Please be seated. Our second Scripture reading is Matthew 18, 21 to 35. Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 70 times seven. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king. who wished to settle accounts with his servants. And when he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him Have patience with me and I will pay everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, He began to choke him saying, pay what you owe. So this fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused and he went and he put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servant saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed. And they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you and in anger His master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. This is the word of God. Our confessional reading It is Lord's Day 51. You may not remember, but some time ago I started a series on the Lord's Prayer. And I've kept track of your pastor a bit, and he's quite a ways away from this. So it's safe to do this. Lord's Day 51. If I read the question, will you read the answer? What does the fifth petition mean? The thematic summary for the message. I don't have titles, but I have a one-sentence summary. And that one-sentence summary is, if we want to thankfully and attentively participate in God's mission for his glory, we need to receive forgiveness from God, and we need to extend this forgiveness to others. If you remember that, you will have remembered the coat hanger on which the whole sermon hangs. And when I started my series on the Lord's Prayer, I told you that one of the ways to summarize the main theme of the Bible, and I told you, that others can do that differently. So it can be done differently. But one of the ways to summarize the main theme of the Bible, that God is on a mission for his glory. He wants to be all in all. And the beautiful thing is, and you say, well, why are we here as a congregation? What's the goal of our life? And why do we do what we do? Well, we get to participate in that mission for God's glory by bearing witness to the splendor of God's perfect life. And then I told you that if we summarize the main theme of the Bible that way, then all of scripture gives us A thousand and one ways in which you and I can participate in God's mission for His glory. If we narrow it down to prayer, one of the ways that we participate in God's mission for His glory is that we pray. And then God gives us the Lord's Prayer, and after the address, and the doxology at the end in between, you have six petitions. And each of those petitions is a very specific way in which you and I can participate in God's mission for his glory and bear witness to the splendor of God's perfect life of love to one another and to a watching world. Beloved congregation of our Lord's Prayer, if this is a thematic summary, and it is, how necessary do you and I consider to pray for our own forgiveness? and how necessary do you and I consider it to extend the forgiveness that God has given us to those who may have wronged us in one way or another? That is, in a nutshell, what you and I need to ask ourselves. The Catechism Answer gives us a little handle to help us answer that question right at the outset. The sermon will flesh that all out more, and I'll come back to it at the end. But at the outset, we can use the answer that we get in Lord's Day 51, which speaks about, it characterizes you and me as being a poor sinner. So ask yourself, To what extent do you and I consider ourselves to be poor sinners, almost like bankrupt sinners, who daily fail in participating with God's mission for His glory? by showing the splendor or the beauty of that perfect Trinitarian life of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to one another and to a watching world. We're poor sinners because we daily fail in that task. And if we were to be fruitful in that task, the more that people see the life in this local congregation, and the more people see you in your individual life and my individual life, when we do this, by the grace of God, the more they will see or catch a glimpse of the face of God. And you understand that the more we fail, the more you and I should feel that we need to pray for forgiveness. Especially because we also have a sinful nature. As I like to say, we have a virus. And so, yeah, the sins just keep coming. The failures just keep coming. I know little kids say to their parents, Mom, I couldn't help it. But, you know, in a certain sense, you know, in a certain sense, you can't help it in this life. You can help it in a way, but in another way, you can't help it because you and I are sick. We have a sinful nature. To what extent do you and I consider ourselves to be poor, wretched, sick sinners who need to pray this? And the second handle that the Catechism gives us is to what extent do you and I consider it necessary to extend the forgiveness that you and I have received to those who may have wronged us in one way or another? And I want to be pastorally sensitive. You read a lot about abuse these days, and you read a lot about sexual abuse these days. Just this past week, my wife and I listened to a podcast about that. And sadly, these things happen in the church too. And try to imagine someone who has been abused by someone else. And the command comes, you need to forgive. I don't want to be simplistic about that. I don't want to say that the person shouldn't forgive, but I want to be pastorally sensitive. Okay? It can be very, very hard. And you realize, of course, that the harder we find it to forgive someone else, and then I'm not even talking about these horrible situations. I'm talking about just we having been wronged in one way or another. That in itself can be difficult. The harder we find it, you understand of course, the more necessary it is for you and I to pray this petition. In the light of our scripture reading, we see the necessity of having to pray the fifth petition. Peter asks the Lord Jesus a question, how many times Should I forgive someone who has wronged me? Seven times? You hear what Peter is saying. He's implying that there can come a time that he can stop forgiving. Peter really has a minimalist approach to forgiving someone else. I'll do it once, twice, five times, maybe seven times, But there's going to come a time where it is, I'm justified in not forgiving someone anymore. But Jesus has a maximalist approach to forgiving someone else, not seven times, but 77 times. In other words, dear friends, you and I have to keep forgiving people who wrong us. There's never an end to that. The Lord Jesus Christ illustrates the necessity of asking for forgiveness in the parable. There's a king who has a manager, and the manager was in charge of the king's finances, and he had mismanaged the king's finances in such a way that the king was short 10,000 talents. That's a lot, that's a lot of money. I did some checking into that. Now, our text also mentions a denarius, or a hundred denarii. A denarius is a day's wage. So that other servant that he's not gonna forgive later, he owed him a hundred days wages. That's all he owed him. But this manager, he owed the king, 10,000 talents. Now they have silver talents and gold talents. And if it's correct what I read, the gold talents are worth 30 times the amount of the silver talents. So I'm going to give you the amount of the cheaper version of the silver talents. And one talent is 20 years wages. One talent is 20 years wages. And I'm not a mathematician, really, although I can do some math in my head. If one talent is 20,000 years wages, what would 10,000 talents be? You can check it at home. 200,000 years wages. That's how much he owed the king. That's how horribly he had mismanaged the king's finances. And the king wanted it back. And of course, the whole point of the parable is the man can never pay that back. It's unpayable. And of course, this is comparable to the debt that you and I owe God. because of our failure to fruitfully participate in God's mission for his glory. The debt of our failure is comparable to 200,000 years wages, something you and I can never pay off. And then you need to remember that we're sick. We have a sinful nature. We have the virus. So, you know, the amount just keeps accumulating, as it were. In the light of this, you realize, of course, why the Heidelberg Catechism refers to us as poor sinners. We really are poor, wretched sinners. It means you and I have to beg for forgiveness. And Jesus illustrates this fact that you and I need to beg for forgiveness. We can't pay that off ourselves, never. When he tells this manager that he has to pay it, and the man falls on his knees, And he begs the king to have patience with him until he will pay it back. But the man, of course, could never pay that back. The king, however, forgives the manager because the king has pity on this deficient manager. And I think the king also realizes that this massive debt that this manager owed him choked the life out of him. And so the king, by forgiving the manager, wanted to give this manager room to live and breathe again. And so he released him of his debt. If we draw the parallel to ourselves in the light of the formulation in the catechism, isn't this what God has done to us because of Christ's blood? God has forgiven us the huge, massive, unrepayable debt of our sin because he has had pity on us. It is forgiven. And God also did this because he knew that if you and I would walk around with this burden of the guilt of all of our sins on our back, as it were, it would choke the life out of us. And so in forgiving us, God has given us room to live and breathe again. And this is all the more remarkable, because God has not only forgiven us our actual sins, this is amazing, God has also forgiven us our sinful nature. That's something we can easily forget. You know, Lord forgive us our sins, and God forgives us our sins. But God, according to the Catechism, and it's true, God has also forgiven us our sinful nature. has forgiven us the fact that we're sick, has forgiven us the fact that I said, in a certain way, we can say to God, yeah, in this life, I can't help it. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this virus of sin? God has also forgiven us our sinful nature. Our text, or our scripture reading, is not only about that you and I need to ask God for the forgiveness of our failure to thankfully and attentively participate in God's mission for his glory. Our scripture reading also tells us that you and I need to extend the forgiveness that you and I have received to those around us. And just imagine if by the grace of God, and the catechism uses that as a testimony of God's grace working within us, imagine if by the grace of God you and I can do that. and we are called to participate in God's mission for his glory. God wants others in a watching world just to see how splendid and beautiful his Trinitarian love is. And then you've been wronged, and I've been wronged. And by the grace of God, We finally, perhaps through a struggle, we come to forgive someone else and others take notice. You realize what that does for God's reputation, for God's mission, for his glory. I talked with some of you, and you have a new pastor, and you wanna get working with some more evangelism in the neighborhood and elsewhere, and of course you have to talk. You need to talk about the God whom you worship, and you and I need to talk about how God wants us to live our lives, but we also witness with our lives. And imagine if a watching world Imagine if unbelievers know what you've gone through, and then they see that by the grace of God, you and I learn to forgive someone else. Again, see what that does for the glory of God. And you know what you and I are doing? We are inviting, with that kind of behavior, And it's God's grace working in and through us. With that kind of behavior, we are inviting other people into the mystery of the Lord Jesus Christ. The heart of the New Covenant. It is no longer I who live, but Christ Jesus who lives in me." Because that's why you were able to do that. It was Christ Jesus living in you, and you are inviting people to live into that mystery, the mystery of Christ, and to experience eternal life. For God so loved the world that when we believe in Jesus, we have eternal life. We participate with Jesus in that father-son love relationship that they have together. And yeah, we bear witness to God's glory. We invite them into the mystery of Christ because that is the secret of our power to be able to do that. And then, yeah, then we release them. We release them of the wrong, the sins that they have committed against us. And they don't have to live with a burden anymore. Perhaps that burden also choked the life out of them. And we release them of that burden, just like God released us of that burden. And now the sad thing is, the fellow servant, or no, the manager, the forgiven manager, he refuses to do that. I don't know what the time lapse is, but we can say no sooner was he forgiven and he leaves the king's palace and he meets someone who owes him 100 denarii. So you work at McDonald's or somewhere else, and you save up 100 days of your wages. Maybe you make a, you may not, $150 a day, you just times that by 100, and that's what this man owed him. And remember what this man himself, the manager, owed the king. 200,000! Day's wages or year's wages. Yeah, year's wages, not days. And he grabs this man, you know how that works. He just kind of grabs this guy like this and pay up, you know? And of course, the guy falls on his knees too. He's a poor sinner and a poor beggar. And he begs for forgiveness. I want my money. I want it now. He throws the guy into jail until he gets his money back. Why would this forgiven manager be so unforgiving? to this poor bloke who owed him just a little bit. Why would that be? Try to look at the man underneath the behavior. You know, just kind of make a distinction. There's that awful behavior and there's this man who is exhibiting that behavior. Now, why would this man behave that way? I believe this man behaves this way. because he has never fully accepted, through faith, his own forgiveness in Christ. And the love and the grace, which is the source of the forgiveness that he had received in Christ, had never transformed him. It had never really changed his heart. And if the love and grace that is the source of his forgiveness in Christ had really transformed him, you know what he would have done? He would have recognized himself in the face of that poor little guy who owed him just a little bit of money, and he would have forgiven him, just like he himself had been forgiven. The other servants, rightfully so, they are just totally annoyed with this manager. Maybe the other servants were in charge of some finances, too. And they hightail it straight to the king, and they just, yeah, they tattletale. They tattletale, you know, to the king, and look what this man has done. And what does the king do? He drives home the one-sentence summary of this message. Thankfully and attentively participating in God's mission for His glory involves not only receiving forgiveness yourself, but also extending forgiveness to others. If you and I have received undeserved mercy from God, you and I are morally obligated to extend this mercy, this forgiveness to someone who has wronged us. And if we persist, brothers and sisters, in not doing that, and again, I want to be pastorally sensitive. I don't know who's all sitting in the audience here. And I don't know what you have all experienced. And forgiving someone who has wronged you, I said that already, can be incredibly, incredibly difficult. I want to be pastorally sensitive. But I'm preaching on this scripture passage. And I'm preaching on the fifth petition. And in the fifth petition, we say, Father, forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. So having said that I want to be pastorally sensitive, I also have to say that if you and I persist in an unforgiving attitude towards those who have wronged us, we will be handed over to the jailers, like this manager. And the only way to interpret that you and I will be handed over to the jailers is that you and I will end up in hell. See, Jesus began the parable by saying the kingdom of heaven is compared to, and the opposite of the kingdom of heaven is hell. You either go to heaven or you go to hell. where we will experience eternal regret that we couldn't find it within ourselves. In the end, it is God's grace, of course, to forgive someone who has wronged us. And not having allowed the love and the grace of the forgiveness that we ourselves have received to transform our lives. In other words, we forfeit the forgiveness that you and I have received in Christ. I also read from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus also touches on this topic in the Sermon on the Mount. If you forgive others their trespasses, Your Heavenly Father will also forgive you your trespasses. But if you don't, okay, we're being pastorally sensitive here, it can be really, really hard. But out of the mouth of Jesus, who was the most compassionate man who ever lived on this earth, no one was more compassionate than Jesus. And Jesus still says, If you don't forgive others your trespasses, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses. In the light of our text, this does not mean that we first have to forgive someone else before God forgives us. What it does mean is that the forgiveness that we have already received, that God has already forgiven us, and if we don't want to take ownership of that forgiveness and let that forgiveness and the love transform our hearts, Yeah. Then Jesus says, you may end up being, or you will end up being, a branch that is broken off of the vine and thrown into the fire. As Jesus himself says, in John 15. And again, brothers and sisters, I don't know where the rubber meets the road in all of your lives, and so I don't say these things lightly. But I have to speak the Word of God to you and to me, to myself, and this is what Jesus says. I come back to the beginning. How necessary do you and I consider it to ask for forgiveness? and also to ask God that we can extend the forgiveness that we have received to others. And according to the Catechism Answer, one of the secrets is, to what extent do you and I consider ourselves to be poor, wretched sinners? And to what extent do we really consider it necessary that we also have to extend the forgiveness we have received to those around us. Where might God be calling you and me to leave vengeance, right? We want to repay. To leave vengeance to himself, to God. May I encourage you this evening to pray the Fifth Petition a lot. And may I encourage you and myself to encourage each other to pray the Fifth Petition a lot. When you get together, talk about more than the weather. Talk about more than the new government you're getting tomorrow. also talk about the rich forgiveness we have received, and how that morally obligates us to forgive others their debts. And may I especially encourage you to go to the Lord Jesus Christ. In the other sermons on the Lord's Prayer, I said, hallowed be your name, and I said, Jesus prayed that for you. And your kingdom come, and I said, Jesus prayed that for you. And your will be done, I said, Jesus prayed that for you. And you know what? Jesus prayed the fifth petition as well. Not for himself, because he didn't have a sinful nature. And he didn't have any actual sins. And Jesus never failed in thankfully and attentively participating in God's mission for his glory. So why did he pray it? He prayed it for you and for me. See him hanging there on the cross. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they're doing. He prayed the fifth petition for you and for me. And what he has prayed for you and for me pray in us by breathing this into our souls. And when he does, you and I experience, begin to experience the mystery of Christ live in us. And we will find ourselves praying the fifth petition a lot for reception of forgiveness and for the grace to extend forgiveness to others. Amen. This is the word of God.