Sunday, September 13, 2020
Matthew 18:21 – 35
Online Sermon Preached by Rev. Dr. Harold E. Kidd

"THE Toll OF FORGIVENESS"

" Then the principal called the retainer in, 'Yous wicked servant,' he said,
'I cancelled all that debt of yours considering you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your swain servant just equally I had on you?" – Matthew 18:32

Some of yous might retrieve a comedy that came out in 1992 featuring Eddie White potato, Robin Givens, and Halle Berry entitled "Boomerang".  The storyline had to practise with personalities in a posh New York Advertising Firm in which one of the primary characters played past Potato was a histrion-player.  He was the ladies' man.  Until he met and began to fall in love with Robin Givens.  And and so the player got played.  Therefore the title of the motion picture, boomerang.  What comes effectually goes around.

And the Boomerang effect, what comes effectually goes around, is zilch new to God, because He invented its very principle. "Cast your bread upon the waters, and it shall return to you in certain days."  (Ecclesiastes 11:i)  "Give, and it will be given to you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will exist poured out into your lap.  For with what mensurate you use, it volition exist measured to yous."  (Luke half-dozen:38)  "Practise not exist deceived, God cannot be mocked.  We reap what we sow." Yes, God invented the principle of the boomerang event.  What comes around goes effectually.  What we requite out, whether information technology be for adept or for bad, will certainly come back to us in due season.

In the Parable of the Unforgiving Retainer, the disciple Peter came to Jesus asking the question, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my blood brother when he sins against me?  Up to seven times?"  Part of the Rabbinical didactics was that people should forgive those who offended them- but only 3 times.  So, Peter, trying to be more generous than the Rabbis, maybe trying to impress Jesus, asked the Lord if 7, being the perfect number, was enough times to forgive someone.

But Jesus' response to Peter surprised Peter and it might surprise many of u.s., because the Lord'due south response was seventy times seven, pregnant we should forgive a person every bit often as they are in demand of being forgiven, and show some sincerity for their wrongs, no thing how many times they ask.  True Forgiveness doesn't keep records, according to Jesus.  And to assistance Peter and the other disciples understand what truthful forgiveness entails, Jesus tells this Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.

The Kingdom says Jesus, is like a king who wanted to settle his accounts.  Equally he began the settlement, 1 of his debtors who owed him ten,000 talents, which some suggest would be equal to almost 12million by today's precious metallic standards of golden, or silver; was brought to him and non able to pay, this servant begged for mercy, at the threat of his entire family beingness sold into slavery to repay the debt.  Which was a common practice in the days of Jesus.

Because this servant begged for mercy and seemed sincere most it, the king gave him pardon exemplified in forgiving him of the debt he owed.  Only when the servant went out, he found one of his swain servants who owed him a hundred denari, far less than what he had owed the male monarch, grabbed him, and began to choke him, demanding he pay back the coin he owed him.  Similar he had done before the king, this young man servant begged the unforgiving servant to be patient with him, promising he would pay him back in time, just the unforgiving servant refused.

When the other servants saw how he had mistreated a fellow servant while himself had been forgiven by the rex for a much larger debt, they went and told the king, and every bit you can imagine, the rex became furious, chosen the unforgiving retainer in, turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed.  1 of the interesting notes most this parable is that being thrown into prison until ane paid dorsum a debt was next to incommunicable unless the person sold off their landholdings, or their relatives to pay off the debt.

Given the fact that this unforgiving servant couldn't repay what he owed the king, and the king had initially forgiven him, simply at present considering of his refusal to forgive another servant, he now found himself in a far worse condition than when he started.  The boomerang principle came into effect, his unwillingness to forgive another servant after he himself had been forgiven somewhen caught up with him.

When nosotros accept a deeper dive into this text, the king in this parable is God, who is the one who has been offended, by a sinful humanity and who initiates and offers forgiveness to his unjust servants, the states.  And like the unforgiving retainer we have sinned against God more others have sinned against us, David declared in the 51st Psalm, "Confronting you lot only have I sinned and done this smashing wrong."

David recognized that while he did sin against Uriah, in taking his married woman and having him killed, ultimately, his sin was against God.  And since God offers His forgiveness to us regardless of our offenses, He expects us to do the aforementioned.  If the retainer had been transformed by the grace and mercy of his king, he would have been sympathetic to his young man servant who owed him money, and forgiven him as he had been forgiven by the king.

Ane of the challenges we all face is to forgive people who have injure us deeply, or maybe nosotros have hurt them, and who will be the one who is going to pace forward to offer forgiveness.  Sometimes it's non the person who has done the wrong, like this unforgiving servant, simply sometimes information technology's the person who has been wronged, who is the victim, who has been treated unfairly, who offers forgiveness.  Forgiveness is always a choice.  And it frees one from the bitterness of hurt, resentment and a need to practice "an eye for an eye."

And the moral of this parable taught by Jesus is that, when we realize how much God has forgiven us of our many sins, and how He forgives us over and once again without keeping a record, as we sincerely apologize of our sins, it should produce in u.s.a. a free and generous attitude of forgiveness towards others.  Psalms 103: 12 says, "As a Far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us."  If God continually shows u.s. some grace and mercy, shouldn't we treat one another with the same empathy and compassion?  God, who is the King in this parable, becomes the standard for how we are to forgive others.

When we don't forgive others as in the case of this unforgiving servant, nosotros are setting ourselves outside of Christ grace and mercy of having forgiven the states, and what comes around will somewhen come dorsum to the states.  Jesus says it this way in the Lord'southward Prayer (Matthew 6), "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."  Or in some versions, Forgive usa our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against united states." A debt is something owed.  And this petition is in the Lord's Prayer because it reminds united states of america that we have a sin debt that we could never pay.  That's why God sent Jesus, who paid at Calvary the debt nosotros owed God considering of our sins. "And the Lord has laid upon Him, the iniquity of us all."

And when you take time, notice in the Lord's Prayer that Jesus links the petition of our demand for daily staff of life with the petition of our need for daily forgiveness.  Suggesting we demand both God's provision and His forgiveness on a daily basis.  In the Lord'due south Prayer, Jesus links forgiveness from God with our forgiveness of others.  Which could be understood to mean that our forgiveness of others will set the tone for the Father's forgiveness of u.s..  And then, when nosotros are praying "Lord, Forgive us every bit we forgive others, we're actually proverb to God, "I want your mercy to be shown to me and and so through me to others."  Something the unforgiving retainer failed to do.  He did non want to offer to others what the king had offered to him.

Author Bob Hostetler, in his awarding of this verse from the Lord's Prayer, says, "No matter how deeply I feel someone has hurt me, I can cull – today- in realization of the grace God has shown me, to extend mercy to others.  I don't have to drag up any warm feelings of those people.  Merely I tin decline to retaliate.  I tin can wipe the slate clean.  I can forgive that debt.  I tin pray, 'Forgive united states of america today equally nosotros are forgiving others.'"  And every bit I exercise that, 24-hour interval by day (he continues), I volition be forgiven and I will experience the healing and wholeness that comes from releasing others' sins against me.  And, day by day, be released of sins' concord on me besides."

How desperate our world is this morning on the weekend commemorating the 19th Ceremony of 9/11.  And yet when we look at our nation and world, acts of domestic and national terrorism are occurring every day in many ways.  And maybe God is putting the globe on notice, in our domestic and strange relationships, equally we meet how violence begets violence, and hate begets hate, to the bulletin of Jesus concerning the kingdom principle of forgiveness.  Practicing an "heart for and heart and a tooth for a tooth", simply results in everyone ending up bullheaded and toothless.

And lest nosotros forget; the greatest human action of terrorism the world has ever known was confronting the Son of God, when they crucified Him on an erstwhile rugged Cross, yet for our sake, God forgave united states of america.  God fought the weapons of our hate and violence with the power of His love and forgiveness.  God did not win the war on the terrorism of sin with military machine might, bombs and bullets, or a legion of angels, but through the blood sacrifice of His Son.

God liberated us from the bondage of violence in offering u.s.a. His forgiveness. "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."  Forgiveness is the holy way of the Cross.  And as we follow the teachings of Jesus to forgive others as we have been forgiven, we release the power of God'southward love and forgiveness into a world in deep demand of healing.  There are those who suffer from the emotional and mental wounds of a wrong done to them, or perchance something they've done to another person, simply the wounds will never heal without forgiving others also equally forgiving ourselves.  Forgiveness heals us and it heals others.  Amen.

Let us pray.

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