Forgive with the compassion Jesus showed you.

 

Sermon for Trinity 22, October 23, 2022

Abundant love, undeserved mercy, and redeeming grace be yours from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Matthew 18:23-35  "Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.  ²⁴ "And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.  ²⁵ "But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made.  ²⁶ "The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, 'Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.'  ²⁷ "Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.  ²⁸ "But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!'  ²⁹ "So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.'  ³⁰ "And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.  ³¹ "So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done.  ³² "Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, 'You wicked servant!  I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.  ³³ 'Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?'  ³⁴ "And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.  ³⁵ "So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses." (NKJ)

Forgive with the compassion Jesus showed you.

Dear fellow redeemed,

Peter came to Jesus asking, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?  Up to seven times?" (Matthew 18:21)  That interchange should open our eyes to Jesus’ great patience with the human race.  Like Peter, we often focus on what we must do.  Of course, Peter’s question might be totally innocent, but, so often, we find ourselves wondering how long we have to keep forgiving people who offend us so much.  It’s even been a problem in churches throughout history.  How, it is asked, dare we forgive unless we know a person is truly repentant?  And like Peter, we wonder what if he sins again, should his sin be forgiven time and time again?  Surely, that would just lead to anarchy, wouldn’t it, if someone can sin again and again yet still be forgiven? 

Chapter eighteen of Matthew’s Gospel is all about forgiveness and, how Jesus wants, so much, for His forgiveness and salvation to be shared with every person on earth.  The whole chapter speaks about the kingdom of heaven.  It begins as Jesus tells us that the greatest in the kingdom of heaven will have faith like a little child.  He then tells the parable of the lost sheep and how the shepherd will leave everything behind to find the lost one.  Jesus goes on to instruct us on restoring an erring brother, and finally in answer to Peter’s question, He tells this parable of the unmerciful servant.  Thus, upon hearing this parable, we Christians should learn to Forgive with the compassion Jesus showed you.

Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven with a human king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.  We don’t see this type of political arrangement so much anymore, but the people of Jesus’ day would have been very familiar with the picture.  In the scene before us, the king is the source of all power and wealth in the kingdom, and he has been generously assisting those who work his land and property so that they could be productive servants for his kingdom and good providers for their own families.  However, the day to payback those loans had now arrived.

One of the first servants, brought in, is found to be in a dreadful predicament.  He had somehow accumulated a debt of 10,000 talents, far more than anyone could ever hope to repay.  How he came to owe such a fantastic sum is anyone’s guess.  One estimate I found claims his debt would have been six hundred thousand times more than he was owed by his fellow servant, the one he proceeded to treat so shamefully—six hundred thousand times as much!  It’s also estimated that it would take the wicked servant sixty million days of work to earn enough just to equal this huge debt, which if your keeping track, is about one hundred sixty-four thousand years of daily labor.  There is no way he could ever repay, yet his king forgave every bit of the balance, simply because the king was merciful. 

Now, that servant didn’t really ask for mercy, but rather, for more time to pay.  He still imagined he could repay his master, so I wonder if he went out and demanded payment from his fellow servant, because he was ashamed to admit that he was forgiven?  Either that or his wickedness truly ran deep.

This newly debt-free servant went out, mistreated his fellow servant and threw him into debtors’ prison because his friend couldn’t immediately return a trifling amount.  In shock, that poor man’s friends went to the master of the kingdom begging for his intervention.  We all know how the master reacted.  In righteous anger because the man couldn’t find it in his heart to cancel his friend’s tiny loan, the king sentenced that ungrateful man, who had received such great mercy, to torment until every last penny of his debt would be repaid, in other words forever.

Now, what does all of this have to do with you and me?  Well, I could say that we are like Peter, who wanted to make sure he forgave his fellow believer enough, but maybe not too much.  Or I could say that we are like the poor man who owed a little.  Yet, Jesus is teaching us that we are the servant who had that vast unpayable debt forgiven by our king.  Does that strike you as a little hard to believe?  How could you and I have accumulated such a great debt of sin when we seem to be such good people?  God answers that “the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth;” (Genesis 8:21) and Isaiah tells us that “All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth.” (Isaiah 64:6)  The reality is that every day, we are doing and thinking things that are not God-pleasing.  We like to think we live pretty good lives, and in the eyes of the world we may even appear to do so, but we do not, ever, measure up to the perfect holiness God demands.  Therefore, our sin debt owed to God is accumulating every moment of our lives.

At the same time, we are also like that ungrateful servant in that we have been released from our un-payable debt by our King.  Solely because He is good and merciful, our King cancelled our debt, marking all our accounts as completely and finally forgiven and forgotten by our King, because “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.  And he has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)  

For us, payment was fully made for all of our filthiness.  All of our sin-debt was removed from us and charged to Christ, and because Jesus paid with His life on our behalf, our sin-debts were erased.  So, if we have been forgiven for the sin found in every moment of our lives, how could we dare think that we have the right to withhold forgiveness from anyone else? 

In one of his sermons, Luther explained that we often seek justice when we feel that someone has hurt us.  Justice is a part of the kingdom of the world, and God gives earthly government the right and authority to apply justice in this world, but the kingdom of heaven, Luther says, “is a state or government in which there is nothing but forgiveness of sins.”  Justice has no part in the Church.  Rather, the Church is here for grace.  The Church is here to share God’s mercy with sinners like you and me.

Therefore, if we would withhold forgiveness from any other individual, we are demanding justice for crimes that have already received due penalty.  Consequently, Jesus teaches, here, that in our unrighteous demand for justice, we become subject, once more, to God’s justice, from which there will be no escape.  We should realize this because we even ask that this be so every time we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  In those words, we plead for God to hold our un-forgiveness against us. 

Dear friends, how often have we been quick to judge another person as too guilty for our forgiveness?  How often do we find ourselves holding onto a grudge, if even for only a moment?  How often are we tempted to become angry with a fellow believer, rather than humbly turning the other cheek?  How often do we demand “You owe me an apology!” even though we know that all their sins were forgiven by the same God who has forgiven ours?  How often don’t we act like the wicked servant of our text who grabbed his fellow servant by the throat in a choke hold while demanding recompense?  If this doesn’t sound like you, be careful, lest you lie to yourself.  It’s natural for sinners to want justice for our hurts, but as Christians, we learn to Forgive with the compassion Jesus showed you.

God’s justice is a fierce and awful thing.  God’s perfect justice demands that every last bit of debt be paid, that every last moment of punishment earned be meted out, but thanks be to God’s love for us, every last little bit of our sin-debt has been paid for on the cross by God’s own dear Son, our One and only Savior.  It is also there at the cross of Jesus that true believers fall in abject humility, recognizing God’s great mercy that would punish His own dear Son rather than pour out His wrath on a bunch of ungrateful sinners who want justice from each other for the minor ills we inflict upon each other.

My friends, when you want justice, look to the cross.  If you want to see sin punished, look to the bloody wounds on Jesus’ head and hands and feet.  Look to the spear hole in His holy side.  From that wound poured out blood and water so that we could be washed clean by His holy water in our baptisms, and so that we could drink from His righteous blood in the Lord’s Supper. 

This sermon text hit me hard as I thought about the many times I have flown off the handle in my life, angry at someone who offended me when a word of mercy would have been more appropriate.  I saw my sin piled up on my Friend, Jesus.  Jesus took all the punishment I deserve so that His Father, in His justice, could say to me, "Friend, your sins are forgiven." (Luke 5:20)  If Jesus took that punishment so that all my sin could be wiped away, how could I not Forgive with the compassion Jesus showed me?

The wicked servant of our text wanted more time to repay his master an un-payable debt but demanded immediate justice from his fellow servant.  Ask yourself if that’s the kind of bargain you want to make with God.  Most likely each of us has at one time or another held onto some hurt for a while.  Most likely we have gone to bed angry with a spouse or left work feeling upset with a co-worker.  Most likely there are a few of us who have even stayed away from church for a time, so that we didn’t have to be in the same room with someone who hurt us. 

What about Jesus?  Did He stay away from us when we hurt Him?  Thank the Lord, He did not.  Our dear Savior entered this world, specifically, to take away everything about us that was offensive to God.  All that perfect justice we want to inflict on others, Jesus took on Himself, and because Jesus paid for sins of the whole world, He commands His followers, “Love your enemies.  Do good to those who hate you.  Bless those who curse you.  Pray for those who mistreat you.  If someone strikes you on one cheek, offer the other too.” (Luke 6:27-29)  Jesus doesn’t want us seeking justice for sins for which He already paid.  Rather, He wants us to share His grace and mercy in a sinful and hurting world.

Earlier in this chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus said, "Amen I tell you: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 18:18)  We call this the office of the keys.  The purpose of the Church, that is, the purpose of all true believers in Christ Jesus as Savior, is to love by releasing the sins of those who repent.  We are not here to seek justice, because justice for all sin has already been accomplished on the cross.

If you are feeling a little guilty now, about some sin you have not released, or some hurt you have not forgiven, remember that God has said, “I will be their God, and they will be my people.… ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.’” (Jeremiah 31:33-34)  We are not forgiven because we repent.  We are forgiven solely because of God’s great mercy and Jesus’ holy life and innocent sacrifice.  We repent because God has already forgiven all our sins.  We seek the repentance of others, likewise, because God has forgiven their sins for Jesus’ sake as well, and He wants them, too, to know and believe it. 

Dear friends, for Jesus’ sake, God has forgiven all of your sins and the sins of everyone else in the world.  How could we ever dare not to share His grace at every opportunity?  Rather, may we always joyfully Forgive with the compassion Jesus showed you.  Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.