This recording is from Christ Kingdom Church in Avalon Park, Orlando. Visit us online at ChristKingdom.org for our calendar, driving directions, and more audio recordings. And now the reading of the Holy Scriptures, Matthew 18, 21, through 35. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times? Jesus answered. I tell you, not seven times, but 77 times. Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 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 ordered that he and his wife and his children, and all that he had, be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, and I will pay back everything." The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go. But when the servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denari. He grabbed him and began to choke him. Pay back what you owe me. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him. Be patient with me, and I will pay you back. But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. 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 just as I had on you? An angered, his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. Thank you, Brad and John and Mary Alice. Last week we started a short series where we are looking at parables of Jesus. We talked about how all great stories have this ability, this innate ability to draw you in to their world. The force you to ask questions, the force you to reckon with the truth that they present in parables, this is what they do. They present the reality as it is in the kingdom of God. They force you to ask a couple of questions. One, where am I in this story? Am I in this story? Is this for me? And two, where is God calling me to be through this story? Last week we looked at the parable of the sower and this morning we are looking at the parable of the unmerciful servant. Matthew 18, Peter goes to Jesus and he asks him about forgiving other people. And Jesus tells him a story, a story about forgiveness and a story about the command to forgive others. Living a life of forgiveness, that's the topic for this morning. Anybody want out? Anyone want to get out of here? I'll go with you. This is convicting stuff. There are some things that we may be good at every now and then, right? But if anything exposes the depths of our depravity, our capacity, our lack of capacity to live a great center of life, it's this. It's this command to forgive other people, to live a life of mercy and forgiveness. Are you quick to forgive? Are you just naturally quick to forgive and extend mercy to others? Am I quick to forgive? Do I run first to mercy and forgiveness? Even in the small thing, I mean, am I the only one who is really affected by small injustices in life? I mean, somebody jumping in front of me in line, somebody making me wait. Those people who drive in the left lane, even though they know a mergers coming all the way down to the end. And then they scoot in when some driver's busy text messaging or something. I see those people, I see those people and I have anger in my heart towards them. I say that person can't be a Christian. That person needs Jesus. What an awful person. When my wife will tell you, that's me. That's what I do. When I have somewhere that's important to be a, and I'm running late, I stay in that left lane, and then I'm mad at the guy who won't let me in. Like that guy can't be a Christian. What a selfish man. My heart is quick to run to bitterness and resentment and not to mercy and giving people the benefit of the doubt and forgiving. How about yours? How about the big stuff, though, right? The horrible things that happen. How easy is it to forgive them? I mean, how do you forgive the friend who stabs you in the back? Who slanders your name with other people behind your back? Even if they come to you and they apologize, say they're sorry and ask for forgiveness. That's hard to do, right? That's tough. How about when you feel ready to forgive? You feel like your heart's in a good place and you're ready to move on. You're ready to forgive, but the person who offended you, the person who hurt you, will never say they're sorry. They will never apologize. How do you have a heart of forgiveness? How do you, how do you forgive the abductor of your 18-year-old daughter on her graduation trip? How do you have mercy for somebody like that? How does Brendan Gangusa, here in Orlando, how does he have a heart of mercy and forgiveness for the murderer of his precious wife, with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life? If that man were to come to him and beg for his forgiveness, how would you do something like that? Is that even possible? How do you forgive your torturer in a concentration camp? Are you familiar with Cory Tinboom, author, speaker, the late Cory Tinboom? She's passed away. But during World War II, she's spent almost a year in a concentration camp and suffered greatly at the hands of one guard in particular. Many years later, in post-war Germany, Cory was there giving a speech. Actually, she was giving a testimony testifying to the goodness of the Lord and after the speech, all these people were gathered around her to talk with her and ask her questions and that same prison guard walked up to her and asked for her forgiveness. And you can imagine in a flash of recognition seeing this man's face and all of that pain and anguish of that year of imprisonment coming back to her. And she offered him what he didn't deserve forgiveness. How do you do something like that? Do you hear stories like that and just go, that's impossible. Maybe you say you don't. You just don't do that. Doesn't make any sense. That's what many people would say. The Mayo Clinic recently released an article on forgiveness and the benefits of letting go of grudges. And I read some of the many negative posts in response to this article online. One guy, or Gal, says, most things you can forgive but never forget what people have done to you because there's a good chance they'll do it again if given the opportunity. Another wrote, some things aren't forgivable. I'll never forgive my ex and former friend for the damage they've done my children. I wouldn't shed a tear for either one if they came to a horrible end. Somebody else wrote, I firmly believe that not forgiving makes the world a better place. If someone knows they will not be forgiven, they will be likely to not do something wrong. Yeah, that works. I personally, he says, do not forgive easily and a whole long grudges when people do things intentionally. Forgiveness can be this hard tough task, right? I mean, it is difficult to do, even if you're not like one of these people with these quotes and you think, God, that person is so malicious and so angry, yet inside of us, I mean, we have many times, we have this stew of bitterness brewing, don't wait towards others, even sometimes we're not aware of it. Forgiveness can be tough, but yet Jesus says not only is forgiveness, not only is living a life of forgiveness and mercy possible, but He says it's commanded of His followers. In this chapter in Matthew 18, Peter comes to Jesus and he says, Lord, how many times must I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times? Peter thought he was being pretty gracious here because the rabbis of his day, they only required three times. He only had to forgive somebody three times. There's like seven times? I can do that. And Jesus says no, not seven times, 77 times. Now does that mean 78 times you don't forgive? No. What Jesus is doing here is he's taking two numbers, seven and ten, which in Jewish tradition, he symbolized perfection and completion and he's multiplying them together and then he's adding another seven. Jesus is saying how many times? Completion, times completion, plus completion. In other words, you don't stop. You don't stop forgiving. You don't stop extending mercy. You live a life of mercy, it comes out of who you are. But how do we do that? Peter must have wondered. Maybe you're wondering that today. How? How do you do that? So Jesus tells a story. The parable of the unmerciful servant. We're going to look at it and basically gives us four directives in this story. How do you live a life of forgiveness and mercy? Four directives from this parable. The first we're going to look at is no the king's justice. First, prerequisite for forgiveness, no the king's justice. You want to live a life of forgiveness? You've got to know that the king is just, that he is judge, and that he upholds justice. Look at this verse 23. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. You've got to know that the king is just. You've got to know the king's justice first and foremost. This will make more sense as we get going. Justice is this. It keeps everything in balance. It keeps things fair. And that's what the king's doing here. He's looking at his books. He's balancing his books and he sees that one of his servants owes him ten thousand talents. To give you an idea of how much this is, paired the great in this time, his annual revenue for his entire kingdom was somewhere in the neighborhood of 900 talents. Ten thousand talents, modern day money is billions of dollars. Jesus is saying this servant owes a debt that he could never repay. And the king is balancing his books and he sees this debt and he brings a servant in and he says, the servant is due. You've got to know that the king is just. You've got to know the king's justice. One of the ways that the Bible talks about sin, you know, this is in terms of what? Debt. It's like a debt owed to a king. It's like a debt owed to God. And Jesus is saying here in this parable that our sins are like this servant's debt. So this astronomical amount and sins have to be punished and debts when there's a debt owed payment has to be collected. Now maybe you're wondering a common objection. It's why does God, if he's all good and he's all powerful, why does he have to collect on his debts? Can he just say, doesn't really matter, can he just overlook it, can he just look the other way and say, it's okay, it's all right what you did and just let everybody through. No debts have to be paid, right? Can't he just not get angry at injustice? Let me answer your question or the question. Do you want a God who doesn't care about injustice? Do you want a God who doesn't care about injustice? Do you want a God? No, no, no. You want a judge. You want a judge who's going to promote righteousness. You want a judge who's going to come and he's going to take what's been made wrong and he's going to make it right again. You want a just judge. How many people in the times of the Holocaust thought the justice didn't matter? No, it's in times like that when you're going, God, balance the books already. Bring justice, fix what's going on. I want a just God, I was talking with somebody after the service last Sunday and I had mentioned in the sermon just briefly the horrible reality of human sex trafficking in the world. I was talking to this guy after the service and he said, I just think we need to find everybody behind that, we need to kill him. Now don't you somewhere in your heart feel similar? Why don't you see that and go justice needs to be served? God needs to do something about that, right? We love justice when it's for other people. But how about when justice needs to be served in this direction? How about when we're the deaders? And Jesus is saying in this parable, you're the deaders. I'm the deader. We're the servants who have, we don't know what he did with this wealth but with billions of dollars you imagine it must have been something illegal. We've wasted all this money, we're deaders to God, we're rebellious in our hearts and in our sinful hearts we want nothing to do with them. We've turned our backs on him and sin has to be punished. And so the first point, before we can be people who live lives of forgiveness we've got to understand this. We've got to know that God is just and when there's a payment do, payment must be collected. And we've got to know that we are in serious debt. Does that make sense? Okay, it will more as we move on. Second, how do you live a life of forgiveness? So you've got to know the king's justice. Secondly, you have to taste the king's mercy. Taste the king's mercy. This is the good news. This is why the gospel is called Good News. Verses 26 and 27. The servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged. And I will pay back everything. The servant's master, the king, took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. You say see, he just turned his head away to the debt and he just pretended that it wasn't there anymore and he said you're free to go and no that's not what he did. He didn't forget that it ever happened. He didn't pretend that he just wasn't there. The debt didn't just vanish, right? If the servant gets to go free from the king's mercy, who incurs the debt? The king and his kingdom. And 10,000 talents was no drop in a bucket for his kingdom. Now, this would have been a serious loss. And the king and his great mercy says, you are forgiven of your debt. Go. You're free. But that debt doesn't just disappear, is absorbed. And this is why you've got to understand justice because if you don't get justice, then mercy is cheap. Then forgiveness is just, all right, you're free to go. Forgotten. You know, there was never really done anything done wrong, you know, to begin with. But justice says, no, there's still a debt. There's a payment and giving forgiveness to somebody else and the king giving forgiveness and mercy to the servant is the king saying, all incur the debt that you owe. Let me give you an example. Somebody comes over to your house for dinner, right? And the region for the butter across the table and they tip over a valuable vase that's holding flowers and it rolls off the table and it smashes, it splits into a million pieces on the ground breaks this valuable base of yours. Well, you may say, don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. Not a big deal. I'll get any vase or I won't. It's just not a big deal. You're forgiven. But by doing that, the loss incurred is not, it doesn't just vanish. It's not assumed nonexistent anymore. No, by forgiving that person, you're saying, if I want a new vase, I'll pay for it. I'll go buy a new vase. I'll pay the payment that you owe because you broke my vase. But I'll pay for it. And if I don't want a new vase, then I'll incur the loss of not having a beautiful vase with flowers in it on my table. But either way, there's a loss incurred. Everything's kept in balance. The person offering forgiveness is accepting the loss themselves as absorbing the payment themselves. The king here is incredibly merciful, incredibly merciful. The servant just says, give me more time. I just need more time. I'll pay you back. But the king is so gracious. He doesn't just give him more time. He doesn't give him another chance. He gives him complete acquittal. He cancels the debt. He sets him free and he incurs the debt himself. And Jesus is saying, you and I owe this astronomical debt. And the reality is, we deserve separation from God. He's holy and we are sinful. We deserve to be cast out of His presence forever. That's just fair. And yet he offers us this grace and forgiveness that we need to walk away free, to walk away free of our debts, our debts cleared. But those debts don't just disappear. He doesn't just pretend they never happened. They get thrown up on a cross. In fact, the king himself, he says, I'll go to the cross. All incur the loss. All absorb the debt and I will make the payment in full. See how sweet and how rich his mercy is. Back in the time of the Depression, this is a true story. LaGuardia was mayor of New York and he was mayor, but for fun, every now and then he liked to sit in and preside over the police courts. And one day they brought in to him a man out of the frigid cold weather. It was in the winter and they brought in a man who was charged with stealing a loaf of bread. And the man says to LaGuardia, he's acting as judge, he says, my family is starving. This is during the Great Depression. It's freezing outside. My family is starving. I stole the bread for them. And LaGuardia looks on him with compassion, but he says, I'm sorry, but I have to punish you. The law makes no exceptions. So I sentenced you to a fine of $10, which of course the man did now. So LaGuardia reached into his pocket and he pulled out $10. And he said, now here's the $10 to pay your fine. And he put it in a hat and he said, I now remit the $10 fine. And then he said, and now I charge everyone in this courtroom 50 cents for living in a city where a man has to steal bread for his family. They lift, collect the fine, and give it to the man. And a trembling man who is awaiting jail time is given freedom and $47.50 in his pocket. How wonderful is our God who is just just this needs to be served. Punishment has to happen. The law doesn't make any exceptions. But he's so merciful because he takes that punishment for us. And then he blesses us richly. Not only do we walk out out of debt, we walk out rich. How merciful is our God? Have you tasted this morning? Have you tasted this mercy? You can't just talk about it. You can't just study it. You can't just ponder it. You have to taste it. How are you going to share it with other people if you can't taste it yourself? Have you ever tasted something? Have you ever just eaten something that's fantastic? And you've got to everybody you know. You've got to go to such and such a place. You've got to order such and such a thing off the item. And you've got to get this little drizzle that you pour over it. It's fantastic. You have to. I mean, you can't not share it. If you've tasted as mercy, how can you keep it to yourself? How can you not share that mercy in your life with other people? You want to live a life of forgiveness. You've got to know the king's justice. You've got to taste the king's mercy. Third. You've got to rest in the king's safety. Rest in the king's safety. Let me read verse 27 again. Look at the safe heart of the king. The servant's master, this is the king, took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. He looks at him and he takes pity on him. He doesn't just say, all right, I got busy with things to do. Okay, you're free to go. No, he takes time. He looks into his heart and he takes pity on him. He has compassion for him. You've got to know that when you have something to confess, when you need forgiveness, you can go to the throne of grace and spend time in the safe presence of the king. You can confess anything. You can ask for forgiveness for anything. Nothing's too bad. No debt is too great. Look at this servant in here. He owes a debt. He could never pay back. You think your debts are like this too and you can go to the king and you can ask for forgiveness and he's a safe place, safe resting place for you. You've got to rest in his presence. We need this safe place to offer forgiveness to other people because not only is humility required to offer people forgiveness. Humility that comes from knowing the debt you owe and the mercy that you've received, but securities required to offer people forgiveness. If your emotional security, who you are, doesn't come from the safe presence of the king. Then you're living a life that's going between security and insecurity. And you're looking to other people for your security. And so when people hurt you, the cuts go so deep that they cut into your core of who you are because you haven't received that from God, but you're looking to them for it. How hard would it be to forgive in that situation? You've got to know the king's safety, the safe embrace of the father so that you can go out and love other people. I heard this story of a father and a son who were living in Spain and they had this estranged relationship, severely estranged, and the son he ran away. And the father went looking for him and for months to know a veil couldn't find him. And so finally in the last desperate effort, he went to a Madrid newspaper and he put an ad in. And the ad read, dear Paco, that was the son's name. Dear Paco, meet me Saturday at noon in front of this newspaper office. All is forgiven. I love you, your father. When you know at that Saturday, 800 Pacos showed up in front of that newspaper office. All looking for a safe embrace of the father where they can receive forgiveness, where they can feel the father's love. If you have kids, you know this. It's awesome watching my son, Taylor play. He's incredibly busy, incredibly serious. He's all over the place. I mean, he's everywhere into what he's doing. But every now and then, he has to come back. He has to come back to me or to his mom, has to get a little hug, get a little check in. Because he's got to know the reminder to him that we've got things under control. We see, we've surveyed the environment. We know what's happening. We're watching out for him. And then he can really be free to live like a child supposed to live with the same for you and I. We've got to know the safety of the Heavenly Father's Presence, the King's Presence, for us to boldly go out and live a life of mercy, the life that we are called to live, live a life of forgiveness. I love this. Maybe it's going to be one of my favorite verses. You guys have life verses I don't have one. Maybe I'll make this one. I hear they're fun to have. Look at Ephesians 5-1. Follow God's example. Therefore, as children dearly loved and walk in the way of love. The saying, as children who are dearly loved, so walk in the way of love. If you know the safety of the loving embrace of the Father, then you can be a safe place for other people. When they're wrong, when they hurt you, they can come back to you and they can seek forgiveness as you're a person of grace and a person of mercy. You walk as a child who is dearly loved in the way of love. Now this verse says, follow God's example. And that's the last point, the last directive from this passage. Follow the King's way. You want to live a life of forgiveness. You've got to know the King's justice. You have to taste the King's mercy, to rest in the King's safety and you have to follow the King's way. This one here is the test. This is the one that's asking, did you really grasp justice? Have you really tasted mercy? Do you really rest in the safety of the King? If you do, you will follow the King's way. You don't start here. You don't start with just saying, how do I have mercy and forgiveness like the King? I need to have mercy and forgiveness like the King. I need to go do it. You don't start here. God always makes the first move. He always does. He comes in first. He can fix you of your sin. He offers you this incredible mercy to your lips like sweet water in the desert and you taste it. And he offers you the safety of his presence with him. Then only then can you really follow in the King's way. And this story is incredibly sad because the servant in the story is blind, not physically but spiritually. The servant's blind. He's blind to his death. When he comes into the King, give me more time, checks on the meal. I can pay you back. He couldn't even come close. Not in a million years could he pay him back. He says, I'll get it to you. I'll pay you back. He's blind to the depths of his own debt. You see that? Not only this, but he's blind because of that. He's blind to the greatness of the mercy offered him. Because if you've tasted a mercy like that, you live a life of mercy. That's the point of the story. That's what Jesus is saying. And this man doesn't. He's blind to the mercy. Tim Keller. He's a pastor in New York and he says this. No heart that is truly repentant towards God could be unforgiving towards others. No heart that is truly repentant towards God could be unforgiving towards others. He goes on. He says a heart that is not dispensing forgiveness is not experiencing forgiveness. Do you experience forgiveness? Do you dispense forgiveness? Look at how the servant treats his fellow servant says when he went out verse 28, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denari. This is a few dollars. And he picks him up by the throat and he begins to strangle him. Pay back what you owe me. He demanded this fellow servant fell to his knees begged him be patient with me and I will pay you back. Sound familiar? He's blind to the fact that he was doing this very thing moments earlier. He doesn't see the need in someone else that was the need in him. He's blind to it. But he refused and steady went off and he had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. He is blind. Now there's a woman in Luke 7 who's not blind. Luke 7 Jesus is at the house of a Pharisee dining with him the Pharisee Simon and a prostitute comes in weeping and begins to wash his feet with her hair and her tears and Simon is outraged at what he is seeing and what's happening and Jesus I'm summarizing it but Jesus basically says she loves much because she's been forgiven much. Her eyes are open to her all need and to the mercy that the Savior offers her and to the safety at his feet that he provides. And so she loves. See how that works? Jesus is saying in this parable this is a servant who's blind. He doesn't see it and that's why he doesn't love. We've got to ask the question this morning. Are we blinded to his mercies? Not only is he blind. Obviously he doesn't follow the king's way. He acts like he's a king. That's an irony of the story. He goes to his he's just a servant of the king. He goes to his fellow servant and he picks him up by the throat and demands his money back like he's someone in authority like he's a king. When he doesn't give the servant mercy, he hasn't thrown into prison until he can pay back the thing. He doesn't have the authority to do that. He's acting like he's a king. What's awesome is that Jesus our king is not just a servant who thinks he has power like a king. But he's a king who willingly serves. He's not a servant acting like a king. He's a king who acts like a servant. And so for us today to live a life of forgiveness is to follow the king's way and to follow the king's way is to not act like a king. It's not to be all caught up in our superiority. It's not to demand repayment as if we're deserving of it as if we're a king. It's to act like the king did. It's to act like a servant. It's to be willing to mop up the mess that people make in your life. So willingness to absorb the debt that people inflict on you. It's a willingness to deal with the pain without requiring compensation. That's what Jesus says. Living a life of forgiveness is in the world says and we say what that is backwards. That's so backwards. The world says you got to be king. You need to be your own king. You need to be successful. Race to be king. Last one to be king is a rotten egg. That's what the world says. Message of Jesus. It's a race to be last. Last one to serve is a rotten egg. When I started David and Mark's not here, but David and I started a counseling program up at RTS and we started studying counseling and psychology. One of the things that they asked of us was that we became familiar with this big book called the DSM4. The diagnostic and statistical manual. Basically, this is a book of all the psychological diagnoses, all the psychological problems. I remember thinking this is going to be awesome. I can't wait to find out about all the problems crazy people have. I started looking through this book and it was amazing. It was like, oh, that's me. Oh, wow. I kind of have some of those characteristics over here. Maybe it was we've been looking at this parable this morning. Maybe that's been your experience. Maybe you thought, that's kind of me. Bitterness. Have I tasted that mercy? Have I just thought that I've started to become a pretty good person? I really don't have that much debt? Maybe that's been you. Maybe you're convicted. We should be every one of us. That's why Jesus told this story. And listen, who can live the life, the king's way? Who can offer just abundant mercy to everyone, but yet still uphold justice and absorb payment? Who can do that like Jesus? None of you can. I can't. We need him. If you don't have him, you're going to be a long way off from getting this down. It's going to be impossible. Let me just encourage you. Paul says in Galatians, he says, we have to put on Christ. If you haven't put on Christ, if you haven't tasted this mercy, finish your day. Do business with God. He's a safe place to go with your confession, with your sins. Receive His abundant mercy so that we can leave this place and we can be merciful people. Let's pray. God, we are, we are just odd. We are moved by your move to us. You move towards us. Offers us such great grace, unfathomable mercy, a safe place to go and confess. And Lord, we ought to be afraid if we are not living life that reflects that, because that might mean that we haven't truly experienced it. And so God, thank you for your Holy Spirit's conviction. Don't leave us blind like the servant, but move in our hearts and your great grace and mercy. And call us to be people who live lives of forgiveness. You know, just let people walk all over us. No. But God, we are willing to absorb pain and debt of other people to show them grace and mercy that you've shown us. Pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.