom to refuse forgiveness to a brother and sister in Christ.

21:33

He refused. So he went and he put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place.

21:45

And here's the thing, when Christians refuse to forgive Christians, this is not a sin that only impacts you, it impacts all of us, right?

21:55

It is the ugliest thing in the Christian church when Christians refuse to forgive

22:00

Christians. It grieves us all. Your sin impacts us all to the point where we are now offering up prayers on your behalf to Christ, asking

22:11

Christ to soften your heart, to do something about the injustice that is taking place because it is not right among those who are forgiven that we do not forgive.

22:21

And in case you're not familiar with the Lord's Prayer, which you should be praying several times a day, we are constantly reminded of this fact when we pray, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

22:37

And you can sit there and say, but you don't understand how much that person gets under my skin. You have no idea how annoyed by them

22:43

I am. You have no idea what they've done to me. Really? Really.

22:52

So he refused, put him in prison, and now the body of Christ is in distress, and they're reporting, praying to Christ to do something.

23:00

So then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.

23:08

And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, your fellow slave, as I have had mercy on you?

23:15

Oh, believe me when I tell you that you being forgiven puts a moral obligation on you to forgive.

23:23

And don't think for a second you're going to get out of it. Because when you refuse to forgive, you are taking the place of God, and you are overturning

23:33

Christ's verdict. It is not to be said among Christians. It is not to be done.

23:41

And so in anger, his master delivered him to the—let me translate this one.

23:47

This is an interesting word. I know it says jailers in the ESV, but it's actually stronger than that. Let me hand him over to the torturers.

23:58

It's an allusion to hell and the tortures that await those who are unforgiven.

24:06

Deliver him to the torturers until he should pay all his debt. And so my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

24:18

Now note, at the end of reading this I said this is the gospel of the Lord. I may have fudged a little bit there.

24:23

This is the law, right? This is the law. And brothers and sisters, I know this is hard.

24:29

I know it is hard because I'm married. And those of you who are married know exactly what I'm talking about, right?

24:36

Because what happens in a marriage? You put two sinners in close proximity to each other, and we get under each other's skin.

24:43

And we then trade off sinning against each other. And when we sin against each other, what do we have to do?

24:49

We have to apologize. And then the other person has to say, I forgive you. And how many times in the anger, in the heat of the moment, because your spouse has sinned so horribly against you, and they said,

24:59

I'm sorry, please forgive me, did you say these words? I forgive you, right?

25:08

Why did you say it that way? Because you knew full well you needed to forgive that person, but you didn't feel it at all, right?

25:18

I'm not feeling it, right? That's because of our sinful nature.

25:27

We have to recognize where that comes from. Isn't it great that when we come to church and we ask

25:33

Christ to forgive us, he doesn't have the pastor say, I forgive you, right?

25:40

Freely and abundantly, I forgive you. No, no. We instead receive a full pardon from Christ.

25:48

And so the idea then is this, is that although everything within you is bucking against this, and you're not feeling it, your feelings are real, but they're not telling you the truth.

26:01

And even your feelings have to bend the knee to Christ. The forgiven forgive.

26:08

The reconciled are reconciled to each other. And so our life together in this congregation is going to be, continue to be one where we step on each other's toes, where we sin against each other, where we hurt each other grievously.

26:24

And when that happens, we need to seek the other person's repentance, but also seek it for the purpose of there being reconciliation and forgiveness and mercy.

26:37

It is out of place for any Christian to refuse to forgive a brother in Christ.

26:42

It is not appropriate, and Christ has defended this doctrine with threats of hell itself, basically saying to the one who refuses to forgive, that Christian has forfeited their right to forgiveness themselves.

26:59

It is a strong tonic. It is a stiff drink, but one that we must soberly remember.

27:09

In fact, if you were to think of it this way, the only unforgivable sin is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, but this is something completely different.

27:17

This is the person who wants Christ's forgiveness, but refuses to give that same forgiveness to others.

27:23

This is not blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. This is blasphemy against the cross of Christ and against Christ the judge himself.

27:31

And in so doing, that person has forfeited their right to be forgiven. May this never be among us.

27:40

And where it exists, we must repent. And where we do not feel like we are going to forgive somebody, damn your feelings and do the right thing and forgive, and your feelings will follow later.

27:55

Instead, listen to Christ. He knows what he's talking about. It is important that the forgiven forgive and the reconciled be reconciled to each other, so much so that he's threatened eternal hell for those who refuse.

28:09

So let this not be you. In fact, if this is you, repent. Repent and recognize your wickedness and repent and understand that you have usurped

28:20

Christ's authority and you have put yourself in the place of God and you have overturned his verdict of forgiveness by refusing to forgive.

28:30

And let us know this then, that even for us there is mercy and forgiveness and grace for all who repent of the sin and recognize that it is the right thing to do to forgive because they are forgiven, and that there is full pardon and peace and reconciliation with Christ for all who recognize the sin and then do the right thing and are reconciled with each other.

28:55

I can't think of a better way to end the sermon there except for to note this, that Christ has had pity on us all.

29:03

You and I, rather than getting what we deserve, instead we have received complete mercy, full pardon, grace, the expunging of every one of our transgressions because Christ has bled and died for them all.

29:17

And he did this joyfully. He did this for the joy that was before him, knowing full well that at the end of his crucifixion and death was full reconciliation and pardon with you and with I, so that we, having been estranged from God by our own rebellion, can be brought back as children, forgiven and pardoned, and the joy of heaven be given to us and God himself having the joy of having being reconciled back to his erring children, the ones he was estranged from, so that there can be joy in the kingdom of God.

29:52

You'll note that with every sinner that repents, there is a party that goes on in heaven, Christ describes it this way, that the angels rejoice and party with every single sinner who repents.

30:04

And you'll note then you become the killjoy of the party by refusing to forgive.

30:10

That's the second half of that parable, by the way, the parable of the of the prodigal son, the one son who refused to be reconciled to his father because he dared to forgive the son who sinned against him.

30:24

So note then, the scriptures are clear, it is absolutely unpardonable to not forgive those who are forgiven by Christ.

30:34

Let this not be you, in the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

30:55

Ave. NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again that address is

31:03

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

31:09

Ave. NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.

31:17

All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.