Not seven times but seventy-seven times (or 70 x 7 times).

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1 P a g e 1 The forgiveness of God Parable of the unmerciful servant Matthew 18:21-35 Our passage starts with Peter asking a question: Not should I forgive, but how many times? Where s the line? What s a reasonable amount of forgiveness? Up to seven times? Not seven times but seventy-seven times (or 70 x 7 times). Jesus then told a story to illustrate the point. There was a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. He started to look through his books. He wanted his money back. It was payback time. A man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. = Millions of pounds The fact that Jesus was putting over was that it was an amount that the servant would never be able to pay by his own means. v. 25 The master demanded that he and his wife and his kids all be sold, along with everything he had, to pay towards the debt that he owed. This would have been the punishment of the day. The man fell to his knees and started to sing the Duffy song: v. 26 : I m begging you for mercy, why won t you release me...

2 P a g e 2 Just be patient with me. I ll pay back everything. I just need a bit more time. I know this geezer. I ve got contacts. I ll get you your money. This is not a statement of fact. This is one of those movie moments, when the guy is about to get shot or something and he will say anything to buy a bit of time. There was no way that he would be able to pay back the money. Never. Ever. The master knows this. It could go either way. But: V. 27 The servant s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go. One minute he is on his knees, begging and sinking fast under a mountain of debt he cannot pay his life and that of his family are on the line and the next, his master wipes out the whole debt in one go and tells him he is free to go. Free, you say. Free to go The debt. Cancelled. Can we just clarify what exactly you mean by cancelled You mean.cancelled It s gone the King says. I am wiping it out. Millions of pounds. You are now debt-free. He backs his way out of the room, turns around and skips out of the palace, doing a fairly dodgy impression of Queen s I want to break free! while playing the air guitar and dancing down the steps of the palace. v. 28 But as he s dancing along the road, playing air guitar and doing Freddy Mercury impressions, out of the corner of his eye he spots a guy that owes him 45p. He had been buying a Mars bar at the corner shop and realised he had left his wallet at

3 P a g e 3 home, so he had asked his fellow servant to lend him the money. Now, the air guitarist stops in his tracks and runs over and grabs the guy who owes him 45p and starts to choke him. He throttles him. He grapples him to the ground and starts to squeeze the life out of him. I m gonna make you pay buddy. I am going to make you pay. Give me my 45p. Give it to me These words are all in red in my bible. This tells me that they were spoken by Jesus. He is really delivering this story. Peter is listening with his mouth open, along with all the others, spellbound. Caught up in the story that Jesus is telling. Jesus now has the second servant repeat the words that the first guy had spoken to the king. He is also on his knees. He starts to sing: Let me go, let me go. The first servant sings back (this is the musical version of the story) I will not let you go The guy can t breathe It s 45p I ll pay you back The first guy, who is now suffering a full-on bout of self-righteous indignation, is salivating dribbling at the mouth. He is caught up in the moment now; the righteousness of his cause. He says to the other servant: you are going to jail mate until you can pay me back my 45p You owe me. You owe me big time. Send him down!!!

4 P a g e 4 Now, some of the other servants who are hanging out near the palace see this scene and can t quite believe their eyes. They are greatly distressed and go to tell the king. He is incensed and calls the servant back in. v The King s response turned him over to the jailors to be tortured v. 35 The punchline: This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. There is silence in the room. Peter is doodling on his notepad. 70 x 7 don t ask Jesus any more clever questions. The story ends with the man who has been forgiven so much and yet who refuses to forgive the debts owed to him being tortured and put in prison. Which is a pretty stark picture of what happens to us when we refuse to forgive people who do us wrong. We end up tortured and imprisoned by our unforgiveness and bitterness. This teaching is not a one-off thought for Jesus. He repeats it on a number of occasions. When teaching the disciples how to pray: He teaches them this line:

5 P a g e 5 Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. (12) (Matthew 6:12-15) and then adds a clarifying comment at the end of the prayer: if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (15) Mark 11:25 when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. Jesus says it loud and clear: If you do not forgive, you will not be forgiven. If you want God to forgive you, you must forgive those that have wronged you. If you do not forgive, you will end up a tortured soul. The size of our debt Old hymn: He paid a debt he did not owe I owed a debt I could not pay I needed someone to wash my sins away And now I sing a brand new song Amazing grace all day long Christ Jesus paid the debt that I could never pay. The bible is very clear that we all of us are sinners, wrongdoers, culprits. We are all guilty of breaking God s law. And sins are not just things that we do. They are things that we think, and say, and things that we don t do that we should. Sin and shame.

6 P a g e 6 These are debts. And they add up. We are so far in the red there is no way we can pay. The cost of sin, God says the payment for sin, what is owed for sin is. Death. I don t know, have you ever lied. A little lie. A white lie. A convenient lie. Ever felt lust? Jealousy? Ever lost your temper. Wanted something that someone else has and that you don t. Have you ever failed to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Ever been critical or judgmental about someone. Made snide comments. Gossiped. Ever left anyone out, looked down on someone, derided someone. Ever watched something on tv, looked at something on the Internet, have you ever been disrespectful to your parents, sneered at them, disobeyed them, have you ever broken a promise, have you ever been materialistic or greedy, ever put anything or anyone above God in your life? Have you ever gotten so busy that you don t rest properly and have a day off, have you ever stolen, stolen an idea, watched a pirate video, downloaded something from the Internet that you should have paid for. Have you ever sworn, have you ever had sex outside of marriage, ever had questionable motives, have you ever failed to live up to God s standard of perfection. Have you ever? Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive? (Psalm 130:3 NLT) And actually, your best efforts to do good your very best efforts at living right are like. Dirty rags

7 P a g e 7 We're all sin-infected, sin-contaminated. Our best efforts are grease-stained rags. (Isaiah 64:6 TM) We owed a debt we could not pay. The payment for sin was death. Which is why Jesus died on a cross for you and for me. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. (Isaiah 53:6 TM) He cancelled the debt, which listed all the rules we failed to follow. He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13-14 NCV) He cried out: Tetelestai paid in full. This is the first half of Jesus story. We owed millions. We could never pay it. Our debt has been wiped out. He paid a debt he did not owe. Forgive us our debt, as we forgive our debtors. This is the second part of the story. Who owes YOU? Who do you feel like choking? Who would you love to strangle? To throw in prison? To punish? To see punished? Who would you like to see getting what s due to them? Who do you want to make sure is not let off the hook?

8 P a g e 8 Who comes to your mind? Who? What area of unforgiveness or bitterness is imprisoning you? Is even torturing you? You have been in the presence of a King who has written off your massive, unpayable debt you need to write off the debt of the person who owes you. If you don t forgive them, your heavenly Father will not forgive you. You won t lose your salvation, but you will lose a sense of God s presence, you will lose your peace, you may even become physically ill as a result. God knows the destructive nature of unforgiveness which is why this is a non-negotiable for him. It starts with a fresh look at and revelation of the mercy and grace of God in your life. And then starting on the road to forgiveness. Taking the first steps on the journey. Last time Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. (Romans 15:7) Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:11) forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors (Matthew 6:12) Our response comes from knowing how much we are..

9 P a g e 9 Accepted Loved Forgiven The one who is forgiven much.loves much Coming to the Communion Table Luke 22:1-23 The Last Supper What is Jesus doing? What is the significance of this supper? Jesus instigates: A new custom 19: This is my body given for you, do this in remembrance of me. And he takes one of the cups of wine and he says: 20: This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. Jesus is instigating a new custom. A new commemoration. A new agreement. Instead of looking back to the Exodus and the blood of a lamb daubed on a doorpost, we look back on the death and sacrifice of the Lamb of God who has taken away our sin once and for all on the cross. A new community Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf. (1 Corinthians 10:16-17) We who are many are one body. We are companions people that share bread.

10 P a g e 10 Communion draws us together as one body. We are to examine ourselves and we are to forgive others as we are forgiven. As Darrell Bock states, when we take communion, we proclaim both the Lord s death and our community oneness with fellow celebrants at the table. Our relationship to one another is not an accident, but a product of great design and cost. That theological reality should cause us to relate to one another with great sensitivity.

11 P a g e 11 Community group questions and discussion points: 1. Read the parable of the unmerciful servant together (Matthew 18:21-35) 2. What is the framing question that Peter asks? (18:21) 3. What is Jesus verdict on our refusal to forgive other people their debts? (18:35) 4. What has God forgiven us of? How does our debt equate to ten thousand talents? 5. What does God s forgiveness do in our life? 6. The man in the story was forgiven a great amount by the king, and then refused to forgive his fellow servant a relatively small amount. In what ways do you struggle to forgive others? 7. Why do you think we struggle with forgiveness? Why do we struggle to feel forgiven by God? Why do we struggle to forgive others who have wronged us? 8. What happens if we refuse to forgive? How do you think this equates to torture in the story? 9. How can we get better at forgiving others? 10. Pray together Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Pray for those who may be struggling to forgive others.