Why does the church fall short? Why does the church fall short of keeping the commands? They seem so clear in Matthew 18, 15 to 20. Why? Very good. There are two very good points. Why do we not do this? One, fear of partiality, being a man, pleaser as the phrase goes. Sometimes you know, selective discipline, selective sins. And the last thing is when I'd like to pick up on. That is, you know, we've been neglecting it so long that when you actually start it's shocking. And what I'd like to do is just address that for a minute. What you need to do if you want to take holiness seriously is take it seriously from the beginning. And remember that this business of steps of taking two or three witnesses can be overblown. The main thing is that we're constantly all striving together for holiness. That's the main thing. To be, you know, we talk about church discipline, let's just think about a cognate word, disciple. A disciple is one who's under discipline. If you're really learning, you're under a form of discipline every day. And every day we're taking sin seriously. Every day we address sin candidly. For some of you, either aren't a minister, you're going to go into the ministry. The time to start being blunt and candid about what's right and what's wrong is not after you're ticked off a year and a half into the ministry. The time is day one. So the people know that every time you teach and every time you preach, you're simply going to say what the Bible has to say. And you're going to say it without fear. And so people don't think, oh, what's wrong with him? What got under his saddle? Hey, that's the way he does it all the time. Because in his church or in her Bible study group, we don't fool around. We take sin seriously. And we take holiness seriously. It's an ongoing process. If we were faithful to discipline and teaching and holiness day by day, this would not be such a difficult thing to do in the church. Yeah, it is discipline. What I said is this is a code. What I'm trying to say is let's not be legalistic about this as if if we do these things in this order, then we'll have done the right thing. We've got to start before verse 16 or 17. We've got to start with a life together in which holiness is always a significant concern to us. And always the goal is to win our brother and failing that, at least be faithful to the gospel and to the purity of the church. So when I'm posing here with that little question, the comment is a cookie cutter mentality. All these things are good, but don't think to yourself, if I just do these five things and I've been a good Christian, there's more to it than that. You know what? I see lots of hands, and we need to press on right now. Because from experience, I know that we could talk for an hour and a half on church discipline. We actually did that in one of my classes one time, a long time. I just said, I'm going to let it go and see what happens. And it went a long time. Maybe it was an hour and a quarter, I guess, but it was a long time. In the conclusion of this passage, you know, Peter is listening, he's always kind of listening to things and doing his best to understand them and speaking for the others. And Peter has heard, I think clearly, what to do if things go wrong. If someone sends and you rebuked him and they don't listen, then you put him out of the church, okay? That's clear. But Peter has another question. He asks, okay, tell me what to do if discipline does work. This question is, you mean I actually have to forgive this person? And do I actually have to forgive them and act as if it never happened? And how many times do I have to forgive my brother? Up to seven times? The rabbis, the Pharisees, said three. Our day of gambling, we could probably appreciate that he said, I'll W and raise you one. He said seven. He was generous. Forgive seven times. Speaking of questions and comments from students, I had to talk about this a few years ago and a student came up to me and asked me basically, does this passage mean what it says? Because let me tell you about my neighbor. And this is what she said about her neighbor. She said, we have a cat, we have a dog and kind of a small neighborhood, you know, not a lot of space. And so our cat occasionally gets into their yard and they don't like that at all. But we really thought it was a little bit excessive when one day our cat wandered into their yard and they lobbed their cat back over a little bushes there.
Well, that's one. They actually did that a couple times. You know, your view of cats might, you know, my temper, you're reading of that experience. That happened a couple times. So they thought, well, okay, good fences produce good neighbors, so they build a fence. Their neighbors didn't like the fence. They thought it wasn't even a little bit of sloping back yard and so one day when they were away, they took their chainsaw and evened it up for them. And then in part of that evening up process, their cat went under the fence again and this time they killed the cat and lobbed it back into the yard. That's three. That's three. Now, do you understand what Peter's saying? When he says seven? Do you understand why the rabbis could say three? This is a real, this is a real live woman with a real live question. And it deserves a real answer. The real answer is no, not seven times, but 77 times. Now, so if you have translation, it says 70 times, seven others have 77. It's immaterial. Say you can count to three, one, two, three, I forgive you, one, two, three, I'm done. You can count to seven, I forgive you, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And now it's my turn, baby. But you can't count to 77. You either give up or you blow up long before you get the 77, long before you get the 490. It's either a way of life or it isn't. So Jesus is saying way of life. That's his point. Now that's a hard thing. If three is hard, imagine a hard 77 or 490 is. And so Jesus tells a parable. In this parable, there is a man with a debt. It goes like this. The kingdom of heaven is like a man who wants this settle accounts for the servants. And as he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay the master order that he and his wife and children be sold to repay the debt, the servant felt his knees before him. Be patient with me, he said. And I will pay back everything. Servants master, to pity on him and let him go. When that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred in area. He grabbed and began to choke him and said, pay back what you owe. Fell servant, fell to his knees and begged, be patient with me. And I will pay you back. Have we heard that before? But he refused. Instead, they had, they went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. We're gonna stop right there for now. If you have marginal references, and even if you don't, you have a sense that this is a large amount of money, 10,000 talents, right? If you look in your marginal references, how much is 10,000 talents worth? Case you wondered, one of the themes of the night is, don't trust your marginal references. About the third time. So people, what do you have in your marginal references? Millions of dollars. Well, that's fair. Anybody have a particular number of millions? Well, that's the denaria. That's the denaria. Anybody have a particular millions for the talents? Ten, somebody has. There are other sets of Bible notes that have 20 or 25. Let me just talk through this with you a little bit. This is why you wanna have a Bible dictionary or a Bible encyclopedia. Look up a talent. One talent equals 15 to 20 years wages. One talent. Most people think it's closer to 20 years. Most common number, 20 years wages. So if somebody owes 10,000 talents as do a little multiplication, that's 200,000 years wages. Five bucks an hour, two billion dollars. I'm not saying that's actually worth five bucks an hour. If Jesus was telling this story today, I think you would have just said a billion and let it go at that. Okay, that's the debt in the story. So what do you think when the servant comes and says, be patient, I'll pay back everything? You think maybe how did he get such a big debt? And what kind of a fool does he think the king is? But the king in an astonishing move responded to this ludicrous request, has pity, and it says he released or dismissed the debt. He called it alone. He says, I'll release that. I'll just call that a bad loan and I'll let you off. Okay, so now he's off. He's walking down the street. He sees his buddy and his buddy owes him a hundred and area. How much is, now Mike said it, but I hope people didn't hear it. How much is a hundred and area? Do you have a marginal reference here for this? A few dollars, people have. So they may have a particular number. There are few sets of marginal references that say $18. Because a denarius at one point was worth 18 cents. So a hundred times 18 is $18. But actually, how much is a denarius worth? Do you know? A days wage, therefore, now Mike your answer. How much is a hundred and area? A hundred days wages. And now, if you look in your marginal references and said, this man is choking for 18 bucks. It doesn't make any sense. But if he's choking for a hundred days wages, I don't know about you, but if somebody owed me a hundred days wages, I could get upset about it. In fact, once I got upset when somebody owed me $300, then they wouldn't pay me back. Can you imagine that? How much is a hundred days wages worth? There's a long story and I'm not gonna tell you. A hundred days wages at a minimum wage is $3,000. $4,000, $5,000 an hour, $4,000. And of course, if you're making 10 or 20 or a little bit more, that's some serious money. What is this about? What's the point of this story? Well, let's keep on going. See if we can see what he has in mind. Continue on a little bit farther. It says, the other servant saw what had happened and they went and told their master about it. The master called them in and said, you wicked servant, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had on you and anger the master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all that he owed. What? This is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you 35 unless you forgive your brother from your heart. What's the parable about? Who is the king who has owed the great debt? God, your Heavenly Father. Who is the person with a debt of 10,000 talents, 600,000 years wages? Sorry, but it's us. He said it, Jesus said it. This is how the Father will treat you unless you forgive your brother from the heart. And the figure of the man who owes a hundred talents represents the offenses of our brothers against us. And it's so important to get the numbers right here. For one thing, 10,000 talents to a hundred in the area, I could say that's a lot, I'm gonna be, hey, just do your math. 200,000 years wages, 100 days wages. The debt of the servant is 1,600,000th as much.
Now, it's still real. If somebody owed you or me a hundred days wages, we could all get upset. And I think Jesus, I'm trying not to over-aligirize here, I'm aware of the danger. But I think Jesus is suggesting that the debts we owed each other are substantial. We really do offend each other. It's not just five or 10 bucks. It's five or 10,000. People do things to us that make us want to say, I'm never gonna forgive that person for what they did. I do not want to forgive, I want to choke them. I want to get my pound of flesh. The person in that story is like us sometimes. We demand. It's my turn to get even. Before you have that out to just remember, however much you may be owed, however much you may have to forgive, how far greater, how much vastly greater. Your debt and your forgiveness before God is. And that, Peter and all of you, will motivate you to forgive your brother when you go to him three and seven and 77 times. Saying again, I forgive you again. Because God has forgiven us so very much more. Question or comment? Yes. Is this saying, what exactly is this saying about the person at the end of the parables? Is this person not really, is this person really your brother? Is this somebody who's really in the community? I know you're not exactly asking that but you're glancing off that. This parable is not about really whose inner who's out. It's talking about appearance as this person seems to be your brother. Treating him as a brother is about community relations and how we treat those. We don't really know the eternal condition of somebody's soul. We know their profession of faith. And we deal with them according to their profession of faith until they prove themselves otherwise. In 1815 to 20, they prove themselves otherwise if they never repent it. And here, if someone refuses to be forgetting which is a sin in itself, that also will indicate that they haven't really tasted of the grace of God. That's the end. This is how my father will treat you. He won't forgive you if you're unforgiving. It doesn't mean in order to be forgiven by God, you have to do this thing, namely be a tender and forgiving person. What it means is if you really understood how much you've been forgiven, you would forgive. Now I know I didn't answer everything you asked. Is there anything left? There's something left. Yes, the short answer is yes. I think what he's talking about here in context is here, the question was, is he talking, is this parable about forgiving a brother who has repented? The answer is yes. It is primarily or it is first about that. However, there's the yes but. There is a difference between, there are two kinds of forgiving somebody. There's forgiving somebody in your heart and there's forgiving somebody legally for the sake of the cause of Christ in the church. So you always forgive whether they're repented or not because you're just supposed to forgive and you're not supposed to hate anybody. That inner forgiveness, no longer being vindictive or hateful or whatever, letting go of your anger as we say today sometimes, that inner forgiveness is one thing we always owe everybody. But then if someone has not asked for it, even though we've inwardly forgiven them for the sake of their good, the honor of Christ and the purity of the church, we have to pursue. We don't pursue hatefully. We don't forgive in the sense of letting it go legally. We still may need to deal with it with the church and with the elders and so forth. Good question. And with that I'm gonna say we got the other really good, those are the questions we need to address and I wanna move on to the next phase of teaching and these are all of a piece, these are all of a whole and Jesus is in and all if I can say while we turn to chapter 19. Talking about himself, this is a parable told under the shadow of the cross. How is that vast debt gonna be forgiven that multi-billion dollar debt in the parable it's by the word of the king in real life by Jesus who's gonna go to the cross. So the king, God has the right to say, I forgive you all that debt. Chapter 19 of Matthew deals further with the nature of kingdom life and relations between disciples but takes it a different way. The different way is we start looking shall we say very seriously at the question of service to one another. Community life continues with a theme of service. Particularly questions like, how much do I owe? How long shall I give? How much do I owe my spouse, to my children, to my community? Questions like that are coming up in chapter 19 even more. You see, chapter 18, the first 14 verses, here's what we owe to little ones to humble members of our community. Then, verses 15 and following, it's what we owe to people who offend us. Then, chapter 19, verses one to 12, to our spouse. And then, a little bit later, what our duty is with regard to our treasured possessions later in chapter 19. But let's look at it. It seemed to be a little bit disjointed. I'm saying it's all about kingdom service, little ones, brothers, now your spouse. What do you owe to your spouse? It starts with a question in verse three. Some Pharisees came to test Jesus and they said, is it lawful for a man, the divorce's wife, Matthew, for any and every reason, could be translated for any reason whatsoever. This is asking a question, it's actually a technical question, asked by Jews in that day, the question is not, can a man get a divorce? The answer to that, everybody agreed, right or wrong. They all agreed, the answer is yes. Can a woman get a divorce? The answer to that, everybody agreed, was no. A man can divorce his wife, a woman, cannot. What they're asking is, what are the grounds of divorce? Can one divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever? Is that okay? And some people, some Jewish teachers and some Jewish people said, yes, you can get a divorce for any reason whatsoever. And others said, no, there has to be a cause. The crucial text that they debated was June or on in chapter 24, verse one. And I've got it already, so just maybe listen to it. And here goes, if a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her and writes her a certificate of divorce and gives it to her and sends her away, if after she leaves, she marries another, he can never marry her again. Now that's clear. What they debated was, what does it mean here? When Moses says, if she becomes displeasing because he finds something indecent. And there were three answers given to that question. Answer number one, from the house of Shamai, which is a little bit more strict, sort of different schools of rabbis, kind of like Presbyterians and Methodists or whatever, vaguely like that today. The people from Shamai said, a man can only divorce his wife if he has found some ground for unchastity, if they said, notice that indecency, that's the issue. She's got to have done something indecent. And that would mean something preliminary to adultery or maybe even also adultery. So they would say, and they actually specified, something like twirling in the street, that would be a ground of divorce. You may say, wait a minute, you mean anybody, any adult woman who's engaged in gymnastics is subject to divorce? Now what it means really to twirl in the street, your robes would get lifted up a little bit and there was a time when just showing your ankles and so on was a big deal. It'd be a little bit like wearing faintly or maybe even modestly indecent clothing and flirting and winking with people of the opposite sex. You know, I never touched them, I never kissed them, I never knew, you know. Listen, if you wink and you flirt and you wear certain kinds of clothing, that says something. And that's what the house of Shamai said. She's got to do something like that. The house of Hillel was more relaxed and they said, if she has spoiled his dish, that's a ground of divorce. Not once, they also specify twice. So if you burn a meal twice, that's a ground of divorce because it says in Deuteronomy, because he has found something indecent and for a woman to serve bad food to her husband is indecent. Therefore, listen, anybody can burn the toast once but twice, that's intolerable. That was their view. There was another rabbi, very widely followed, named Akiba, Rabbi Akiba, who said, even if he finds someone prettier than she, because it says if he finds no, if she finds no favor in his eyes. And there was another in the same line, actually, Ben-Sirak, said, if she will not do as you tell her, get rid of her. That was the third view. That was the any reason whatsoever view. If you're just sick of her, if she gets a little mouth, gets a little lip, just get rid of her. Now, the question has something in common. The question is, what is the least I can give? You notice that comments write in most of the views? How can I get off the hook? How can I get out of a commitment? How can I give as little as possible? And so, really the question is, can I leave a marriage as soon as it begins to look like a bad deal for me? That's what we put it today. As soon as I'm giving more than I'm getting, can I get out? Jesus says, you've misconstrued. Verse five, haven't you read, can't you apply the Bible? That's what it means. That at the beginning, the creator made the male and female. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and the two will become one flesh. And now they're one flesh. And what God joined, let no one separate. That's God's original plan. Can't you apply that? Don't you see that that means you should not be asking questions about how you can get out of a marriage, but you should be asking questions about how you can stay faithful in marriage, recall that we talked about how the rabbi said, pages and pages of description of how to serve a bill of divorce, remember that thing that bizarre thing I read to you a while ago? And almost nothing about how to have a good marriage or really work nothing at all, practically. That's where you should be focusing on God's proper plan. Well, it ends there. No, it doesn't. They say, well, now then why did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate divorce and send her away? He said, no, no, no, Moses didn't command. Moses permitted. He permitted because of your hardness of heart. That's not the plan. You were so evil that he couldn't really tell you the truth about your obligations, but I'm telling you now what your obligation is. Well, that discussion ends and the disciples say, Jesus, you know, we heard you that time and we have a little objection to your teaching because it seems to us that if this is the way it is, if once you're in, you're in, and you're in for life, then better not to marry. Now, they thought that they'd played the trump card. Because in their view, everybody has to get married. And if you set up the marriage situation, 99.9% of all people got married then, if you set up the situation so that it's so difficult and the burden is so heavy, if you get a bad marriage, you can't get out, then we won't marry. So you see, you've just wrecked marriage by making it too stringent. And Jesus says, you know, maybe you're right. Maybe you shouldn't get married. And I would imagine that their jaws dropped. If you can't handle this commitment, if you can't accept this word moving from slang to Jesus terminology, if you cannot accept this word, then better not to marry. Better to be a unit, better to be one who's renounced marriage. The one who can accept it should accept it. So the question is not how little can I give? So the right question, the question is, am I willing to take seriously the marriage vow? If you're not willing to take it seriously, maybe you shouldn't do it. That's what Jesus says. If you're not willing to take that for better or for worse to heart, then don't say it. Don't get married. That would be better than to promise yourself and then to abandon someone. So commitment to a spouse, Jesus also shows commitment very briefly to children in the next passage by welcoming them and treating them as real humans. And then still very much in the same line of thinking about kingdom life and the cost of the kingdom and what it means to be disciple. Someone comes and asks the question, teacher, what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life? Now, this is still the same thing. Because when this man says, what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life? What he's saying is, what can I accomplish so that when I'm done with it, God owes me eternal life. Because you see, Jesus falls up and says, well, you know what you need to do. You need to, I'm skipping a little bit, you need to keep the commandments. You need to refrain from murder and adultery and theft and false testimony. Love your neighbor. And he says, well, I've done all that. What else is there for me to do? What I want to know is, once I've been perfectly obedient, what else can I do so that God owes me one? So the thing, if you have missed something or committed, some accidental sin or mess up at the end of my life, I want to do something extra so that God, so that I have some merit in the presence of God. Now, this seems to be very different from what's going on, but truly it's the same thing. You see, 19, 3 in following, the question is, how little can I give? 19, 16 is saying, if I give, can I be sure I'll get? And so we still have people calculating and working angles about the discipleship and manipulating God or manipulating other people and seeing how little they can get away with or if they give, how much they can get for it. They're not identical twins. They're mirror twins to each other. And Jesus says to him, well, it's fascinating the way Jesus operates, isn't it? You know, if I'd been there, I'd have said, you need to tell me, you've kept all this commands perfectly all your life. You need to tell me, when you were 14, you never once spoke disrespectfully to your parents. Give me a break, but Jesus doesn't say that. What Jesus says is, oh, you've been perfect all your life? Fine, I'm really glad to hear that. And it just accepts it at face value. So you say you're perfect? Fine, you're perfect. If you want to do one more thing, I do have a suggestion for you. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor and come follow me. That's just one thing you could do if you wanted it. And, of course, he was rich. And so, unable to do it, he went away grieving. And, of course, we understand that the one little thing that Jesus asked him to do is not a little thing at all. It's just one thing, but really, what Jesus is saying is, have you kept the first command? Did you notice in his list of commands? It's all what we call the second table. It's all commands with regard to human, to human relationship. And he didn't mention loving God or keeping the Sabbath or not having idols or not taking God's name and vein. So, so let's pick up that part that you forgot about. Are you failed to mention? Just want to get at one thing here, really. Do you love God? That's the one thing. Just a little thing. Just want to know if you love God. And, of course, he couldn't do that because he didn't really love God. He loved himself, and he loved his own hoped for reward, and he laughed. And as he laughed, Jesus taught about how difficult it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom, because there's so much to give up. And the disciples were astonished because riches at the time were thought to be a sign of God's blessing and favor. And they thought, then how can this be? What can the explanation be? If a rich man can't get in, who seems to have the favor of God, then who can be saved? God said, well, Peter said, well, sorry, Jesus said, with God, all things are possible. But Peter is not a different plane. He's kind of listening to what Jesus was saying, and this business about rich people and so on is absent. Peter's just watching the man trudging off. And Peter says, you know, Jesus, he wouldn't give up everything, but we did. We did. And you know, Peter and his buddies had boats, which means they had capital, which means they were fairly wealthy. When he says we give up everything, he's not just saying something. They did. What are we going to get? And the answer is, you will get a reward, Peter. You will have the right to sit on 12 thrones. Judging Israel, but Peter, Peter watch out. If you're focusing on rewards too much, be careful. Because me, if that may find that you were her first, indeed, our last. I hate to end on that note, so I won't quite. I'll tell you, come back next week and see what Jesus had to say to Peter. To give that warning that I think we all need about being disciples and calculating the benefits we'll get for it.