KINGDOM STORIES: VI. The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant Matthew 18:21 35

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1 March 22, 2015 AM Introduction: KINGDOM STORIES: VI. The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant Matthew 18:21 35 We re in a series that studies of Jesus parables entitled: Kingdom Stories. The kingdom of heaven is available to everyone but not everyone enters into it. The prerequisite to E and G deeper in the kingdom is R. It has always been in the heart of God to create a kingdom of A S and D. We began our study with the question: When was Jesus Christ slain? Was it before time began or was it in time on a Cross on Mt Calvary? What Jesus did for us in T R forever what had been firmly decided before time began! Revelation 13:8, John 1:29, I Peter 2:24 The act of God to redeem us in Christ before time began E and give us a F for human history. It explains why we were created. The shedding of the blood of Jesus pays a price to redeem you and me. Why is it paid? John 3:16 This covenantal love of God as a framework for human history guarantees that humankind would be able to F with God even though we all have S and fall short of His glory. We ve seen that God acted in creation to make human beings in His image. How are we like Him? God is Spirit. That we are made in His L means that we are S, they could commune with God. Today we are going to look at another incident in the life of Abram, man of God and faith, Genesis 14, when Abram acts to save Lot and his possessions. Five hundred years before the Levitical Priesthood is created, Melchizedek appears, and he is Priest of God Most High. This man points to something that is in the heart of God and is at work on earth, creating this kingdom people! Hebrews 7:1 3 Melchizedek is a representation of who and what Jesus is! The kingdom of heaven in a human heart is the P and the P and the A of God before time began! I. The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant: The context of this parable is straightforward. It is Jesus desire that we treat others with a H of H and M. 1

2 He develops the theme of forgiveness when He says to Peter: You must be W to F offenders up to 70 X 7 times. The K in the story represents Jesus who came to earth to make the M of G. available to us all The D O The S who ran up the unimaginable amount of debt represents the best human thinking. He is so full of human P of human accomplishment that he doesn t see how ridiculous his position is! II. The King s Mercy: Matthew 18:23 27 The king on his throne has heard a lot, but this guy takes the prize! He has run up a tab on the king of five million dollars and can t pay the interest. The man falls on his knees and then makes the mistake of talking: Be P with me and I will P back E. Jesus is giving us a picture of what sin does in us as we stand before Him and what He has done for us in taking our sins into His body on the Cross! The only thing Jesus asks in return is that we C our S, R of them, and I Him to live in our hearts! III. The Servant s Proud and Blind Heart: Matthew 18:28 31 The amazing thing about this guy is what he does when he leaves the king s court. The question comes to mind: What is he doing? We have to look deeper into his heart and mind. He went away and T that he got what he asked for M T. He missed that he was F of debts. This is such an astute picture of our H N. But at deeper levels it is such a picture of how little we recognize our own F of the five million dollar debt of sin when we stand in J of others. Making Personal Applications: Matthew 18:32 35 The central message of the parable is to forgive as we have been forgiven. 2

3 Discussion Starter Questions for Home Groups 1. This series states that it has always been in God s heart to create a kingdom of adopted sons and daughters. Why is it important for us to know and live out this Biblical truth? 2. The question: When was Jesus Christ slain for us? Was it before time began or on a Cross outside of Jerusalem 2000 years ago? Why is this Biblical truth important for us to think about? 3. We looked at a man named Melchizedek who is a type of the priestly work that Jesus would do. Why is it important to know this theological truth about Jesus holy priesthood in our lives? 4. Jesus tells us a parable about the issue of choosing to be people who forgive others. Why is it important for us to live a life of forgiveness? 5. Jesus said the unmerciful servant s unforgiving actions are a picture for us all to see and understand our sins and His mercy for us. What speaks to your heart and mind about what Jesus did for us on the Cross? 6. The message implicates things in the servant s life that resulted in Him being unforgiving to others. What were some of those heart issues and why are they important for us to know? How does this truth apply to us? 7. Read together aloud Ephesians 4:25 5:2 and discuss insights you have regarding His forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of others. 8. Read together aloud Matthew 6:9 15 and discuss insights you have regarding forgiveness for others and our prayer lives. 9. What do we need to understand well, apply, and take away from this message in terms of our own walk with Jesus and others? 3

4 March 22, 2015 AM Pastor Ken Hepner KINGDOM STORIES: VI. The Unmerciful Servant Matthew 18: Introduction: Our study is a series of messages on the parables of Jesus. They are stories that Jesus told to illustrate truths regarding His kingdom of the heart. The word kingdom is pretty big for us to understand. The central theme of Matthew s Gospel is the introduction of the long-awaited Kingdom of Heaven Invading the Earth, as the true and rightful king Jesus, enters into the human arena. The kingdom of God had arrived and was dwelling in human hearts. This kingdom of the heart is for everyone, but not everyone enters into it. There is a prerequisite to having the Holy Spirit of God come to live in us and invade us with kingdom living, with His gift of holy, self-emptying, other-oriented love. That prerequisite to Entering into and Growing Deeper in His love is Repentance! --Matthew tells us that John the Baptist came preaching in the Desert of Judea, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. --Matthew tells us that the opening word of Jesus to His would-be-followers was, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. We have noted that each week, as we study our theme, we are looking at different aspects of the kingdom of heaven living on the earth in the people of God. In each of the parables we are studying they begin with the words: The kingdom of heaven is like. Jesus message was pretty clear in His ministry among us. The kingdom of heaven is the reign of heaven right now in the hearts of His people. The order and authority of what rules heaven reigns in you and me. The truth of God that is burning in my heart and what compels me in this series of messages is this: God the Most High has always purposed in His heart to establish on earth a Kingdom of Adopted Sons and Daughters, a people who belong to God, a royal nation, and a holy people. The kingdom of heaven living on earth in the hearts of people has been in His heart since before time began. We are not an afterthought, nor is His kingdom invading the earth an afterthought. Today by His grace, in the fullness of time, He has brought the reality of what He promised to fruition in each of our hearts by the finished works of Jesus for us all! As we began this series we asked and answered the question: When was Jesus Christ slain? Was it before the creation of the world or in time on a cross outside Jerusalem? The answer of course is yes! Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God from eternity who came to earth. Jesus entrance into the world enables us to see that there are two realities that exist: the eternal and temporal. When one stands in the eternal, the end result of what exists in time is already known. 4

5 --What Jesus did on the cross in Time Ratifies what has been firmly decided in God s heart in Eternity, since before time began! Revelation 13:8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. John 1:29 Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live to righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. That the Word of God says, Jesus was the Lamb of God slain from before the world was created, means that this is something that predates human history. Therefore, in God s heart, in God s kingdom economy, it Explains and gives us a Framework for human history and explains why human beings were even created. He created us to know and love Him and to know and love one another. We are created for a kingdom life the origins of which are from heaven and from eternity! We are wired with the desire to worship, to know Him who is beyond us! The shedding of the blood of the Lamb is a price to be paid. For what reason is this price paid? John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. What God is telling us two-fold: a.) God knew that He would create humankind and that we would sin, which would separate us from Him. b.) Knowing that we would sin, God provided a full sacrifice for our sins, making a covenant promise God-to-God, because there are no people on the earth yet, making our salvation experience a reality before He even creates humankind. The reason for the question is to see that God purposed in His heart from eternity and promised us that He would create a kingdom on earth that makes us to be His sons and daughters, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, in Christ Jesus before time began. The framework for human history is a covenant God makes with Himself guaranteeing that humankind would be able to Fellowship with Him even though we have Sinned and fallen short of His glory! We saw in Galatians 3:15ff that Paul wrote to them about a covenant God made with God before time began. He spoke the covenant to Abraham 430 years before He gave the law of the Old Covenant. He promised a kingdom of sons and daughters who would inherit His spiritual blessings by faith through grace in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 1:3, 4 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. We ve seen the eternal purposes of God to create the kingdom of heaven on the earth, as we looked at the creation account, at what Adam and Eve were created to be and to do on the earth. 5

6 The Scripture says, In the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them. The question is, how were they like God? God is spirit, so their Likeness to Him was in that they were Spirit, they could commune with God in spirit, son and daughter of God walking in the cool of the day with their heavenly Father in awesome and sweet communion! Today, as we think about this kingdom of God invading the earth from before the earth was created, I want us to look at an incident in Abram s life. In Genesis 14 we have the story of Abram and the men of his household going to rescue his nephew Lot and all of his possessions that were carried off into captivity by five kings from the region of Babylon. When Abram returned victoriously a priest of the Most High God named Melchizedek came out to meet him. Interestingly enough, the Levitical priesthood will not be established for another 500 years. Yet Scripture calls this king of Salem, a priest of the Most High God. Abram honors this priest of God by giving him a tenth of all that had been rescued from the marauding kings. Melchizedek blessed Abram in the name of the Lord God. Remember the truth we are attempting to drive home each week. The Lord God has always had it in His heart to create a kingdom of sons and daughters who are a royal priesthood, a holy nation who belong to Him. This king of Salem (that is Jerusalem) who is also a priest of the Most High God points us to the existence of a kingdom and a priesthood that is a physical expression of a preexisting covenant in the heart of God. This kingdom covenant existed long before He named Israel His chosen people, a royal priesthood, a people belonging to God, and before Levi was even thought of. Melchizedek is representative person of something that is deep in the heart of God, this kingdom in the hearts of people, from the foundations of the world. He reappears in Scripture in Hebrews 7 where his priesthood is used as a type of the priesthood of Jesus our Lord. Hebrews 7:1 3 This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, his name means king of righteousness ; then also, king of Salem means king of peace. Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever. Melchizedek is an exact picture of who and what Jesus is. He is The King of Glory who gives us gifts of righteousness and peace. Jesus is a king and a priest just like Melchizedek. He reigns over all and He makes available to His followers access to a relationship with Abba Father God. What has always been in the heart of God, a kingdom of His followers is now available to us in Jesus Christ our Lord. The kingdom of heaven in the human heart is the Purpose of God, the Promise of God, and the Action of God, from the foundations of the earth! Our salvation is not an afterthought. We were in God s heart before He acted to create the world. It has always been in God s heart to create a kingdom of sons and daughters who have been spiritually adopted by God. We are no longer worms, unfit for anything but Hell, yet forgiven. We are His own sons and daughters who have become partakers of the covenant promises of God that have always been in His heart. 6

7 I. The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant: Anytime we are studying a parable it is important to set it in its context. In context we see why Jesus took the time to paint a verbal picture for His listeners in order to understand as fully as we can the spiritual realities He was attempting to help the hearers to grasp. The context of this parable is pretty straightforward. It is the Lord s desire that we each embrace a childlike Heart of Humility and Mercy. He begins to develop this truth of childlikeness with the first few verses of the chapter on the question of greatness in His kingdom. He says the greatest is he/she who embraces a heart like that of a little child. Little children know themselves to be small. They are humble and gentle in heart. People in His kingdom know we are small too, and we adopt a humble and gentle heart like a child because we can t do the Christian life without Him. Secondarily develops the same theme when Peter came to Jesus and asked him how often he has to forgive someone who sinned against him, seven times? He talked to the disciples about being Willing to Forgive those who offend them seventy times seven times, or don t keep track! His kingdom followers do everything in our power to do to restore relationships that are broken. Like little children are incredibly forgiving so are we. To paint a verbal picture they wouldn t soon forget Jesus told them this incredible story of the kingdom, in which the principle participants are a merciful king and an unmerciful servant. The parable is such an awesome picture of the kingdom because all of us can readily see how it relates to sin and sin s power to run roughshod over our lives. The King in the story represents the Lord God, who one day will call everyone into an accounting for how we have lived our lives. The thing about this king in the story as Jesus describes Him is that He Has chosen to be forgiving and merciful to us all. The king in the story represents Jesus who has come into this world to become a human being precisely to make the Mercy of God available to every human being on earth. The Debt Owed to the king in today s figures five million dollars, which the man couldn t even pay the interest on and that meant that he lost ground on the debt load every day represents the truth that sin runs amok in the human heart and that there is absolutely nothing we can do about the incredible debt we owe to God. The Servant who ran up the unimaginable amount of debt represents the best thinking of human beings as it relates to how people often tend to think that they come before and square their accounts with God by doing good deeds. Notice the man says, Be patient with me and I will pay back everything. He is so full of pride that he thinks he can work his way into the good grace of the king. How like human beings who think that by our own good works we can satisfy the wrath of God revealed against sin. I have heard this bundle of manure so often. I will clean up my act, live better, then God will forgive me and bless me. In his unforgiven state of mind he is incredibly harsh on people who fall short of his perspective and ways. 7

8 II. The King s Mercy: Matthew 18:23 27 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. The servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay back everything. The servant s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. The king is sitting on his throne and one by one the debtors are brought before him. I am sure he has heard a lot of sob stories but when this guy comes in he takes the prize. He has run up a debt load of five million dollars. He can t even get close to making the interest payments each month. His mortgage payment would have been $29,079. Per month. So the king decides to get rid of the debt by getting as much as he can. He orders the man, his wife and children and everything he has to be sold so at least something of the principle can be recouped. The man fell to his knees before the king. So far so good: But when he opens his mouth out comes a ridiculous statement. Be Patient with me and I will Pay Back Everything. Human pride, human effort, and human thinking are here clearly on display. The king looks at the man, and in a stroke of magnificent generosity, kindness, and grace he took the man s debt on himself. He graciously forgave the man, canceled the debt, and set him free from his obligation. What an incredible picture of what our King Jesus has done for us all. We had run up a debt load through committing sin, which we could never repay. Our King Jesus looked on us in mercy, and in the most magnificent act of grace that has ever been known to humankind, our King took our sins unto Himself, He bore our sins in His own body on the cross, and paid the penalty our sins deserve, dying the death we deserved, For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. The incredibly wonderful message of the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of men and women is that our sins are all pardoned, our guilt is all gone, and we have been set free from bondage to sin, death, and the enemy s power to rule us any longer! The only thing our Savior asks of us is to Confess our Sins, Repent of them, and trust Invite Him to come and live in our lives granting us victory over sin and its power to rule us. When Jesus comes to live in us He brings along with Him His nature of holy, self-emptying, other oriented love. We find ourselves loved and loving people! III. The Servant s Proud and Blind Heart: Matthew 18:28 31 But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him, Pay back what you owe me! he demanded. 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. 8

9 At first glance this makes absolutely no sense at all. You ask yourself the question: What is this man thinking? He got forgiven of five million dollars and he is completely without mercy for a man who owes him three months wages. He chokes the man demanding his money. Then he has the man thrown into debtor s prison so he gets his denarius per day. But we have to look deeper into this man s heart and soul in order to understand his actions. He didn t ask for forgiveness did he? He asked for more time to get money in order to pay the king back. He is so full of himself, so full of pride in his ability to get into the king s good graces by his own effort that when he left the throne room he Thought he got More Time and completely missed that he was Forgiven. In other words, he got forgiven but he had no idea he did because it didn t get into his heart. He was consumed with winning the king s grace by getting together the wherewithal to pay him back. This is such an astute picture of Human Nature, human pride in our own accomplishments, and of fleshly preoccupation with our own ability to make our own way. We have this magnanimous King Jesus, Son of God Almighty, who has offered us full and free pardon for our sins by taking them away from us. Instead of receiving by faith His offer of grace, mercy, and forgiveness, and welcoming Him to live in our hearts, we attempt to secure our own standing with Him by doing our lists of good deeds. But at even darker levels of revelation of our human ways, it is a very real picture of how little we recognize our own forgiveness of our five million dollar debt load of sins committed when we stand in Judgment of the Sins and failures of Others. I would certainly never act like that wretched person. We demonstrate how little of Jesus forgiveness we are walking in when we decide to withhold forgiveness from someone because they have sinned against us, or they have done wrong to us, or hurt us deeply. We demonstrate how little Jesus forgiveness lives in our hearts when we choose to be resentful and bitter about something that happened back there, excusing our bitter attitudes to anyone who will listen! Personal Application to Us: Matthew 18:32 35 Then the master called the servant in. You wicked servant, he said, 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? In anger 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. Our Lord Jesus doesn t leave us any room to misinterpret the central focus of this parable does He? He says in the same way the king reinstated the debts of the man who owed him five million dollars, our Father God will hold us in His debt unless we forgive people who have hurt us in the past, and forgive them deeply from the heart. 9

10 The central message of this kingdom story is that we are each called to have a childlike heart of humility and forgiveness. All of us get hurt in life. We are each responsible to engage with the Lord God, embrace His forgiveness for us, and give away His forgiveness to others. --All sins die on the cross with Jesus the ones I did and feel sorrow for, and the ones done to me, which have caused me great pain of heart and soul. --I am responsible to freely give to others what Jesus has so freely given to me. --The kingdom ethic is that I am to forgive others even as my heavenly Father has forgiven me in Christ Jesus. 10