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Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Morning, church.
[00:00:07] I just want to say really quick that Bruce called David Paterka a young man and he's my age and that feels pretty good.
[00:00:15] That's all I'll say with that.
[00:00:20] Thank you so much to the creative team. Adam, where are you at, Adam?
[00:00:24] I don't see him back there. Thanks, man. Adam doesn't feel good and he loved and served our church today, so thanks for that.
[00:00:32] Yeah, you can share that.
[00:00:37] We are continuing our series today, finishing out our series in Matthew 18 called how to Church. And I don't know about you guys, but I am really excited for what we're going to do today. I think God has something cool for us. If you want to right now, go ahead and open your Bibles up to Matthew 18. That is where we're going to be today. If you don't have a Bible with you, we have house Bibles around the room. Just kind of look underneath chairs in front of you. You'll eventually find them. We really believe in the importance of access to God's Word here at Emmanuel. And so if you don't own a copy of God's Word, I'd strongly encourage you to just snag that pew Bible and take it home or even talk to one of our pastors. We'll get you a nicer one with slightly larger print. Notice I said slightly because we do like you, but the Bibles are expensive anyway.
[00:01:26] I don't know about you guys, but man, these last few weeks in Matthew 18, they have been challenging for me. This has been convicting, reading Jesus words about his church and how he desires for us to live together. And guys, it's definitely. It's a good thing, right? But like, I don't know about you, but it's been also really hard thing for me. And so I actually want to do something a little weird that might be a little uncomfortable, but I think it'll be helpful for us. I'd like first before we jump into this last text, like, let's take a second and just kind of check in with ourselves, right? Can we, can we do that for a second? Like, especially if you've been here all four weeks, like, how is your heart right now? How's your mind? How's your body? I know these texts have picked at some deep stuff in many of us. So what are you feeling right now? Do you have any anxiety heading into this text or heading out of last week's text? Have these brought up old hurts to the surface or fears about facing necessary conflicts that you don't Want to. What are you feeling right now? Keep, keep track of that. Because God made all of you, your whole person, your body, your mind, your spirit. It's all part of your life. It's all part of your faith journey. Beloved, I believe the spirit of God is moving among us in power.
[00:02:44] The gospel call can be hard, even though it is good. And as we land out this discussion on our life together as the family of Jesus, I believe in my heart that God wants to set some folk in our spiritual family free.
[00:03:00] So let's, let's be in this today. Regardless of what that might mean for you. I want to challenge you, ask you to be present in what God has for you today, right now. Let's choose to experience what God might be speaking and hear from his heart today. So I actually want to invite us, like, let's take just a second and let's just sit in silence. And I encourage you to take this moment to check in with yourself. How are you feeling? What's going on in your body, your heart, your mind?
[00:03:29] And let's seek to be grounded in the Lord today, to let him meet with us.
[00:03:35] Be okay.
[00:04:17] Let's see what God might have for us today. Amen.
[00:04:21] The last few weeks, we've been working our way through Matthew 18, and we've seen Jesus expand and explore this analogy that we as his followers are like little children and like sheep. There's this certain weakness and this neediness that comes with that reality. And we've heard Jesus as he's described some of the specific applications of that truth in the life of the church. We've, we've talked about the truth of the church because of this truth of who Jesus is and who we are, that the church trusts like children that the church chases after the lost sheep, that the church disciplines sin. And today we're going to talk about how the church forgives with whole hearts. Guys, as this series lands out today, I think this is easily the hardest command of all of them. I think it's the hardest one for the church. We're going to look at one of my personal favorite of Jesus's parables. And what we're going to see in our text today is this, guys, because Jesus forgives us fully for our continual sin and rebellion. Because of that, the church forgives with whole hearts. It's because of Christ's full and complete forgiveness of our continual sin and rebellion that we are called and empowered to forgive with full hearts. I say this a lot up here, but you guys know I have four kids and I feel like I use their misbehavior as my sermon example all the time, but it's because that's the air within which I breathe, guys. Okay? You gotta get it. But seriously, I have four kids. They're young. And so my house is no stranger to conflict and the necessity of active forgiveness. And by the way, my kids get the brunt of these examples a lot. But this is true of me and Kim also, right? Like, our house is no stranger to conflict and the necessity of active forgiveness. We have often used this little ritual in our house where you confess, you ask for forgiveness, and you engage in some kind of reconciliation. So, you know, in our house, when two little boys go from watching Spider man to full MMA mode and, like, tears begin to flow, like, we make them sit and talk it out, right? You gotta walk over, oh, I'm sorry I sinned against you in my anger when I hit you, please forgive me. And then they, you know, I forgive you. And then they gotta choose, how you gonna reconcile? Hug, handshake, or high five. And they go through it, and they pick and they hug and they handshake or high five. And listen, guys, I'm just gonna tell you, because they're downstairs, there's nothing on earth cuter than two angry little boys, like, holding in their anger. And they're like, let's shake hands like little businessmen.
[00:06:56] Oh, man.
[00:06:59] Why do I bring this up?
[00:07:02] Because we make them go through this ritual all the time. We go through this ritual as the parents all the time. And a good day, like, four or five times, right? Like, this is pretty normal. And any of you who have little kids or remember having little kids, you probably know where I'm going with this. The vast majority of the time, this entire ritual is completely theater, right? They don't mean it. They're not actually sorry. They're still mad. They want to pound each other into the ground, right? But we force them to stop, to talk, to use the gospel language of sin and forgiveness, and to seek to give a physical sign of connection and reconciliation. Oftentimes it's through gritted teeth, right? Like, I'm sorry. Like, that kind of deal. And if you grew up with siblings, I'm sure many of you remember your mom going, say it like you mean it.
[00:07:55] Right? Absolutely. It's. It's theater oftentimes. And yet it's incredibly important, right? It's. It's a way that we teach one another what God actually has for us. But what we're going to see in our text today, guys, as Jesus Gives honestly, one of the most difficult commands in all of the New Testament is that the theater of forgiveness is not enough.
[00:08:20] It is not sufficient. It's good for little kids. It's how we raise them up in the Lord. But as a way of living life, as a way of the church interacting with one another, it is not sufficient. The church doesn't get the option to go through the motions of forgiveness.
[00:08:35] We forgive with our whole hearts. Now, guys, that's a tall order.
[00:08:42] How does that possibly actually happen? Like, you can't force that, right? Like, how are we to respond to such a huge call? How can we actually give real heart love to our enemies, to those who have wounded us, to people who have struck us, who have wronged us, who do not care about the pain they've caused us? How could any act of love for those people be anything beyond lip service?
[00:09:14] As we'll see in our text, this kind of forgiveness requires a fundamental shift in how we view and interact with the world. And guys, it primarily involves a willingness to absorb wrong.
[00:09:30] It involves a willingness to absorb the weight of wrong upon ourselves. It ultimately is an expression. To say it in the simplest terms possible, of thinking of yourself less.
[00:09:43] Real forgiveness is always going to mean thinking of yourself less.
[00:09:49] That's a weird statement. So I want you to hold that in your back pocket while we pick it apart today. Pray with me, and we're going to jump into this text. Jesus, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for the privilege of being together as brothers and sisters, of taking a few minutes to be in your word, to sing together, to reflect on our own heart and our own need for the gospel. Holy Spirit, be our discipler today. Illuminate the text. Illuminate our hearts. Challenge us, convict us, encourage us, remind us. And let us leave here today having done work with you. We love you, Jesus. We pray these things in your name. Amen.
[00:10:26] So we're going to start in verse 21 of Matthew 18, and we read this.
[00:10:33] Then Peter approached him and asked, lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times, I tell you, not as many as seven, Jesus replied, but 70 times seven.
[00:10:48] So the setup for our story is that Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive someone who has wronged him. Remember, this whole text is in the larger Context of Matthew 18 of Jesus's teaching on church life. And he's just finished describing how believers are supposed to escalate conflict for the purpose of reconciliation. Remember this whole bit about go to Them one on one, bring a couple witnesses, bring it to the church. Like that whole deal. In that context, Peter pulls Jesus aside, he asks a specific question of how to apply this. He hears this teaching on how we handle conflict as a church, and he comes to Jesus with a personal question. How many times should I forgive someone who's wronged me for the same issue?
[00:11:36] Now it's important to note here that Jesus completely bursts Peter's bubble when Peter suggests this whole seven times thing. It could seem a little legalistic to us, like, geez, like why is he putting a number on it? But actually, Peter's proving a theological point here. The accepted teaching of the day by rabbis was that you forgave a specific offense three times, and then you cut off all relationship with the person. So when Peter bumps the number up to seven, a significant number of holiness and perfection in Jewish culture, he thinks he's being incredibly gracious. Ah, Jesus, I know that your kingdom is radical and different. So how many times should I forgive the same thing? Seven times, like even more gracious, more intense than the world within which we live.
[00:12:26] And Jesus response is great. No, man, not, not seven times. How about 77 times? Or seven times seven, or however you want to say it. There's a little bit of discussion about what Jesus is actually saying in the Greek there. The basic idea from Jesus words is this, hey Peter, you shouldn't be counting how many times you forgive someone.
[00:12:45] You shouldn't be keeping track. Your heart should be so for reconciliation that the number of times you've been asked for forgiveness by the same person for the same offense, that shouldn't matter to you. It shouldn't be a category.
[00:13:00] Woof.
[00:13:02] Can we just stop there for a second? That's rough. Like if that was the whole text, I'd be like, guys, I need a minute. Right? Like that's a, that's a, that's a big ask.
[00:13:12] But the text actually goes on pick up with me in verse 23. For this reason, says Jesus, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle accounts, one who owed 10,000 talents was brought before him. Since he did not have the money to pay it back, his master commanded that he, his wife, his children, and everything that he had be sold to pay the debt. At this, the servant fell face down before him and said, be patient with me and I will pay you everything. But when the master of that servant, then the master of that servant had compassion, released him and forgave the Loan. Now, whenever you look at one of Jesus's parables, one of the primary interpretive lenses you should consider is to first say, what would this parable mean if it were primarily about Jesus as the main character? And then what would this parable mean if it were primarily about the church as the main character? And this in Jesus, one of Jesus, longer parables. He actually does the work for us. He kind of gives us two separate scenes where we can see Christ as the character and then see us as the church. So let's consider Christ and then consider ourselves. Follow me here. I think you'll see what I'm talking about. Jesus tells the story of a king who's decided to settle his accounts. So he gets out his account book and he starts rooting through it, and then he calls in one of his debtors, and they bring in this guy who, it turns out, owes the king 10,000 talents. Now, I think we can all guess, like, from context clues. That's a big number, right? Like, oh, that sounds like a lot. But most of us don't use talents in our, like, I don't know, our retirement account. So the exact number here is maybe a little mysterious to us. So let me just give us, like, a quick reminder. If you don't. If you haven't heard this before, in Jesus's day in Palestine, the most common use of talent was a talent of silver denarii, and it represented about 6,000 denarius. Denarius was a day's wages for a laborer. Now, keep in mind in this day, especially in Galilee, where Jesus lived, that people didn't have a factory work week like we did. So outside of the harvesting season, most workers didn't work five or six days a week. And so if you averaged it out over the year, you could expect two or three denarius a week for an average laborer. So an average laborer could expect, oh, I don't know, 12 to 15 denarius a month. So a talent represented 40 years of wages for the average worker. So this guy owes, oh, I don't know, 400,000 years of wages.
[00:15:52] We're talking tens of billions of dollars in today's money. Jesus was no stranger to hyperbole in the way he spoke, right? The amount of money this guy owed was so ludicrously large that it was beyond comical, and it was ridiculous.
[00:16:09] The point here is that it isn't about the money.
[00:16:13] It's about a debt that is so ridiculously huge that it's insane. Imagine someone telling a story today and they go, oh, you know, like a billion, trillion million dollars. And you're like, well, that's not really how you count dollars. But I get what you're saying. Like, that's what Jesus is getting at here. Jesus often does this in his parables. He'll take very normal things and very ludicrous things. And you'll find when you look at his parables, it's almost always at the intersection of the completely normal and the completely absurd that you find his teaching. And so look at our story. A king looks at his books, a totally normal thing, and he sees this insane debt, a crazy thing, and he orders that this man and his family be sold into slavery to pay the debt. Now guys, this is a punishment, right? Like it's more merciful than debtors prison. But there's no chance that these sales will even touch this debt. And look at this guy's response at this. The servant fell face down before him and said, be patient with me and I will pay you everything.
[00:17:19] He says, be patient with me and I will pay the debt back. Really? No, no, no, no, no. Like, this guy is not just delusional, he's desperate. How could he possibly pay this debt back? Hundreds of lifetimes of wages couldn't pay this debt back.
[00:17:40] The master of the servant had compassion, released him and forgave him the loan. And so in our story, the king looks at his books and he looks at the servant and there's this moment and there's this internal calculation and moved with pity and compassion, he forgives him the debt.
[00:18:02] That's like by itself already just a really beautiful story because we know it's a parable, right? We know this is about God's love for us. You can already see the gospel in this. You can see Christ in this. We have a debt before God that we could never pay. In his love and his mercy, he chooses to forgive that debt for us. What a beautiful story. What a beautiful truth. Like, what good news is the gospel? Amen.
[00:18:29] But look how the story continues because it gets a little worse. Verse 28.
[00:18:34] The servant then went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him, started choking him and said, pay what you owe. At this, his fellow servant fell down and began begging him, be patient with me and I will pay you back. Verse 30. But he wasn't willing. Instead he went and threw him into prison until he could pay what was owed. When the other servants saw what had taken place, they were deeply distressed and went and reported to their master everything that had happened. Then after he had summoned him, his master said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Shouldn't you have also had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?
[00:19:16] Because he was angry, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay everything that was owed. Verse 35.
[00:19:24] So also my heavenly Father will do to you, unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from your heart.
[00:19:34] And this, beloved, is the word of the Lord. Woof. That's a hard one.
[00:19:40] The servant, obviously shaken by this event being called and then getting this amazing grace, goes out and finds someone who owes him money, about 100 denarii, which by the way, is not an insignificant debt, right? Imagine three to six months of salary. You put that in today's terms, you're talking about tens of thousands of dollars, right?
[00:20:05] Depending on how much you owe. Like that's not a small debt.
[00:20:08] And the servant chokes the guy and demands his money. And this other servant does something really familiar at this, the fellow servant fell down and began begging him, be patient with me and I will pay it back. This is the exact language the first servant used with the master.
[00:20:24] And what I think is so ironic here is that this servant definitely could pay it back.
[00:20:31] It would take a long time. It's not an insignificant thing. It's not like he owed him five bucks for a soda pop or something. This is a real big debt. But realistically, this debt could be paid back.
[00:20:44] But look at that first servant's response. He looks at his ledger and then looks at the servant in front of him and he chooses the ledger.
[00:20:58] He looks at the servant and has him thrown in debtors prison. Which by the way, in this day was a very real cruelty. You were basically held hostage to your debt. You were locked in prison and wouldn't release until your debt and interest was paid. But while you were in prison, you couldn't work.
[00:21:14] So essentially you were held captive until your family and friends paid your debt for you. At least if you were sold into slavery, you had the opportunity to work and work towards your freedom.
[00:21:25] Because this part of the story is disturbing, we intrinsically sense the injustice of this. And this guy's coworkers did as well, right? Like they report his atrocious behavior and he's called back to face the master. And look at the language the master has for this servant. Now we're just a few verses ago, he was moved with pity and compassion. Now he says, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Shouldn't you have also had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you, you wicked servant? Oh, it's such harsh language. You should have shown the mercy you were shown.
[00:22:09] And so what does he do? He takes the servant and throws him into debtors prison just like he did to the other. And on the one hand there's sweet justice here, right? Like yeah, that guy kind of deserved it. But it's made immediately disturbing by Jesus. Final comment in the story, right?
[00:22:28] So also my heavenly Father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from his heart.
[00:22:36] Oh my gosh.
[00:22:38] Like this is not an abstract story about justice and injustice. When it is, you're like, yeah, like I got what I deserved. But then Jesus goes, hey, this is a parable. It's about you. It's about you, church.
[00:22:50] And all of a sudden those words become incredibly sharp.
[00:22:54] I'm not going to lie guys, like I would love to dull that for us, I would love to reassure us, but our sweet Jesus has purposefully made these words sharp and we would do this text an injustice if we did not allow it to cut us.
[00:23:13] Beloved, do you see the difference in the response of the two main characters in our parable?
[00:23:19] The Lord and the servant.
[00:23:22] The Lord in this story looks at his ledger and looks at the servant and has mercy.
[00:23:30] The servant in the story here in that us looks at his ledger and looks at his co worker and demands justice.
[00:23:42] The Lord sees the debt and the person and it chooses the value of humanity and relationship, overbalanced scales and money. The servant sees the debt and the person and chooses the satisfaction of getting what is rightfully his.
[00:23:58] The Lord takes his ledger and has to, has to move past it, has to cast it aside for the sake of the debtor. The servant has to grasp tightly to his ledger to cast aside the person.
[00:24:14] I don't want to dull the sharpness of Jesus words here because this story so starkly highlights how insanely out of sync the Lord is from the servant in this story.
[00:24:27] They are fundamentally oriented in conflicting ways.
[00:24:32] This Lord has chosen relationship over good business.
[00:24:36] Right? Like you don't, you don't let someone run up a debt that big and then just throw it away like that's how you go out of business.
[00:24:43] But the Lord has chosen the person, the relationship over that. He's chosen humanity over justice. And the servant has chosen material goods over humanity.
[00:24:53] He's chosen what is his over who is in front of him.
[00:24:59] The image in this story is the Lord's anger sending the servant to jail as a punishment, Right? Like that's. That's a thing. I don't want to diminish the picture of divine judgment here because that is a big part of this story, right? But remember, this whole story is like, there is a hyperbole here for the purpose of piercing us with its sharpness. And so I don't think we should get a picture of a God who spitefully gets back at us when we're selfish, right? Like, oh, you're selfish, so I'm gonna get you back. Like, that's not the picture of Yahweh here that defeats the purpose of the parable, actually. Rather, I think we're to be struck by the reality that a heart that grasps so tightly to a ledger is so out of alignment with the heart of our God that that heart can't experience the heart of God.
[00:25:47] It's just made it impossible. Beloved, when we approach injustice and conflict and sin and broken relationship from this perspective of getting back what's ours and balancing the scales and getting what's coming to us, we should be greatly alarmed and how starkly out of sync this is with our God, who has responded to our own sinfulness with such mercy.
[00:26:16] Beloved, if you find yourself clutching to your ledger to those who have wronged you, and remember, the debt is not insignificant.
[00:26:26] Real wrongs, real injustices, real hurts.
[00:26:29] If you find yourself clutching to your ledger with a desperate desire for justice and balanced scales would caution you to give pause.
[00:26:41] How can you possibly experience the gospel goodness of Jesus while you clutch so tightly to your ledger?
[00:26:51] You're choosing to put yourself out of alignment with your God.
[00:26:56] So what are we to do there?
[00:26:59] Well, look to Jesus. Look to the Lord of the story. What does he actually show us? He has to cast aside the ledger in favor of the person.
[00:27:09] It's the only way it works. He sees the ledger. It's real. He sees the person, and he does the internal math, and he makes the choice.
[00:27:21] Look at. He has to make the choice, by the way, to eat that loss.
[00:27:27] It's the only way you set the ledger aside.
[00:27:30] Beloved, we have to acknowledge a painful truth here.
[00:27:34] In order to cast aside the ledger, the Lord of the story must absorb the weight of the servant's huge debt.
[00:27:40] He must accept the loss. He must eat the loss. Romans 5 says it like this. While we were still helpless at just the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die For a just person, though for a good person, perhaps someone might dare to die. Verse 8. But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
[00:28:04] Beloved, on the cross, Jesus absorbed the weight of our sin.
[00:28:13] He took the brunt of the injustice. He looked at his ledger, the reality of our rebellion, the reality of our sin, the choices we've made, the nature within us. He looked at us ledger us.
[00:28:28] And in that moment, Christ chose us.
[00:28:32] And that choice required that he eat the loss, that he absorb the weight of the debt, that he lets it stop with him.
[00:28:43] Guys, this is the wonderful news of the gospel.
[00:28:46] It's the wonderful news of the gospel, but there's weightiness to this. Paul said it like this in Colossians 2, when you were dead in trespasses, in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. Colossians 2:14. He erased the certificate of debt with its obligations that was against us and opposed us and has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And he disarmed the rulers and the authorities and disgraced them publicly. He triumphed over them.
[00:29:17] Beloved, our debt is paid in Christ.
[00:29:21] Our sin is paid for. But you gotta hear this. This isn't just some magic thing. Like it didn't just disappear. Jesus didn't just go, no more sin. No, the sin is real. The debt is real.
[00:29:35] And so for Jesus to cast aside the ledger means Jesus paid the debt.
[00:29:40] It means he bore the brunt. He absorbed the wrong.
[00:29:46] That's a lot.
[00:29:48] And yet that is exactly what this teaches that Christ does for you and for me. Beloved, reconciliation takes two. This is true when relationship is broken for it to be restored and reconciled, that takes two.
[00:30:04] But it's also true that reconciliation is only possible when one party is willing to absorb the wrong and stop the cycle of vengeance.
[00:30:13] At some point for reconciliation to happen, someone has to just say, this person is more important than my justice. I'm going to eat the loss.
[00:30:23] Someone has to bear the weight of the wrong.
[00:30:26] And as long as you clutch to your ledger and demand what is yours, you will never experience true reconciliation and broken relationship. You won't.
[00:30:40] It's untouchable. We clutch to the ledger, beloved. We must die to the entire system of ledgers, tit for tat and balancing scales. We must kill that unmerciful part of ourselves that wants to see those around us pay the price for their sin.
[00:31:00] Let's be honest, that's what we're talking about.
[00:31:03] We say we want justice.
[00:31:07] I've been wronged, I've been hurt, I've been wounded. Someone has done something to me, they should pay for that.
[00:31:16] I have value and I have worth. And this justice matters.
[00:31:20] And those things are true.
[00:31:22] But the reality is this, beloved, you don't want justice.
[00:31:25] You say you do, but what you want is justice for others.
[00:31:31] You want other people to pay the price for their sin, but you want your sins to be passed over and forgiven. Right, right, of course we do.
[00:31:42] The problem is that's not how justice works.
[00:31:45] You either have justice or you don't.
[00:31:47] You don't get to have halfway justice. It's not like you can set the system where you go, look, guys, here's the deal. I'm actually the dividing line. So everyone, me and better, we get grace and mercy, but everyone slightly worse than me and down, they get justice. That's not how it works, guys.
[00:32:04] You either get justice or you don't.
[00:32:07] And if you want reconciliation, the kind of gospel forgiveness that you have received from Christ, you must forget yourself.
[00:32:16] And by the way, when I say this, I don't mean this kind of self deprecating like self hatred, like that's, that's destructive and foolish to think if you're, oh, I'm a piece of garbage, I don't deserve it. Like, that's not what we're talking about. And I don't say that lightly, like I'm not mocking you. If you experience that, I promise that's a real thing that many of us struggle with. What I'm telling you is that's not what we're getting at here when we say this self forgetfulness, that kind of self deprecating and self hatred mindset, like that's how people remain in abusive and destructive situations.
[00:32:48] No, no, no. By self forgetfulness, I mean that you must think of yourself less.
[00:32:54] And you have to understand this church. When you are secure in Christ's love and work and care for you, when you know and experience his grounding care for your soul, you are freed to think of yourself less. Because you know in your heart of hearts that Christ himself thinks of you, you don't have to bear the weight of making sure you're seen and all your wrongs are avenged and all your injustices are balanced. Because Jesus Christ himself sees you and knows you and loves you and has taken on responsibility for that.
[00:33:33] He sees every wrong ever done to you.
[00:33:36] He sees every injustice you ever experienced. He sees every sin ever committed against you. And because you are precious to him and. And you are made in his image, and you are sacred. He will give an account for every single one of those sins.
[00:33:49] Beloved, you must know this. There is no wrong that has ever been done to you that will not be paid for in the final judgment. When Christ sits, every sin will be accounted for, including every wrong ever done to you, because you are important and God designed you and made you and put his image in you. That matters to Him.
[00:34:10] What's beautiful about that is knowing that truth frees you from having to keep track of the account yourself.
[00:34:17] You don't have to, because a perfect and merciful judge is keeping track on your behalf.
[00:34:24] By the grace of God, he's not just a just judge, but he's also a merciful Savior who intercedes and pays the price himself.
[00:34:33] Guys, I understand that our stories are complicated.
[00:34:39] Complicated because I think a lot of times when these kind of texts come up, I forgive with my whole heart. And does forgiving someone mean I have to, like, put the relationship back to the way it was? Because, like, man, this thing happened in my life, and I really think, like, it might have been abusive or this thing happened in my life and it was really destructive. And I just. I don't know how to back that train up anymore. Like, I get it, guys. Our stories are complicated. You're real people with real hearts. And this isn't always just black and white and easy. And the reality is, oftentimes in this broken and sinful world, reconciliation is not possible in the moment, because that takes two. It takes two humble hearts who are both seeking after Christ. And it's complex. And oftentimes, even when there is real heart forgiveness, the relationship doesn't go back to what it was before, becomes something new and something different that maybe is better and stronger and more intimate, or maybe is more distant and has protections put in place.
[00:35:36] Because all our stories are wild and varied and complex. I understand that, guys, sometimes literal personal safety comes into play, right?
[00:35:44] But I say this with boldness, and I won't back off of this.
[00:35:49] There does not exist in this life a conflict, a hurt, a wrong, or an injustice where we cannot find a way to show the Jesus kind of love that we've been shown that is 100% true. The love you show or hear this church refuse to show.
[00:36:09] The love that you give or withhold in the face of conflict will declare the gospel to the world around you.
[00:36:18] So the question you get to answer is, will your declaration of the gospel be accurate or not?
[00:36:23] Will you proclaim the gospel of our sweet Jesus who bore our sins and forgave our trespasses? Or will you declare a false gospel that demands retribution and justice?
[00:36:36] That's a heavy way to say it, guys, but there's truth in that.
[00:36:39] In one of my all time favorite passages of scripture, Jesus has this interaction with a prostitute who is trying to show him love and honor in a way that's really inappropriate in a public setting. And this religious leader scoffs at the interaction and at the woman and at Jesus. And Jesus presents him with this wonderful and terrible little spiritual question. He looks at the Pharisee and he says, a creditor had two debtors. One owed 500 denarius and the other 50. Since they could not pay it back, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more?
[00:37:10] And the religious leader responds, the one who's been forgiven the larger debt will love him more. And Jesus says this of the young woman in the midst of her being publicly shamed.
[00:37:20] Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven and that's why she loves much. But the one who's been forgiven little loves little.
[00:37:32] He just looks at this Pharisee and says, here's the deal, man. The reason you're so upset right now is not because this lady's embarrassing you were doing something inappropriate. It's because she just loves me more than you do.
[00:37:46] She has a better, better understanding of this. She has better perspective to realize what God is offering her than you do. She just loves me more than you do. Woof.
[00:37:58] She has been forgiven much, so she loves much, man. If you want to come back up, beloved, I want to land today, which is to simplify.
[00:38:11] You have been forgiven much.
[00:38:15] I don't know all of you guys, testimonies down to the detail, but I know most of you well enough to say this. You have been forgiven much. You have.
[00:38:26] Christ, in his grace and his kindness, sought you out.
[00:38:31] He saw you in your rebellion. The rebellion that causes you to doubt, to run away, to to leave the flock. That causes you to cause other ones to stumble, that causes you to hold on to bitterness and resentment and hurt, to bring pain in the church where it ought not be. Like Christ sees you not just in the sin of your past, but the sin of your present. The sin you still hold onto as you enter into his church and live amongst his children. In the sin that you will commit in the future, that you will hard heartedly refuse to repent of until a future date when the Spirit convicts you with greater Weightiness. He sees all of that in you, beginning to end. Your whole person sees the debt you carry before him in his grace and his love. He looks at you and says, ah, but you're worth it.
[00:39:18] I'll pay that price. I'll take that one. I want you in this, my family. I want you as a part of this. Yeah, I'll eat that. That's worth it to me.
[00:39:29] You have been forgiven much, beloved.
[00:39:34] Ought we not love what much as well?
[00:39:40] Ought we not give the same love we've been given, seek to give the same forgiveness that we've received?
[00:39:48] I'm not saying that's easy.
[00:39:51] That's the opposite of easy, guys. That's a hot, stinking mess that digs into the deepest parts of our hearts, that pokes at traumas and wrongs and hurts. Things that we have covered up, things that we push away, things that we avoid. Hey, past is the past. I am not going back there and dealing with that picks at those things that's painful and it's hard to see the wrongs we've experienced, the wounds, and just go. So I'm just going to let go of that.
[00:40:22] Yeah, yeah.
[00:40:26] Because. Because it will be paid for, because it will be accounted for. Because Jesus is a trustworthy judge and he loves you and sees you and cares for you and he will not forget the wrongs done to his children.
[00:40:41] So, yeah, it's exactly what you get to do. Now, I'm not the kind of fool is just like, oh, so just pray and be happy and forgive and move on like, guys, for many of us, that's a really big ask and it's a really big journey. It's not a light switch you can flip emotionally and spiritually and just walk in joyful forgiveness.
[00:41:03] It's a journey.
[00:41:05] It's step upon step. It's two steps forward and three steps back. Oftentimes, it's a continual life of confession, coming to Christ, coming to brothers and sisters and saying, look, I'm trying really hard to walk in forgiveness, but I just keep coming back to this wound, this hurt.
[00:41:23] Maybe a painful and long process for many of us, but I promise you guys this, it's a worthwhile one.
[00:41:32] It's worthwhile. It's worthwhile to give the love you've been given. In fact, Christ would say that it's dangerous not to. It's destructive not to. So let's do this. I want to invite us to just sit honestly in silence for a few moments.
[00:41:48] I'm going to go out on a limb and I'm going to guess that many of us were picturing names and faces as we went through this text.
[00:41:58] And that's fine. It's the reality of your human heart.
[00:42:03] I want to encourage you to take a few minutes and sit with Jesus. Invite him into that ledger with you.
[00:42:09] Let him see those names, let him think of those faces with you.
[00:42:15] Let him look at those wrongs. And I just want to invite you for just a few minutes, as we sit in quiet, to consider what it might look like to just trust Jesus to handle your ledger for you.
[00:42:27] Think about what that might change in your life, what that might look like for you today. And then in a few minutes, we're going to continue our response in communion. Beloved, take a few minutes and connect with the Lord as your heart needs.
