The Unmerciful Servant Forgiving Others People Jesus Met, Part 26 Lon Solomon McLean Bible Church November 29, 2009 You know, the year was 1995. The scene was the PGA Mercedes golf championship. The situation was this. Craig Stadler was milling around the first tee as his tee time of 8:02 a.m. approached. He was waiting for veteran starter Bob Fulton to announce him. When Fulton failed to do so, Stadler finally went ahead and teed off anyway. The problem was that, by the time he actually struck his ball, it was 8:03 a.m. Well, on the next tee, tournament officials informed Stadler that he was being assessed a two-stroke penalty for teeing off late. He protested vehemently and said, I was standing right around the tee. The man never announced me! When they wouldn t listen to that, he pleaded for clemency, all to no avail. The PGA director of rules said, It was cut and dried. He wasn t on the tee at 8:02, and that s that. By the way, Craig Stadler lost the Mercedes championship that year by guess how many strokes? Two. You got it exactly right. The point is that sometimes we live in a very unforgiving world. This is not only true when it comes to golf; it s true when it comes to all of life. I mean, just listen to people s every day conversations around you oozing with hard feeling, malice, venom and lack of forgiveness for other people who have hurt them and wounded them. Well, this is what we re going to talk about today, because we re in a series entitled People Jesus Met. Today Jesus has a meeting with Peter in which the topic of mercy and forgiveness is the central point of discussion. We want to go back 2000 years and see what Jesus said to Peter, and then, as always, we want to bring that forward to today and say, Well, what difference does that make to me? So Matthew chapter 18 is our passage, and we re going to begin at verse 21. Then Peter came to Jesus and said, Lord, how many times must I forgive my fellow man when he sins against me, up to seven times? You see, the rabbis in Jesus day had a saying that went like this, If a person sins against you once, forgive him. If a
second and a third time, forgive him, but if a fourth time, do not forgive him. And so, in suggesting that he forgive someone seven times, Peter certainly thought he was going above and beyond the call of duty. I mean, for goodness sake, he took the standard the rabbis were using, and he more than doubled it! But you know, there was a problem. That problem was in the very nature of the question that Peter was asking. You see, Peter s question implies that at some point, whether it s after three offenses or ten offenses or a hundred offenses what difference does it make? at some point, it s okay to refuse to forgive somebody. This is an error that Jesus quickly corrects. Verse 22, Jesus answered and said, Peter, I tell you, not up to seven times but up to seventy times seven. Now Jesus is not saying here, friends, that when somebody sins against us for the 491 st time, we don t have to forgive them anymore. What he is saying is that, as followers of Jesus Christ, our forgiveness toward other people must be infinite. To press that point home, Jesus tells a little story. He tells Peter a story that we know today as the parable of the unmerciful servant. Let me just say as we begin to look at this parable that the truth that s in this parable is for followers of Jesus Christ only. If you re here today and you re not a reborn believer in Jesus, hey, you may enjoy the parable we re about to study. It may even intellectually stimulate you, but you will never be able to understand the true power in this story, you will never be able to be gripped by the real message of this parable until you have experienced the unspeakable mercy and forgiveness of God at the cross. Now if you re here today and you are a follower of Christ and you understand and have experienced that mercy and forgiveness, then friends, listen up, because this story is for you, and it s for me too. The story has three scenes, like a little play, so here we go. Scene one, Therefore, Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. And as he began to do this, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Now ten thousand talents is a huge sum of
money. In today s money, it s about five billion dollars. The point, of course, is that this was an utterly, absolutely unpayable sum of money. Verse 25, But since the man didn t have the means to repay the debt, the king ordered that he be sold into slavery, along with his wife and his children and all that he owned. Then the servant fell on his knees and prostrated himself before the king and said, Please have patience with me, and I will pay back everything. Please notice that this man didn t ask the king to forgive the debt. He didn t ask the king to cancel the debt. I mean, no amount of chutzpah would have possibly expected someone to just write off a debt that size. He asked instead for a much smaller mercy; he simply asked for more time to pay it off, which we already agreed he could never do. Verse 27, Then the king felt compassion for him and canceled the entire debt -- five billion dollars! and set the man free. Now you talk about mercy! You talk about forgiveness! You talk about compassion! Holy smokes! That s the end of scene one. Scene two, But when that servant went out, he encountered a fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii. A hundred denarii was a modest sum; in today s money, it would be about $7500. You say, Lon, as far as I m concerned, $7500 is a lot of money. Well, I agree. It is for me too, but look. Compared to $5 billion, we re talking chicken feed here. We re talking small potatoes here. We re talking bumpkis by comparison, if you understand what I m saying. Verse 29, Then this fellow servant fell to his knees and said, Please have patience with me, and I will pay back everything. Do these words that he said sound vaguely familiar? Well, yeah! They re the exact same words verbatim, word for word, what the first servant had just said to the king a few minutes before. Verse 30, But the first servant refused to listen. Instead he had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. So as scene number two comes to an end, we find the servant who had received infinite mercy unwilling to show even the smallest mercy to a person that owed him much less. Scene three, When the other servants saw what had happened, they were deeply saddened, and they went and they told the king all that had taken place. Then
the king called the servant in and said, You wicked servant! I canceled all your debt, simply because you begged me to. Shouldn t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you? See, this servant s lack of forgiveness would not have been so outrageous if it weren t for the fact that he had just been forgiven $5 billion worth of debt! This is the great indictment against this man, that after being forgiven so much, he refused to forgive so little. Verse 34, Then in anger, the king turned the servant over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all that he owed. Now watch. Jesus concludes His story by saying, And this is how My heavenly Father will react to each of you if you do not forgive your fellow man from your heart. You say, Uh oh, wait, stop! What does that mean, Lon? I mean, what in the world does that mean? Is Jesus saying that if we don t forgive our fellow man from our hearts, then He s going to take away our salvation, He s going to yank away our eternal life? No, no, no! Friends, we must interpret Scripture with Scripture, and when we look at the rest of the Scripture, we find that the Bible is crystal clear. When we trust Christ and what He did for us on the cross as payment for our sin, God makes us an airtight promise that, as Jesus said in John 10:28, we will never perish. So whatever this means, we know what it cannot mean. It cannot mean that God revokes our salvation if we refuse to forgive somebody, because then Scripture would be contradicting Scripture, and that never happens. So whatever Jesus is talking about here, it s not eternal forgiveness of our sins. You say, Well, all right, so then what in the world is He talking about? Well, having studied this passage in depth, I believe with all of my heart that what Jesus is saying here is that on an everyday level as followers of Christ, if we refuse to forgive other people who sin against us, God will treat our everyday sins against Him with greater severity and less mercy. To put it another way, do you know how, as followers of Christ, we all do sinful, stupid, just dumb things? You know how we do that? If you don t know the answer to that question, it is, Yes, you do! (laughter) Okay, and you know how after we do stuff like that, we come to God and go, Oh God, I m so sorry. Please forgive me. That
was so stupid. Lord, be merciful to me. Please don t punish me. I know that was a stupid thing to do, and Lord, You know all the bad consequences that what I just did could possibly bring on me. Lord, in Your mercy and compassion, please don t let any of those things happen to me. And you know how often God answers that prayer in mercy and compassion, and how often He steps in and pulls us out of our own muck, and how often He steps in and dusts our trail? You know what I m talking about. I ve been there more times than I know how to count! What I believe Jesus is saying here in Matthew 18:35 is that if we refuse to show the kind of mercy and compassion to other people that we re asking for from God, then God is going to show a whole lot less of that mercy and compassion to us. You say, Well, Lon, is there any other verse in the Scripture that supports that? Oh yeah, there are a number of them! How about James 2:13? This is written to believers now. Listen. James says, For he who has shown no mercy shall have judgment without mercy. You say, Now that is a scary thought! I mean, that is a little terrifying, and it just sounds like God is being a little harsh on us there, don t you think? Well, not when we figure out who s who in this parable. When we get everybody situated right in this story, it makes perfect sense that God would react like that. Let s go back and do that. Let s figure out who s who in the parable. The king that forgave the servant $5 billion who do you think that is? That s God; that s exactly right. And the servant who owed the king ten thousand talents, $5 billion who do you think that is? Well, raise your hands. There you go. That s right; it s you and me. We all owed God a sin debt that we could never pay. Psalm 130:3 says, If You, Lord, should keep a record of sins, oh Lord, who could stand? The answer is nobody, and yet in His awesome mercy, look. God didn t just merely reduce the debt that we owed Him. God forgave it all. God canceled it all! God wiped it out of existence and let us go free. Colossians 2:13 says, When we were dead in our sins, God forgave us for what s the next word? all our sins and what s the next word? canceled the debt against us, taking it out of the way by nailing it to the cross. Hallelujah and hallelujah for that!
Now who was the fellow servant that owed this guy a hundred denarii? Who was that? Well, friends, that s all of the people around you and me, our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers and our relatives who sin against us, who hurt us, and who wound us, but whose offenses against us are miniscule compared to the offenses that we had against almighty God. It s like a hundred denarii vs. ten thousand talents. It s like $7500 vs. $5 billion. Okay? So now that we ve correctly identified everybody in the parable, I think the point of the story is unmistakable. The point is that, as reborn believers in Jesus Christ, you and I have no right to refuse to forgive anybody for anything at any time in light of the forgiveness and the mercy that God has shown to you and me. To put it another way, God expects a forgiven man to forgive. God expects a pardoned woman to pardon, and God expects recipients of mercy to show mercy. Jesus says here, As far as God is concerned, this is not optional. It is mandatory. Now that s as far as we re going to go in the passage, because it s time for us to ask our most important question! This is the 12:30 service, so don t let me down. Don t let me down! All right, here we go, nice and loud. One, two, three SO WHAT? Oh, God bless you people! (laughter) You say, Lon, you know what? Honestly, you re doing a pretty good job of preaching so far today, but you know what? You just don t get it. You don t get it. See, I ve been hurt so badly by some people that honestly, I don t really want to forgive them. Honestly, even if I did want to forgive them, I don t think I can. The power to do it is just not there, and yet you re standing up there and telling me that God says I must forgive them. So my question to you, Solomon, is first of all, where do I get the motivation to even want to forgive them? Second of all, even if I have the motivation, where do I get the power to be able to do this, because I don t have it? Well, those are great questions. I suggest we answer them one at a time. What do you think? Question number one, as followers of Jesus Christ, where can we, where should we get the motivation so that we want to forgive other people who have sinned against us from our heart? The Bible answers this question in no uncertain terms. Colossians 3:13 says, Forgive others just as the Lord forgave you. Ephesians 4:32 says we
should forgive one another, just as in Christ, God forgave you. Matthew 18:32 do you remember what the king said? the king said, Shouldn t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? Look, for a true Christian who has experienced the mercy and the forgiveness of almighty God for all their sins, friends, listen. These words have enormous power in our lives. How can you and I, how can we refuse to show mercy to other people in light of the incredible mercy, the undeserved mercy, the overwhelming mercy that almighty God has shown to us? How can we do that? One of my favorite people is Corrie ten Boom. I never had the privilege of meeting her, but I love her anyway because of who she was. If you don t know who this lady was, Corrie ten Boom was actually living in Holland at the outbreak of World War II with her family, her mom, her dad, her brothers and sisters. They were wonderful believers in Christ. When the war broke out and the Nazis began to hunt Jewish people down and send them to concentration camps, Corrie and her family hid Jewish people from the Nazis until finally they were caught. Then the Nazis sent them to concentration camp as well; they were not Jewish, but they sent them anyway. All of Corrie s family died in concentration camps. She was the only member of the family to survive. One of the worst camps they were sent to was Ravensbruck. When she and her sister were there, they were especially mistreated by this one particular guard. Well, years later after the war, Corrie tells the story of speaking at an evangelistic meeting in Germany. After the meeting was over, she was standing at the front of the church. She looked up, and down the center aisle, she sees this guard from Ravensbruck making his way down the aisle toward her. She said that suddenly all the pain and the horror that he had caused her and her sister at that awful camp came flooding back. She could feel herself just starting to panic. This man walked up to her. He wouldn t even look her in the face, but looking down at the ground and stammering, he said, Miss ten Boom, I came to ask you if you would forgive me for what I did to you and your sister. She said, There he stood before me, seeking my mercy and forgiveness, just as I had stood before Jesus Christ
one day, begging Him for His mercy and forgiveness. In light of what God had done for me, what else could I do but forgive him? She concludes by saying, God flooded my heart with compassion for this poor man. I reached out and hugged him, and we both stood there and wept. Listen here, every time you and I as Christians need motivation to forgive someone, all we have to do, ladies and gentlemen, is look at the cross. That s all we ve got to do. After all that Jesus did for us at the cross, my, how could we ever refuse, how dare we ever think about refusing to show a little mercy to others in light of the huge mercy God has shown to us? You say, All right, Lon, fair enough. I get that. Let s say I actually want to forgive this person. That still doesn t help me, because I don t have the power to do it. It s not in me to do it. They hurt me so badly. It s just not possible. Well, listen, friends, the Bible addresses that too. The Bible tells us that no matter how deeply you and I have been hurt and no matter how impossible forgiveness may seem, Luke 18:27 says, The things that are impossible with men are possible with God. You say, But Lon, how does God do that? I mean, what s the mechanism? How does He take a heart like mine that is hardened with bitterness and malice and soften it into a heart of mercy and forgiveness? You know what? I don t have the slightest idea how God does that. I don t. But that doesn t mean it isn t real. Folks, look. I don t know exactly know how penicillin works, but I know if I take it long enough, my sore throat goes away. By the same token, I may not know exactly how God changes a heart of malice and anger into a soft heart of compassion and pity, but I know that when I ask God long enough and often enough to do that, then supernatural healing takes place in my heart, and suddenly the power to forgive is there. Listen, I know whereof I speak. Growing up, my mom and my relationship was probably as bad a relationship between a parent and a child as I ve ever seen. My mother tried to dominate me while I was growing up. She tried to control me. She tried to eviscerate me. I grew up with a hatred for my mother that was deep and that was violent. I am convinced that all the dysfunctionality and all the unhealthiness of
the first twenty years of my life can be traced back to, more than any other reason, that hatred and that malice that I had toward my mom. Then I became a believer, and then I started reading the Bible. Then I read Matthew 18, the parable of the unmerciful servant, and I went, Uh oh. Lord, if I got everybody identified in this story correctly, if I ve got me placed correctly and have my mom placed correctly, then Lord, I ve got some work to do, don t I? I got on my knees and said, You know, Lord Jesus, because of this parable, in obedience to You, I am willing to forgive my mom. That s the first time I d ever said that in my life. But Lord, I don t know how to do that. I do not have the capacity to do that, so if You ll change my heart, if You ll take that anger and that malice out of my heart and replace it with the power to forgive, You have my word that I will do it, but God, I can t do this myself. I prayed that prayer consistently for over two years. All I can tell you is that, at the end of a little over two years, God changed my heart. I can t explain to you how He did it. What difference does it make how He did it? God took out of me the malice and the hatred and replaced it with pity and compassion for my mom. After this, I went to see her in Atlanta. I said, Lord, You know, if the discussion comes up, I m willing to get into it and tell her what s going on. We were sitting there one evening; it was just me and my mom, the two of us. She turned to me and said, You know, you have hated me all of your life, haven t you? I thought, Okay, here we go! I guess this is the moment. (laughter) I said, Yes, Mom, I have. I ll tell you why, because you tried to dominate me. You tried to control me. You violated my very personhood, and I hated you for that, but I want to tell you something. It was not okay what you did to me then, but because of what Jesus Christ has done in my life, Mom, it s okay now. At the end of that discussion, my mom and I hugged each other for the first time in twenty years, and it was genuine. That was the greatest moment in our relationship. As a result of that, my mom came to Christ several years later, and far more importantly, as a result of that, God released me from prison, from the gall of bitterness and the bondage of hatred and malice, so that as a young Christian, I could go on to
have a healthy family and to serve Christ with a healthy life. I m telling you, what happened in my heart, friends, was supernatural healing. No scalpel could have done that. No pill could have done that. No counselor could have done that. Only God could do that. Let me tell you the great news! Listen, here s the great news. God is willing to do it for anybody who wants it, for anybody! By way of balance, I should say before we close that forgiving another person does not mean that we go right back into a destructive relationship with them. I mean, if you have a business partner who cheated you, forgiveness doesn t mean that you agree to start another business with this guy. If you have a husband who beat you physically and abused you, forgiving that man does not mean that you move back in with him immediately. If you have a friend who betrayed you, forgiving that lady doesn t necessarily mean that you re-establish a friendship with her so that she can betray you again. Folks, listen. Forgiveness means that by God s supernatural power and healing, I am able to declare those hurts as ancient history. It wasn t okay what they did to you and me then, but by the grace of God, it s okay now. Forgiveness means I m able to move on with my life. I m able to serve Christ in a new and healthy way, liberated from malice and anger. This is forgiveness. For some of us here today, I believe this is the greatest need in our life. We need to forgive some people. Let me ask you in closing, is there an abusive parent in your life? Is there a prison guard or two in your life? Hey, we just celebrated Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe you had some people in your house and on the outside you pasted it on, but on the inside, every time you saw them, you were like razzinfrazzin-mumble-mumble. (laughter) Hey, let s be real. Friends, the question is, in obedience to God, are you ready and willing to ask God to give you the power to forgive this person once and for all from your heart? Whether they ask for it or not, it doesn t matter. Are you willing to hold on to God and not let go of Him until He gives you that change of heart and that power, because you are committed to forgiving them in obedience to God? Well, folks, God is ready if you are. Let s pray.
With our heads bowed and our eyes closed and nobody looking around, if that s really where you are today with someone who has hurt you and wounded you deeply, if in obedience to God, you are really willing to say, Lord, I ll forgive them, but You ve just got to change my heart. However, I m so committed to do this in obedience to You, I m not going to let go of You until You do change my heart, if that s where you are, then with heads bowed and eyes closed, I d like you to tell God that you re serious by raising your hand. You can put it right back down. Would anybody like to say, Lord, that s me? God bless you. Thank you. For some of you, this commitment will be one of the greatest commitments you ve made in your entire life. I want to pray for you. Lord Jesus, I m reminded of the words of the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 12, where he said, As much as it lies with me, I am at peace with all men. Father, this is liberty! This is freedom! This is healthiness. For many of us here, You want to give us that same testimonial, but there are maybe a couple people standing in the way that we need to deal with in our hearts. So Lord Jesus, for all the people who raised their hands and even for those who didn t but are willing to make that commitment, I want to pray that You would honor what they have done today, and God, that You would change their heart like You did mine. Take out of them that heart of stone, full of malice and hatred, and give them a heart of flesh, full of compassion and mercy and pity. Lord, we don t really care how You do it; just do it. Help us to hold onto You and not turn loose until it s done. Change our lives because we were here today, Father. For many of us, may we look back on this day, this service, this moment as one of the fulcrum points in our life, because it s when we began to become free. We pray these things and thank You for Your power that can do this in our hearts, in Jesus name, and God s people said, amen.